"Black Beam" Contrail Shadow, Sunshine Coast, Australia

Lisa P

Active Member
A typically terrible illustration.
20140822-163002-s9pcm.jpg
I may of found my problem thinking in why I can't see that the beam I witnessed could have been a contrail shadow. I imagined the light from the sun as coming from the small sphere of the sun that I see. I can see by your drawing I am seeing it wrong. Okay I am getting closer to understanding, gotta go and do stuff so I will use this new understanding now. I have to go draw some pictures of my own. I may be back.
 
I may of found my problem thinking in why I can't see that the beam I witnessed could have been a contrail shadow. I imagined the light from the sun as coming from the small sphere of the sun that I see. I can see by your drawing I am seeing it wrong. Okay I am getting closer to understanding, gotta go and do stuff so I will use this new understanding now. I have to go draw some pictures of my own. I may be back.
Have you seen this thread? It covers some "weird" contrail shadow effects. (It also shows a not atypical attitude of a chemtrail believer who has run up against some science, but that's by the by!)

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/odd-shadow-nw-germany-31-5-2014-volumetric-contrail-shadows.3755/
 
I may of found my problem thinking in why I can't see that the beam I witnessed could have been a contrail shadow. I imagined the light from the sun as coming from the small sphere of the sun that I see. I can see by your drawing I am seeing it wrong. Okay I am getting closer to understanding, gotta go and do stuff so I will use this new understanding now. I have to go draw some pictures of my own. I may be back.

Yes, the sun is very confusing, it's simply on a scale the human mind is not able to deal with, so we think of it as being a nearby ball of light. Well done on the mental breakthrough.

The key thing in thinking about the sun's light is that the sun's rays on are always essentially parallel.

A helpful step in understanding this is to draw an image of the sun and the earth to scale, including the distance between them. It's a surpsigin image, and one that's actually hard to find, as it's hard to see.

Diameter of sun is about 1,300,000 KM
Diameter of earth is about 13,000

So the sun is 100 earths across.

Distance from earth to sun is about 150,000,000 km. Or for the purposes of the diagram, 100 times the diameter of the sun.

Try to draw this to scale.
 
Yes, the sun is very confusing, it's simply on a scale the human mind is not able to deal with, so we think of it as being a nearby ball of light. Well done on the mental breakthrough.

The key thing in thinking about the sun's light is that the sun's rays on are always essentially parallel.

A helpful step in understanding this is to draw an image of the sun and the earth to scale, including the distance between them. It's a surpsigin image, and one that's actually hard to find, as it's hard to see.

Diameter of sun is about 1,300,000 KM
Diameter of earth is about 13,000

So the sun is 100 earths across.

Distance from earth to sun is about 150,000,000 km. Or for the purposes of the diagram, 100 times the diameter of the sun.

Try to draw this to scale.

The sun's rays are parallel, Mick, but shadows will still always form a line pointing back to the sun. That is, if the sun is in the frame of view, the shadows will all appear to converge at the sun's disk. Normal perspective still applies.
 
The key thing in thinking about the sun's light is that the sun's rays on are always essentially parallel.

Yes, but. I think causes confusion for some. As you correctly pointed out, the Sun is huge. Of course it radiates light in all directions, 360°.

On the scale of the Solar System, Earth is so relatively small (and far away from the Sun) that yes, we "see" what are essentially parallel light radiation. Just a small "sliver", is one way to state it.
 
The sun's rays are parallel, Mick, but shadows will still always form a line pointing back to the sun. That is, if the sun is in the frame of view, the shadows will all appear to converge at the sun's disk. Normal perspective still applies.

Right, but I was referring to this diagram.



It's tempting to imagine the sun as being much closer, even below the clouds, and for all the rays to come from the sun. Notice I drew in several parallel rays. The point being that even when the sun looks like it's illuminating clouds from below, then if you can see the sun, then it is not.

You can never really indicate "where" the sun is in such a diagram, you can only indicate the angle.

The shadows form a line pointing at the sun, yes, but it does not really tell you where the sun is, just where a line between you and the sun is.
 
To clarify my "normal perspective does not apply" a little.

Firstly, consider a hotel corridor that's 500 feet long:


Now compare it to one that's 500,000 miles long


Now the brain is going to look at the second image, and not really think it's any different to the first one. "Normal" perspective makes assumptions about how far away things are. If we see things converging, we still mentally assume the end is somewhere relatively nearby, not millions of miles away.
 
Right, but I was referring to this diagram.



It's tempting to imagine the sun as being much closer, even below the clouds, and for all the rays to come from the sun. Notice I drew in several parallel rays. The point being that even when the sun looks like it's illuminating clouds from below, then if you can see the sun, then it is not.

You can never really indicate "where" the sun is in such a diagram, you can only indicate the angle.

The shadows form a line pointing at the sun, yes, but it does not really tell you where the sun is, just where a line between you and the sun is.
Yes, I see the point of that diagram now :)
 
The sun's rays are parallel, Mick, but shadows will still always form a line pointing back to the sun. That is, if the sun is in the frame of view, the shadows will all appear to converge at the sun's disk. Normal perspective still applies.

Now we are talking, it is the shadow compared to where the sun is that is the problem it seems backwards to me like the sun should be at the west instead of the east. I will get back, gotta go again. The inquisitive she-dog is happy, the term she-dog is nicer than bitch but is the same thing hey.
 
Have you seen this thread? It covers some "weird" contrail shadow effects. (It also shows a not atypical attitude of a chemtrail believer who has run up against some science, but that's by the by!)

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/odd-shadow-nw-germany-31-5-2014-volumetric-contrail-shadows.3755/

I don't think persistent contrails are chemtrails and I haven't for a while. I took on Rosalind Petersons view when I heard her explanation regarding persistent jet trails as I was wavering on it before but that made it concrete for me. I have learnt a lot from Metabunk actually, so thanks you lot! I have downloaded all the articles and videos for the Climate Engineering Conference 2014 I am slowly going through them and learning lots, it seems less likely to me now that geoengineering would be done secretly which was my main concern. From my understanding which could be wrong you wouldn't be able to see that. I do have the paranoia gene or my brain is hard wired that way and I don't see it as a bad thing but something that needs to be controlled. Which is why I like visiting this site and have done for months, it is about balance and education for me.
 
This page over on Contrailscience has lots of good pics of contrail shadows. Do any of these look like what you saw?

http://contrailscience.com/contrails-dark-lines-chemtrails/

Yes, good, I would say definitely a shadow of a contrail I just have to work out the angle of the sun as it seems wrong. The other thing I thought the sky was clear except for a bit of cloud at the start of the shadow that was why I didn't even consider a contrail shadow when advised by others, so where would the shadow lay? I wouldn't trust my memory too much it was 7 mths ago and could well have been very hazy as I counted 13 contrails that morning in the same area. I sketched over a photo of where I viewed the shadow and the placement of the sun. The photo was taken on a different day. You can see there is a small contrail, it is a regular flight path. The shadow started at the west and pulsed across the sky as shown by the red line, it was incredibly faint, I sort of had to look away slightly to see it clearer, like when you see a colourful sunset if you divert your eyes slightly the colours can be richer. I cannot remember at what point it appeared to fill in with cloud but it was a fair bit another reason I dismissed shadow. The pulsing also got me it pulsed forward and retracted a bit, pulsed forward etc. I think there may be a thread about that somewhere here on Metabunk so that doesn't concern me so much now.

 
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Mick the photo you posted is pretty much what it looked like :) At first I couldn't see the contrail only a beam coming from the west, that is what freaked me out so then I can't see reason because of lack of oxygen to the brain from freaking out! The shadow was lighter and pulsed forward, the sky was clear where the shadow formed. I am good with all that now. What is confusing is the sun is on the right hand side but may have been almost above me it was approx. 11.30am. The sun may have been higher than in the pic. Would a plane flying at 40k ft make a difference? The other problem with my thinking, I am remembering the shadow as going all the way out to sea before it filled with cloud however it may not have been that long before I saw the cloud so that may be where I am stuck. I have done another pic but the shadow probably wasn't that long, it kept growing as the cloud dropped in so in the end it was that long or longer. If you can explain the angle of the sun, then I am done, you will have debunked me! My head hurts! I can only see a week of archives on flightradar24 can anyone see further back, I only use the free the one. 25th April 2014 approx 11.30am Marcoola Queensland Australia.
 
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Using Suncalc, the position of the sun was slightly east of north at that time of day: 11:30am is 01:30am GMT. (The sun angle is shown by the middle orange line here).

upload_2014-11-12_11-42-0.png

So you say the plane was going from west to east, i.e. out to sea, and the "shadow" (or whatever) was ahead of it?
 
Sun hitting the cloud behind and reflecting?

That could not really to be bright enough.

The shadows that extend in front of trails only occur when it's lined up with the sun. This can occur even when it does not look like it, as the sky is very wide. But what you describe is hard to visualize.

FR24 Premium only goes back three months, but I don't see any flight that go West-East there.
 
Using Suncalc, the position of the sun was slightly east of north at that time of day: 11:30am is 01:30am GMT. (The sun angle is shown by the middle orange line here).

upload_2014-11-12_11-42-0.png

So you say the plane was going from west to east, i.e. out to sea, and the "shadow" (or whatever) was ahead of it?

That is correct, except I didn't see a plane, that is why I immediately jumped to the conclusion it was a laser beam. The plane would have been slightly in front of the cloud which also didn't look like a contrail it was more like a really light haze that got lighter and ended up looking like a perfect neat contrail. It was bizzare, if it wasn't I would have worked it out pretty quickly. I only knew a little about the contrail shadow enough to keep me out of troubled thinking but this was so different. And remember we are dealing with a 7 month old memory.
 
that's pretty specific. were you at an event or something where other people might have snapped a pic?

Hi Deirdre, no I was at the beach and am an avid sky watcher. I had counted 13 contrails in the sky on my morning walk earlier that day. I had taken photos of the contrails, took my camera home and went back for a swim a bit later, I am only a 2 min walk from the beach. So I was still watching the sky pretty intently. I found on f/b a photo a lady took at Gympie about 50km to the NNW at 11.45am, same day. I was so sure the photo was what I witnessed because there was a little contrail at the beginning at a 45o angle, but now thinking about angles I could be wrong. The photo is the best resolution I can get as she only took it on her phone and emailed to me. I asked her some questions like what direction was she facing but she didn't know. I fixed the text on the pic but don't know how to delete the old one.
 
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A laser beam would not be dark. It would "lase" in a spectrum of color, depending on the type of laser.
It wasn't very dark I could only just make it out, if I slightly diverted my eyes I could see it better, like when you look at a sunset if you divert your eyes slightly the colours are more intense. Well that is what happens to me. It pulsed forward shrunk back a little then pulsed forward a bit. There was no reason for me to think it was a contrail shadow, that is why I am here to get myself debunked :)
 
It wasn't very dark I could only just make it out, if I slightly diverted my eyes I could see it better, like when you look at a sunset if you divert your eyes slightly the colours are more intense.

To tell the truth, I do not understand this concept. This might stray "off-topic", but perhaps it's about individual perception?

Because, when I observe the colors (colours) of a sunset, I do not have to avert my gaze (except, if you mean to avoid looking directly at the actual Sun? Before it is out of view, below the horizon?). Certainly, the very bright Sun, as it is low will affect your color (colour) perception. (if your gaze is near it. BTW, a very interesting phenomenon is the "green flash". I have only been fortunate enough to see it very rarely).

In any case, veering back.....a shadow is a shadow. Even a "laser beam" would be 'invisible' unless there are particulates, in the air, to help illuminate it, and reflect to your eyes.
 
The edges of the eyes are better at seeing faint things - very noticeable when star gazing. You don't look at faint stars directly but slightly off-centre.
 
The edges of the eyes are better at seeing faint things - very noticeable when star gazing. You don't look at faint stars directly but slightly off-centre.
Yes I have used it for star gazing also, thanks Pete. That is how it was with the contrail shadow as it got further east it got fainter. I am trying to think of ways to solve this puzzle.
 
Not West-East but this flight does cross the coast and could be better lined up with the sun

gc.JPG
That starts to make a bit more sense, comparing that track to the sun angle - the sun would be in the northeast, so, depending on the actual angle of view, it would appear to be behind the plane and could cast a shadow in front of it. Maybe a volumetric shadow would look right when viewed edge-on from the beach? I don't have the 3-D modelling skills to tackle that one!
 
That starts to make a bit more sense, comparing that track to the sun angle - the sun would be in the northeast, so, depending on the actual angle of view, it would appear to be behind the plane and could cast a shadow in front of it. Maybe a volumetric shadow would look right when viewed edge-on from the beach? I don't have the 3-D modelling skills to tackle that one!

I was going to say someone like @Mick West or @Trailspotter would be along soon to work their magic ;)
 
That is what I started thinking today it may not have been west to east more like the direction above, and the height would have been higher like that. You are really going to a lot of trouble to help I really appreciate it hey.

Would that time match up with the observation? ETA 12:08 into Gold Coast.
 
I was thinking Mick too! Yeah I think the time would match it was around 11.30am but pretty vague time I just counted back from when I got home to how long I thought it had been. So the time is only approx. Was that flight you captured from today?
 
Would that time match up with the observation? ETA 12:08 into Gold Coast.
Assuming the flight runs at the same time each day, then yes it may well do.

Checking the most recent flight (Nov 13) and taking the position at 01:30 GMT puts it about 150 miles north of Marcoola:

upload_2014-11-13_12-20-58.png


But yesterday it was less than 30 miles off the coast at the same time:

upload_2014-11-13_12-22-54.png

Definitely a good contender.
 
You guys are nuts...in the nicest way. I had to get back up, I went back to my old thinking of the small sun. If the sun was a bit higher in my pic and that flight was more of a NNW angle I think that is it, I have been debunked! Just get Mick to confirm. I will sleep better tonight. See paranoids and trolls can play nice together.
 
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