Explained: UFOs over Melbourne April 2022 [Roulettes Aerobatic Planes]

J

johne1618

Guest
What are these objects recorded over Melbourne, Australia in April 2022 by YouTuber Era-Modon.

They are traveling too fast to be balloons or birds. They seem to be too close together to be planes unless they are a display team (also no wings?).

The video zooms in at around 0:10. Observer rather sweary!

[Video Removed By User]
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf_nWSNodtI

Snapshot from video

Screenshot 2022-04-06 140734.jpg

Another equally sweary video taken on the same day in the same location

[Video Removed By User]
Source: https://youtu.be/_NXOsgPgua4
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Source, location, time?

Apparently both videos were taken around Midday Friday April 1st, 2022 around 1 pm local time by YouTuber Era-Modon. (According to YouTube comments on first video). Hopefully not April Fool's joke! So far the observer hasn't given the exact location.

Update: location given in YouTube comments as Coles Express in Truganina.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Air display teams often do sit recs before events, they also sometimes fly into local airbases ahead of the time etc.

Getting the location would be key.
 

Attachments

  • 1649255865869.png
    1649255865869.png
    1 MB · Views: 163
Last edited:
Stabilized.


I think @flarkey nailed it, the Roulettes, at a low angle. You see the white tails.
2022-04-06_07-40-51.jpg
 
Just for reference, the RAAF display on March 30 was pretty much in the area of the video. The flight path of one of the Roulettes display Aircraft is available on ADSB exchange.

1649256529373.png
Aircraft A54-044
1649256549047.png


1649256651442.png
 
I'm in Melbourne

Every year a week before the Grand Prix and on the grand prix weekend, they fly formations ....right over my house.

The roulettes do so and then you get an f/a-18 fly around scaring the crap out of the cats

Grand Prix is this coming weekend

Here's a pic I took of them one year from my back yard

1649258070448.png

1649258139496.png
 
Lol, I'm reading this thread and the Rouletttes fly over my house as I'm reading.
They are still going at it now

I live next to the F1 track(road) here in Melbourne
 
Apparently both videos were taken around Midday Friday April 1st, 2022 around 1 pm local time by YouTuber Era-Modon. (According to YouTube comments on first video). Hopefully not April Fool's joke! So far the observer hasn't given the exact location.

Update: location given in YouTube comments as Coles Express in Truganina.

Update from Era-Modon:
Just to be clear, Video was taken on Wednesday 30/03 at 11:52 am. uploaded to youtube on Tuesday fourth of April. I work in 24/7 roster and got confused with dates.
 
Update from Era-Modon:
This is why uploading original footage with metadata is so important. Sure have a YouTube version for ease of sharing etc, but also have a google drive etc version of the original file.

If we'd had the file from the phone, we'd know exact date/time and location likely. Independent of eye witness errors.

If people genuinely want things identifying original footage is hugely helpful.

If any video comes out that is genuinely odd, seeing that original footage if also going to be the only way we can determine it's likely not faked.
 
Last edited:
I assume that is at the exact time of the video....? I have added the witness location and direction for the removal of all doubt....

1649318794568.png
 
Last edited:
I assume that is at the exact time of the video....? I have added the witness location and direction for the removal of all doubt....

1649318794568.pngTh
Yeah, sorry, that is at the time the video was taken as said by the observer. I got distracted by work as I was posting and hit submit.
 
What was your process to identify the exact location?
Can't speak for Flarkey but I found the location independently at the same time Flarkey (he beat me to the post) but knowing it was Melbourne and then at some point in the second video a Coles warehouse sign is visible, they obviously partner with LINFOX for the warehousing so a Google Maps search for LINFOX COLES WAREHOUSE gave a few locations and then a quick street view drive identified the multicoloured building

1649326870540.png
 
Can't speak for Flarkey but I found the location independently at the same time Flarkey (he beat me to the post) but knowing it was Melbourne and then at some point in the second video a Coles warehouse sign is visible, they obviously partner with LINFOX for the warehousing so a Google Maps search for LINFOX COLES WAREHOUSE gave a few locations and then a quick street view drive identified the multicoloured building

1649326870540.png
Yeah that's pretty much what I did too. I think I may have googled COLES DISTRIBUTION CENTRE and I had a hunch we were looking for a site in the West of Melbourne, but the same idea applies.
 
Odd, then, how they were flying where these planes were flying, in a formation these planes use, with the white bit about where the tail fin would be, associated with an air show where I'd expect a very large number of people with cameras rolling to be enjoying the amazing sights. I'd have thought somebody would have captured an angle that looked like discs, say circles seen from below.
 
No... I was there. They were disc shaped craft.
You were seeing distant dark shapes against a bright sky. These shapes are not disc-shaped from the direction you saw them; you think you saw the disks from the side, but it's really not easy to identify a shape from an oblique angle, especially if you can't see it clearly.

It's an established principle in cognition that our expectations shape our perceptions.
Article:
Pareidolia [...] is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none.

Common examples are perceived images of animals, faces, or objects in cloud formations, seeing faces in inanimate objects, or lunar pareidolia like the Man in the Moon or the Moon rabbit.

I don't doubt you sincerely believe you saw flying disks, but the evidence points to these disks being an optical illusion.
 
Odd, then, how they were flying where these planes were flying, in a formation these planes use, with the white bit about where the tail fin would be, associated with an air show where I'd expect a very large number of people with cameras rolling to be enjoying the amazing sights. I'd have thought somebody would have captured an angle that looked like discs, say circles seen from below.
Also weird that the Roulettes didn't see the disks and cancel their display due to an air proximity hazard.
 
You're kidding right?
Apart from not having any visible wings, tail rudders, cockpits or visible propellers... how is this explained? Plus the flight path shown is many kms away from Truganina

In the original video the objects appear many km (3.2 km to be exact) away from the witness. This matches with the analysis we have done.

and the Roulettes are NOT allowed to fly so low when not actually performing.
They were actually performing. This was a display for a Royal Australian Air Force 100th anniversary celebration at RAAF Base Point Cook.

NOTHING has been explained
Everything has ben explained. If you think something needs further explanation please post it here and be specific. We will explain it for you.
 
Last edited:
... not having any visible wings, tail rudders, cockpits or visible propellers...
The tail rudders are visible. The wings would not be visible, just as they are not in this pic:
2022-04-06_07-48-27.jpg

For the resolution of the picture/vid, the cockpit and prop would not be expected to be particularly noticeable. The tanks or whatever they carry slung below them CAN be seen I think, but just barely:

2022-04-06_07-53-21.jpg

But what you CAN see clearly is the formation -- same as the planes in this team use. And the team was flying there at that time. Far as I can tell, the objects in the video never do anything that the planes would not do. Seems to me that's enough walking like a duck, quacking like a duck and other general duckiness to safely conclude, in the absence of any non-duck features, "That's a duck."
 
The tail rudders are visible. The wings would not be visible, just as they are not in this pic:
2022-04-06_07-48-27.jpg

For the resolution of the picture/vid, the cockpit and prop would not be expected to be particularly noticeable. The tanks or whatever they carry slung below them CAN be seen I think, but just barely:

2022-04-06_07-53-21.jpg

But what you CAN see clearly is the formation -- same as the planes in this team use. And the team was flying there at that time. Far as I can tell, the objects in the video never do anything that the planes would not do. Seems to me that's enough walking like a duck, quacking like a duck and other general duckiness to safely conclude, in the absence of any non-duck features, "That's a duck."
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20220408-221416_Chrome.jpg
    Screenshot_20220408-221416_Chrome.jpg
    227.4 KB · Views: 439
Yes that's it, those are the white vertical stabilisers, everything is just a bit less defined and clear in the video. But the white tail planes stand out. They might be clearer on the original non recompressed video.
 
Yes that's it, those are the white vertical stabilisers, everything is just a bit less defined and clear in the video. But the white tail planes stand out. They might be clearer on the original non recompressed video.
they're not just less defined as you put it. The rest of the things like wings and everything else needed for conventional flight is just not there full stop.
Plus they were absolutely silent.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ZeNrG, I'm not clear on where we are here. Would you agree that the wings, props and canopies would not be visible from that angle at that resolution and image quality, but you continue to expect to see the tail rudder and continue to not see them in the videos/pics? Just asking so as not to waste your time arguing over areas where we agree.

Concentrating on the tail rudders, I would agree that they are more visible in this image on the two trailing planes:
2022-04-06_07-53-21.jpg
The white upward projections on the left, leading planes ARE faint, I agree, but they are present, and they are very visible in the planes to the right of the image. What about those white projections at the tail-end of the objects do you think is NOT compatible with the white tails of the Roulettes' planes? It seems a pretty odd coincidence that all four objects show some trace of a white vertical protrusion just where the four white tails of the planes would be! Especially when you add that to the other coincidences: the same formation and the same time and place the planes were flying.
 
Both videos:


 
Back
Top