Chris Bledsoe Video of the ISS Transiting the Moon

[Mick West]

The inset video is the brightened and stabilized version of a short clip that Chris Bledsoe uploaded on Feb 1, 2025, at 9:35 PM PST

@flarkey noticed there was an ISS pass over the Moon from his approximate location at 7 PM EST. Bledsoe himself claims it was Jan 31, at 8:35 PM - which is impossible, as the Moon would have set, and even if we roll back to 7 PM, the phase, angle, and position relative to the stars would be totally different.

Here's the Instagram post:

And that stabilized.

The recreation I did in Stellarium used the coordinates of his house (not shown), and matches exactly.


Twitter/X thread

Source: https://twitter.com/MickWest/status/1886563760044958113

 

[DaveG]

Ah yes, accurate information, such as precise time and date, is a cornerstone of their methodology when it comes to summoning UFOs. On the other hand, I suspect that Bledsoe and others like him deliberately omit precise details like the exact time and date to make it difficult for us "debunkers" to expose their deceptive practices. However, I do believe in UFOs, so I'm not exactly a debunker, just someone aiming to uncover the frauds within this field. I don't think Bledsoe is simply misidentifying satellites by accident though, I think he's intentionally misleading people.

[Skinwalker discussion moved to: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/chris-bledsoe-skinwalker-ranch-sighting.13994/post-335700 ]

 

[Trailblazer]

Claiming a false date to try to prevent debunking (if that is what he is doing) is pretty foolish if you are filming the moon and stars which are essentially a calendar. It's simple to show that the claimed time doesn't match.

 

[Mick West]

It's simple to show that the claimed time doesn't match.

It can be a bit challenging to explain this, though.

 

[jarlrmai]

The recreation I did in Stellarium used the coordinates of his house (not shown), and matches exactly.

Not sure I understand.

The ISS pass was at 7, the moon and stars don't fit for 7 (or the claimed time of 8:35,) so what time and date was your recreation, is it UTC?

I am confused, perhaps it's because of your recreation being 1st up and the context coming later, I assume another earlier ISS pass?

Maybe the OP needs a bit more clarification..

 

[Mick West]

The ISS pass was at 7, the moon and stars don't fit for 7 (or the claimed time of 8:35,) so what time and date was your recreation, is it UTC?

The Moon and the stars match at 7, that's what the side-by-side video at the top of the OP shows. The time there is PST, so 15:59 PST is 18:59 EST (where he is)

 

[jarlrmai]

The Moon and the stars match at 7, that's what the side-by-side video at the top of the OP shows. The time there is PST, so 15:59 PST is 18:59 EST (where he is)

Might want to make a recreation that displays his local time, time zones are easy wiggle room for UFO fans

 

[Trailblazer]

Not sure I understand.

The ISS pass was at 7, the moon and stars don't fit for 7 (or the claimed time of 8:35,) so what time and date was your recreation, is it UTC?

I am confused, perhaps it's because of your recreation being 1st up and the context coming later, I assume another earlier ISS pass?

Maybe the OP needs a bit more clarification..

Yes I think to make it understandable the logic needs to be:

1) This looks like it could be an ISS pass, so let's investigate if that was the case.
2) Here were the ISS passes over X days before the video was posted.
3) This one exactly matches the track when viewed from his location.
4) The date doesn't match what he says in the video, or his claimed time, but
5) The claimed date/time can't be correct because the moon was below the horizon at that time. And the date itself can't be right because the moon was the wrong phase and didn't match the background stars. So it's not a case of having the right date but the wrong time.

NB: The moon moves about 13 degrees across the background "fixed" star field in 24 hours (360 degrees in just under four weeks) so the position of the moon relative to the stars will be totally different Jan 31 than on Feb 1, regardless of the time in the evening.

 

[jarlrmai]

Just so happening to be out there summoning orbs and recording them when the ISS does a full transit of the moon from your specific location, then getting the date and time "wrong" is too much of a coincidence for me.

 

[DaveG]

Just so happening to be out there summoning orbs and recording them when the ISS does a full transit of the moon from your specific location, then getting the date and time "wrong" is too much of a coincidence for me.

I doubt he's using a satellite app to plan the next ISS pass, let alone has the skill to plan a full transit of the moon. With two space stations, they're relatively frequent and he's filmed the ISS before claiming it to be an orb. His grift is just filming satellites and not providing the exact time and date to make it a little bit harder for us to track down the satellite.

 

[FatPhil]

Yes I think to make it understandable the logic needs to be:

1) This looks like it could be an ISS pass, so let's investigate if that was the case.
2) Here were the ISS passes over X days before the video was posted.
3) This one exactly matches the track when viewed from his location.
4) The date doesn't match what he says in the video, or his claimed time, but
5) The claimed date/time can't be correct because the moon was below the horizon at that time. And the date itself can't be right because the moon was the wrong phase and didn't match the background stars. So it's not a case of having the right date but the wrong time.

NB: The moon moves about 13 degrees across the background "fixed" star field in 24 hours (360 degrees in just under four weeks) so the position of the moon relative to the stars will be totally different Jan 31 than on Feb 1, regardless of the time in the evening.

"Understandable" relies on the receptivity of your interlocutor, which could be low.
I'd go more Socratic instead: ask him to show you what the moon would look like on the dates claimed using sources both parties agree in advance are accurate. Give him the spade.

And yes, a 13 degrees change is huge - it's a fair chunk of most constellations (being basically half a zodiac sign). Anyone who's tracked a moon over even a short evening knows that the moon can bulldoze over stars (best near a new moon, it's so bright, as the video in this thread attests) during a sesh (13o/day = 0.5o/hour = 1 moon width per hour)

img link: https://earthsky.org/upl/2023/05/Measuring-sky-with-hand-timeanddate-e1684663459264.png
via: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/sky-measurements-degrees-arc-minutes-arc-seconds/

Heavy metal!

 

[Trailblazer]

"Understandable" relies on the receptivity of your interlocutor, which could be low.
I'd go more Socratic instead: ask him to show you what the moon would look like on the dates claimed using sources both parties agree in advance are accurate. Give him the spade.

I agree if the goal was to debate the person making the claim. I meant more in terms of presenting the explanation to the public.

 

[Ann K]

Yes I think to make it understandable the logic needs to be:

1) This looks like it could be an ISS pass, so let's investigate if that was the case.
2) Here were the ISS passes over X days before the video was posted.
3) This one exactly matches the track when viewed from his location.
4) The date doesn't match what he says in the video, or his claimed time, but
5) The claimed date/time can't be correct because the moon was below the horizon at that time. And the date itself can't be right because the moon was the wrong phase and didn't match the background stars. So it's not a case of having the right date but the wrong time.

The easy one (number 5) should be the first one, shouldn't it? If there's a clear image of background stars, you simply can't get past that star/moon identification of the date and time, so there's no reason to search for ISS passes except at that time.

 

[deirdre]

It can be a bit challenging to explain this, though.

1. your graphic sucks
2. you are overcomplicating the conversation
3. constantly switching between PST and EST and UTC confuses normal people
4. Less words, more graphics.
5. Channel the old Mick who knew how to display simple visual debunks

-get rid of distracting crap.
-label things
-ditch the 7pm on the left pic, youre confusing us. use a 8:35 on jan 31st pic as that was Bledsoes claim.
-make the moons more contrasty so people can see easier that the moons dont match.
-brighten the time sections (took me a while to decipher what i was looking at with your graphic.

ALL most people need to know/SEE is the moon doesnt match at the time Bledsoe says.

once people understand THAT. then a simple video showing the ISS passed by moon at time the moon and stars DO match. (i would still argue that maybe his time was Feb 1st at 6:30 est so not ISS, but you still proved he is lying about date and time.

Below is obviously not perfect ("matches" on right should be pink too. i didnt try fixing blurry visuals etc. but you get the jist)

ADD: give link to stellarium so i can check for myself. yes, i dont know how to do that..but the link says you are confident i would find the same if i knew how to do that.
-

 

[Mick West]

-ditch the 7pm on the left pic, youre confusing us. use a 8:35 on jan 31st pic as that was Bledsoes claim.

At 8:35, on Jan 31, the Moon would be below the horizon

 

[deirdre]

At 8:35, on Jan 31, the Moon would be below the horizon

then the left shoudl show/say that.

you adding flarkeys "wrong" is just confusing to us.

 

[deirdre]

At 8:35, on Jan 31, the Moon would be below the horizon

i added to my first post (at bottom) to say you need to also provide stellarium link and why.

 

[Scaramanga]

Given the often sensationalist nature of Chris Bledsoe's claims, I'd simply wonder whether in any case he'd wait a whole day to post material or, as seems the case, posts it just 2 hours after the video was taken.

 

[Mick West]

This is a clear way of syncing the video with the Stellarium playback

 

[Kyle Ferriter]

This is a clear way of syncing the video with the Stellarium playback

View attachment 76914

This is great, I wish I knew how to do this kind of editing. I was thinking it might be useful to play around with the magnitude filters in Stellarium so that the only stars that approach the video frame from the left are ones also visible in the video. But in my brief tweaking, the Moon and Venus are so bright it makes it difficult. You can turn on 'dynamic eye adaptation' but this makes too few stars visible when you zoom out. And if you set the visible magnitude too high it makes too many stars visible when neither the Moon nor Venus is in frame. And if you turn off dynamic eye adaptation it makes too many stars visible near the Moon and Venus. Probably not worth it. If only Stellarium had a mode to dynamically adjust object visibility for the whole screen relative to the view through a smaller view rectangle that is moving across the screen, to serve this specific use case.

 

[TEEJ]

Bledsoe is off again posting this silly nonsense.


Source: https://x.com/OfUfo49597/status/1888598106725363942

 

[Scaramanga]

Bledsoe is off again posting this silly nonsense.

Well...I've taken a break from Venus as I got bored of it being the explanation for everything...but I suspect that's Venus. And of course it's the oldest trick in the UFOlogy handbook to present a UFO as moving when actually its the clouds that are moving.

 

[JMartJr]

Well...I've taken a break from Venus as I got bored of it being the explanation for everything...but I suspect that's Venus. And of course it's the oldest trick in the UFOlogy handbook to present a UFO as moving when actually its the clouds that are moving.

Is it? It looks to me like it moves back-and-forth pretty quickly in the first seconds, suggesting that either the light is pretty close to the camera or the "clouds" are, and camera movement and parallax are making the light seem to move compared to the maybe-clouds.

As tired as you are of Venus, I'd submit that shooting through a window (either of a reflected light as we look at distant clouds, or a distant light as we look at "clouds" that are smudges on the window) is getting equally boring, and may be more likely to be the case here given the uneven and back-and-forth apparent motion of the light.

Of course, if it is nearby non-clouds and a distant light, that still might be Venus... we could both be bored with this one...

 

[Kyle Ferriter]

Bledsoe is off again posting this silly nonsense.


Source: https://x.com/OfUfo49597/status/1888598106725363942

Looks a bit like a distant plane catching the sunlight.

e.g. this video I took of a distant plane catching the sunlight:

(unfortunately it was clear skies, no clouds)

Like a minute before this video the plane was closer and at a different angle relative to the viewer+sun and you could easily tell it's a plane. Then it becomes invisible due to distance, and a few seconds or so later it happens to hit an angle that creates a big glowing glare.

 

[Ann K]

Is it? It looks to me like it moves back-and-forth pretty quickly in the first seconds, suggesting that either the light is pretty close to the camera or the "clouds" are, and camera movement and parallax are making the light seem to move compared to the maybe-clouds.

As tired as you are of Venus, I'd submit that shooting through a window (either of a reflected light as we look at distant clouds, or a distant light as we look at "clouds" that are smudges on the window) is getting equally boring, and may be more likely to be the case here given the uneven and back-and-forth apparent motion of the light.

Of course, if it is nearby non-clouds and a distant light, that still might be Venus... we could both be bored with this one...

I suspect the photographer was bored with it too. If you were having "a beautiful interaction with a divine world", I think you wouldn't pan down and shut off your phone so quickly.

 

[FatPhil]

Bledsoe is off again posting this silly nonsense.


Source: https://x.com/OfUfo49597/status/1888598106725363942

Truly beautiful. Fascinating metre - heptasyllables - it's inspired! The end of line 2 is particularly powerful, and the final resolution is like that of a John Bonham drum solo.

Doesn't matter day or night.
 –   ◡ | –  ◡ | –  ◡ | –  

If you have faith you too can experience this beautiful interaction with the Divine world.
–   ◡   ◡  |  –    ◡   ◡ | –  ◡  ◡  ◡  ◡  ◡  |  –  ◡ ◡   ◡ ◡ ◡   ◡ | –    – | – –  | –

[It] takes faith to open the door.
 –  |  ◡     –  | – ◡ ◡   ◡ | –

Where are all the skeptics silent huh?
  ◡    ◡   ◡   ◡ |  ◡  ◡    ◡ ◡  | –

I took the liberty of tweaking line 3; I hope he doesn't mind - there are always risks when one tries to improve a work of genius.

Not "Why are all the skeptics silent?".
Not "Where are all the skeptics? Silent!"
But "Where are all the skeptics silent?"
He knows. He knows we're all silent over here on Metabunk, heads aspin.

Blessed.