Geolocation Exercises

[NorCal Dave]

I think I know where you're at.

The C gates seem to handle big planes, while the plane in the photo appears to be a 737 with the flattened cowling on the bottom. All white with dark blue tail, likely Alaska Airlines? They fly there a lot, assuming I got the location correct. So, I'm guessing

Spoiler

E6

Possibly? No AI used.

 

[flarkey]

This is a really good match. Including the larger door on the left being slightly bigger and farther away from the other 5 (assuming it is viewed from slightly to the left, not to the right, as the front building will obscure the one behind it as you move the perspective to the right). And the 3 doors on the building to the left of those 6 doors. And there is a cell tower behind and to the left of those buildings if you're viewing them head on from across the river. Best Google Street View I could get is here. On Google Earth I couldn't get both the buildings and the cell tower to render at the same time.

Google Earth:
View attachment 80142

Street view from the bridge overlaid with the beginning frame of the video:

View attachment 80145

This spacing especially with the cell tower suggests the camera is very close to directly across from these buildings, so that the angle does not deviate too far especially not to the right. So it may be narrowed down to here:
View attachment 80146

Here is the best Google Street View I could get in that circled region with a view over the water, with a much closer satellite view above it. Unfortunately it's really washed out and low resolution. But I think that large black building and the two large white buildings to its right are discernible at least. The field this google street view is next to is honestly a pretty good candidate location I think (36.989900, -76.543798). Street view shows there being a bench there looking out over the water.

View attachment 80147

I manged to chat with the witness on the "Langley Orbs" on reddit. He was very surprised to see that we'd worked our (roughly) where he videoed the 'orbs' from. He agreed to share the metadata of one of the videos and that allowed me to check ADSB exchange at the time he recorded it. The perspective of a passing plane showed that the location was slightly more north than we expected. I'll post my findings about that aircraft in the other 'event' thread. But thanks again to @Kyle Ferriter & @MonkeeSage for the help in nailing this one.

 

[Calter]

It's cool that a random redditor seems to have guessed it spot on, guess nothing beats knowing the area yourself.

I think it implies basically here, opposite side being land mass. He said it moved from Virginia Beach north and west?

I'm guessing OP is somewhere in this vicinity as they wanted to see the meteor shower, and that would favor a darker area, and would match the perception of seeing it from right to left FOV?

Here:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/37%C2%B000'47.3%22N+76%C2%B035'22.4%22W/@37.0075232,-76.6204856,12.42z/data=!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d37.0131443!4d-76.5895495?entry=ttu

Or vaguely so.

General area:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Vir...!2m2!1d-76.5775744!2d37.1525136!3e2?entry=ttu

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1bk9xta/comment/kvxyyv0/

 

[Mick West]

Honestly, ChatGPT's ability to identify the airport kind of surprised me.

I think that's gate

Spoiler: Guess

E10 (or maybe E8)

View attachment 80166

View attachment 80167
View attachment 80168

Spoiler

the gate with the plane is E9, E10 is on the left, Diamond Head in the bg

 

[NorCal Dave]

Spoiler

the gate with the plane is E9, E10 is on the left, Diamond Head in the bg

Spoiler

So, if this is the terminal:

And this is the terminal on Google maps with E10 at the end:

I screwed up by looking at the up facing terminal map when it's upside down compared to the standard North up map. Wrong gate, Diamondhead wouldn't be visible from E6.

 

[Calter]

Spoiler

the gate with the plane is E9, E10 is on the left, Diamond Head in the bg

I'm confused, is the airport's map wrong?

Spoiler

The plane is parked where E10's marked, and the one on the left leads to where E8 is marked

 

[NorCal Dave]

'm confused, is the airport's map wrong?

See my spoiler above, I think it's spun. But now you have me scratching my head:

Spoiler

The actual gates face roughly south and Diamondhead would be roughly east. I'm thinking the big blue colored 747 in the lower left is at C5 or C4.

So, with the maps, you don't flip it top to bottom, you spin it counterclockwise to match the Google maps:

This also makes sense, as in a bigger shot of the airport on Google maps, the A gates, which are on the right on the map appear in the upper left:

Thus, gate E9 is on the right of the central terminal in the above photo, and Diamondhead would be to the right as well.

I made the same mistake.

 

[Calter]

It's not spun

Spoiler

E9 is the one on the right (not looking at Diamond Head) and E8 is the one one the left (looking at diamond head)

E6 is looking in the right direction, but I don't think it matches the view

 

[Mendel]

I'm confused, is the airport's map wrong?


The plane is parked where E10's marked, and the one on the left leads to where E8 is marked
View attachment 80224
View attachment 80225

This is correct because we can see the corner in the middle of the picture, and the mark that leads to stand 8. Hence, the aircraft in Mick's photo must be at stand 10. It looks like its name is painted on the bow on both sides, and that may be confirmable.

The direction from the observer position between gates 8 and 10 across the starting point of the stand 8 ground trace aligns with the Diamond Head on the map.

Dave's airport diagram has South up, and it would need to be rotated to have South down to align with a conventional map view.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Now I'm confused, but I think I figured it out.

Spoiler

I originally thought it was maybe E6

The A gates and E9.

But maybe after lining it all up, one can just see Diamondhead from between 9 and 10.

 

[Mendel]

Now I'm confused.

On the satellite picture, you can see that the terminal E sits on a light-colored rectangle of tarmac. You can use the southeast corner of that rectangle to orient yourself, because it is smack dab in the middle of Mick's photo, albeit hidden behind some white airport vehicles.

 

[NorCal Dave]

On the satellite picture, you can see that the terminal E sits on a light-colored rectangle of tarmac. You can use the southeast corner of that rectangle to orient yourself, because it is smack dab in the middle of Mick's photo, albeit hidden behind some white airport vehicles.

Spoiler

I just had to zoom out a bit more and see that Diamondhead is probably viewable from between gate E9-E10, not just E8-E6.

While @Calter is correct, E9 faces away from Diamondhead, the mountain is further south than I was thinking, so it is still visible from that area of the terminal. I'll fix my post.