Geolocation Exercises

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
E6

Possibly? No AI used.
 
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.

1746775010928.png
 
It's cool that a random redditor seems to have guessed it spot on, guess nothing beats knowing the area yourself.

External Quote:

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

So, if this is the terminal:

1746839884987.png


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

1746840024900.png


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. :mad:
 
'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:

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.

1746884768244.png


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


1746885158591.png


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:

1746885581754.png


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.
 
It's not spun

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

I originally thought it was maybe E6


Screenshot 2025-05-10 7.48.33 AM.png

The A gates and E9.

Screenshot 2025-05-10 7.51.04 AM.png



Screenshot 2025-05-10 7.55.08 AM.png


But maybe after lining it all up, one can just see Diamondhead from between 9 and 10.
 
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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.
 
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.
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.
 
So I'm currently looking at this thread on Reddit that apparently shows the 'drone incursions' over Langley AFB in December 2023- can anyone work out where the video was shot from?


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1bk9xta/langley_afb_event_video/?share_id=-gc4bKnswT761lmTp9YTw&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1


I've stitched and brightened a few frames of the video together if it helps...
View attachment 80117

Edit: Additional info: https://www.timesnownews.com/world/...es-experience-on-60-minutes-article-119092963


I missed this post. I am pretty sure I found the exact cabin a few months ago, based on the aerial photos shown in the 60 Minutes segment.

(These are just screenshots, so don't try to play the video... :) )

1748853914733.png


1748853894512.png



I won't post the address here but anyone can find it pretty quickly from the publicly aired images.

Here's a shot of Buttner looking out to the water from the cabin.

1748855561786.png
Compare to the Google Maps image.
1748855605582.png
 
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The image was uploaded on the 2nd of June at 22:49:44 UTC if Instagram isn't lying to me.
1749243886308.png

And the location is the Palm Springs Airport (Contact in the Desert happened in Palm Springs)

With that in mind, I checked what private planes took off from said airport on the 2nd, keeping an eye out for private planes and a cut out of 22:30UTC (the picture couldn't be uploaded much earlier than take off) and the closest match is a flight that took off at 19:40 UTC (12:40 PDT, which makes sense given the shadows)

It was a 2003 CESSNA 525A Citation CJ2, registration number N745JS
Checking images of the plane, it has all the correct details
1749244342927.png


The flight landed in Medford, Oregon at around 21:38 UTC
1749244496211.png

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=aa05f6&lat=38.523&lon=-118.370&zoom=6.2&showTrace=2025-06-02

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?replay=2025-06-02-19:42&lat=34.663&lon=-116.533&zoom=8.1

I suspect he uploaded the picture an hour or so after landing.

I don't know enough about Bledsoe to know if it makes sense for him to go to Oregon, but I didn't really see any other plane that matches the tail and he windows.
 
Nice. how did you check "what private planes took off from said airport on the 2nd" - just by manually & visually monitoring ADSBx ?
 
It was a 2003 CESSNA 525A Citation CJ2, registration number N745JS

It also looks like a lot like a Cessna Citation CJ3. Before I saw your post I was going down that route. Checking the air traffic control tower to narrow it down between the two works though.

637e6e72f439ca28d8e5afe5_IMG_0156.jpeg

Source: https://www.flyexclusive.com/newsroom-posts/what-is-the-best-private-jet-in-flyexclusives-fleet

One departed the Jacqueline Cochrane regional airport (near where the Contact in the Desert conference was held), at ~16:50UTC (11:50am PDT) on June 2, and flew to Eugene, Oregon where it landed at 19:05UTC. Registration N535DT. An hour later it left Eugene and flew to Grand Rapids, Iowa. No other Cessna Citation CJ3 departed any of the 3 airports in that area (Coachella/Palm Springs) on June 2. This one also appears to be registered to a charter flight company.

Screenshot 2025-06-06 at 5.01.01 PM.png
 
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Nice. how did you check "what private planes took off from said airport on the 2nd"
Yeah, I figured since it's not a large airport I can just speed up the playback and check one by one, I won't claim with 100% certainty that I didn't accidentally skip something, since I wasn't that methodical and skipped back and forth in the playback so might have accidentally skipped an hour
 
One departed the Jacqueline Cochrane regional airport (near where the Contact in the Desert conference was held)
That airport doesn't have the tower though
1749245705124.png

Unless there's an identical tower where they landed, but the picture has the vibes of a before takeoff picture, not an after landing.

While other Cessnas were similar, I only found one that had this bit on the tail
1749245956992.png
 
Yeah, I figured since it's not a large airport I can just speed up the playback and check one by one, I won't claim with 100% certainty that I didn't accidentally skip something, since I wasn't that methodical and skipped back and forth in the playback so might have accidentally skipped an hour
This is also what I did.

That airport doesn't have the tower though
Yeah identifying the specific airport first was a good idea. I was trying to identify the plane model first and landed on the CJ3, and that took me down the path of looking for CJ3 at all 3 of those airports and I wasn't even looking for CJ2.
 
Well done @Calter and @Kyle Ferriter . I got as far as the instagram time too, but couldnt find the flight on the registered departures on FlightRadar24 or FlightAware beacuse the registration (like on many private jets) is blocked. Sometimes the brute force approach of watching all the planes take off on ADSBx is the only way to check.

1749299146286.png
 
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With Google lens it took me less than a minute. It took me a little longer to work out why you were looking for this location.


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1lcbiyp/san_diego_unknown_object/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Something about that screamed San Diego to me, the low hills in the background and the buildings on the mesa, though I couldn't immediately place the major streets.

We get planes flying banners along along the beaches every weekend during the summer. We usually only get the blimps for golf tournaments at Torrey Pines and bowl games at Snapdragon Stadium. (Funny thing is part of the city gets purple skies at night due to the grow lights at the stadium and it's a recurring mystery to people:
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/sandiego/comments/1jzm21v/purple_sky_1230am_north_park/
.)
 
Where was this photo taken from? As a starting point, ChatGPT o4-mini-high identifies the tallest building in the photo as the Prudential Tower in Boston, but then it gets confused.

skyline.jpg
 
Based on the Hynes convention center being in front of the Prudential building, and the Nordstrom Rack building being on the right, I think this must be a telephoto image shot from the South looking NW across the Neponset River, which would make the road in the foreground Morrissey Blvd.

I'm thinking maybe shot from the Hamilton Bay apartments: https://maps.app.goo.gl/4FApru5kdsM1Wq4G9

Something like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.2845782,-71.0294426,37a,35y,321.56h,79.28t/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDYxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==
 
Something like this
The direction is close. The real location is a little farther away though.

This building is the 200 Berkeley Building.
Screenshot 2025-06-17 at 1.29.43 PM.png

This one is the Campus Center building on the UMass Boston campus. I think Google Earth/Maps has pretty flawed 3D imagery for this building as it appears to be missing an entire floor, perhaps having merged the ground floor into the ground, removing it from the 3D model. The missing ground floor is visible in Google street view.
Screenshot 2025-06-17 at 1.32.16 PM.png


Camera location and line of sight in spoiler:
Location is this little wooden platform in Quincy: (42°16'30.2"N 71°00'12.8"W) https://maps.app.goo.gl/XjHFdjX9ZjJp5ZLt6
Approximate field of view:
skyline-los.png
 
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