Big Balloons that are not round

[Mendel]

Often, objects that hover in the sky are unidentified if they don't look like common balloons. Especially party balloons come in many shapes and sizes. But even bigger ballons can have oval or irregular shapes, and I feel it'd be good to collect some examples.


https://secretmelbourne.com/skywhale-hot-air-balloons/
The Skywhale family were created by artist Patricia Piccinini.
View attachment 53138


https://www.segelfliegen-in-celle.de/2021/07/01/sonnenuntergangsfliegen-in-scheuen/
flying screwdriver

 

[Mick West]

Any big balloon festival will have a few. Add "shaped" to a query:
https://www.google.com/search?q=balloon+festival+shaped&tbm=isch

 

[JMartJr]

A few non-round balloons I photographed while flying kites for a balloon festival in 2008 on Long Island, NY.

 

[Mick West]

Solar balloons are popular in some countries, like Colombia, and have more flexibility in shape than manned hot-air balloons.
https://www.google.com/search?q=solar+balloon+shaped+colombia

 

[JMartJr]

And of course the paper balloons of several Latin American festivals, not as big as the above but pretty big, compared to party balloons and such, come in an array of shapes.

 

[Mick West]

While not that big, this is the most perfectly cuboid balloon I've seen. A delicate balsa wood frame and plastic sheeting.

https://mamoun.xyz/passive-solar-organisms
By an artist, Mamoun Nukumanu. I wonder if "art" is possibly an underestimated component in sightings. Like the San Diego Sphere.

 

[JMartJr]

Solar balloons are popular in some countries, like Colombia

Just to note that these can be inflated with warm air if the Sun is not cooperating, and be flown on cloudy days.

 

[Ann K]

I once saw a "What the heck is THAT thing?" object in the sky, and tailed it, driving several miles before getting a good look. It was a smiling crescent-moon-shaped hot air balloon floating over my neighborhood ...and not the flying banana that it first appeared to be!

 

[Mendel]

Solar balloons are popular in some countries

and completely silent, too!

 

[Mendel]

Article:

"This was just a really thin black plastic bag you'd fill with air, seal, and then set out in the sun," said the man, who asked not to be identified but posted under the Reddit handle thatsboots3010. "The sun would heat the air in the black bag and the bag would become buoyant and float."

They set out to replicate it and succeeded in creating a more than 30-foot balloon made of trash bags that floated to the heavens when warmed by the sun. And they didn't give it a passing thought.

"We thought nothing at the time of it getting away other than, 'Well damn, now we have to make another one,'" said one of the backyard scientists in an interview with NJ Advance Media.

What they didn't know was their trash balloon almost immediately caused a panic up and down the Route 22 corridor.

People quickly spotted the long, slender object in the sky and began calling into local radio stations. Others, apparently more concerned about the unidentified flying object, called 911, briefly tying up phone lines at several law enforcement offices in Somerset County.

Source: https://www.nj.com/somerset/2018/09/how_a_green_brook_native_created_an_ufo_panic_in_2.html

 

[FatPhil]

They set out to replicate it and succeeded in creating a more than 30-foot balloon made of trash bags that floated to the heavens when warmed by the sun. And they didn't give it a passing thought.

What they didn't know was their trash balloon almost immediately caused a panic up and down the Route 22 corridor.

People quickly spotted the long, slender object in the sky and began calling into local radio stations. Others, apparently more concerned about the unidentified flying object, called 911, briefly tying up phone lines at several law enforcement offices in Somerset County.

So we have evidence that people will think any old rubbish is a UFO, and will believe any old nonsense even if it's just hot air?

 

[Mendel]

View attachment 55977

 

[Mendel]

@Giddierone posted elsewhere about a company/organization called Aerocene. I think one of their balloons is worth posting here in case interest in this case picks up again. While obviously not the object in question, it is at least a good example of balloons made with opaque and transparent sections.

View attachment 58263
Source:https://aerocene.org/newspaper-mccormack/

 

[jarlrmai]

Just astounding how many ways we have to litter plastic all over the environment.

 

[flarkey]

A nice example of a weirldy shaped ufo on Reddit, (looks a bit like a jellyfish) that turned out to be just a weirdly shaped balloon....

Zoom. Enhance.

Identify.

Which leads us back to this.... https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/car-sized-ufo-rotates-through-30027076

 

[JMartJr]

Not sure if this one from Colombia is "big" in the sense of this thread, or should be over in the other assorted balloons shape collection with the party baloons, but anyway it is an interesting example if transparent and opaque materials, possibly worth keeping in mind the next time a "cube in a sphere" or a "Metapod with a window" type thing turns up.

(https://www.facebook.com/reel/4139092589694879)

 

[Mendel]

Yet another case of balloons, not actually aliens...

 

[John J.]

Maybe unlikely to be seen in the skies anytime soon:

The Magnus Aerospace Corporation of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada tried to develop a Magnus effect-assisted airship in the early to mid 1980s.
The spherical balloon spins on its horizontal axis between the gondola's "wingtips".
The planned craft was called the LTA 20-1; diameter of balloon/ envelope 28m/ 30.6 yards.

Illustration from the blog of James Lowe, a former flight dynamicist with Magnus Aerospace https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2014/02/400-posts-1-about-blimps.html

At least one substantial scale model was built:

(I think we have to approve the forced perspective being pointed out).

-Both images from "Magnus Aerospace Corp. - hybrid spherical airship", Peter Lobner, updated 9 March 2022, work done for the Lyncean Group of San Diego. PDF below; link https://lynceans.org/wp-content/upl...ce_spherical-airship-converted-compressed.pdf; it contains more pictures and descriptions of how the craft was meant to function.

(The Lyncean Group of San Diego

...consists of retired and semi-retired technical professionals who meet regularly to discuss subjects associated with science and technology...

https://lynceans.org/aboutus/, I've no idea how accurate the document is.)

Some of the pics are artist's conceptions from Magnus Aerospace Corp. brochures, and show what might be improbably heavy loads (large bundles of timber, a battle tank) carried by LTA 20-1s.
Interestingly the basic specifications quoted from Magnus Aerospace don't seem to include any estimates of what amount of lift is added by the Magnus effect. Quoted weights (if I understand them correctly) might be at odds with the types of payloads depicted.

A full-scale LTA 20-1 was never built and Magnus Aerospace Corp. is no longer operating. There were a number of new-style airship proposals in the 1980s, none of which came to much.*

That said, if the Magnus effect is usefully exploitable by lighter-than-air designs, the small size and low weight of modern signals/ control and (e.g.) surveillance systems might make craft with a family resemblance to LTA 20-1 of interest to some.



*One reason might be that designs for carrying large payloads have a limited ceiling and relatively modest speed; they would be vulnerable to bad weather.
Environmentalist George Monbiot wrote an article in The Guardian, 06 May 2008, "If there is a God, he's not green. Otherwise airships would take off" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/may/06/travelandtransport.carbonemissions proposing the large-scale replacement of commercial passenger jet airliners with airships.
This is anecdotal, but IIRC there was a flurry of replies from people pointing out the inability of airships to avoid extreme weather. Monbiot gave reasonable estimates of airship speed (130 kph/ 81 mph) and ceiling (4000 ft., 1220 m) and had written

Airships are more sensitive to wind than aeroplanes, which means that flights are more likely to be delayed.

but hadn't explained what an airship on a 43-hour transatlantic trip could do if it encountered stormy weather, which it might not be able to avoid.

 

[JMartJr]

The Magnus Aerospace Corporation of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada tried to develop a Magnus effect-assisted airship in the early to mid 1980s.

There are also Magnus effect spinning kites, often marketed as UFO Kites, now primarily sold to duck hunters as the beat of the rotating kite looks enough like duck wings flapping that it attracts ducks. Kiters like them to, as a novelty, bit there are more duck hunters, I guess.

Not balloons, but the mention of Magnus effect brought it to mind.

The direction of spin creates lift, or fast acceleration downward, you have to launch it with the correct spin... hopefully the balloon folks knew about that!

 

[FatPhil]

Maybe unlikely to be seen in the skies anytime soon:

The Magnus Aerospace Corporation of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada tried to develop a Magnus effect-assisted airship in the early to mid 1980s.
The spherical balloon spins on its horizontal axis between the gondola's "wingtips".
The planned craft was called the LTA 20-1; diameter of balloon/ envelope 28m/ 30.6 yards.

A fascinating idea, I'd love to see it in action. My ability to imagine fluid dynamics is alas utterly terrible (I genuinely believe it's a black art - change the material's surface, flip the polarity of the effect - waaaat?!?!?), and in order to understand it I'd have to just see it, and then post-hoc paste my rationalisations onto what I witness. I know we have all kinds of experts in all kinds of fields here - we don't have any F1 aerodynamicists, do we, or know of any?

More info here:
https://lynceans.org/wp-content/upl...ce_spherical-airship-converted-compressed.pdf

It screamed "wacky and impractical idea looking for angel investors" to me, and then I got to this paragraph:

In 1986, Magnus Aerospace planned to issue stock in Canada to
raise the money to scale up, and was looking to affiliate with a major
aerospace manufacturer. Several foreign countries had expressed
interest in the LTA 20-1 heavy-lift technology. Japanese companies
C-Itoh and Nissho Iwai were interested in representing Magnus
Aerospace in the Pacific Rim.

In spite of these prospects in 1986, a full size LTA 20-1 never was
built. Magnus Aerospace Corp. is no longer in business.

Which is what you see from companies that have wacky and impractical ideas and who are looking for angel investors. (However, that's not proof, mere association.) And calling something that's never lifted anything a "heavy lift vehicle" screams marketting bullshit to me.

Please invest in my supersonic pedalbike.

You've got to admit - it would be revolutionary if I got it working, so the only sane thing to do is to invest, you really wouldn't want to miss out.

 

[Ann K]

My ability to imagine fluid dynamics is alas utterly terrible

My knowledge consists of following directions, and when my kids were young we made all sorts of paper airplanes. I once folded the free poster they were handing out at a Cleveland Indians game into an airfoil design (imagine a cylindrical loop at each end of a skinny body), and while other people were sending their paper airplanes a short distance through the stands, I was appalled and embarrassed when mine slowly went on and on, the jumbotron cameras focused on it, and the baseball game had to be paused as it nearly reached the pitcher's mound.