Lights in the Sky (Swansea UK 11/10/14)

[n0sweat]

Report in my local rag today of "mystery objects in the sky".

Here's a screen shot with the faint lights arrowed by me.

You can see a very short video of the sighting HERE (scroll down the page to about half-way)

My first thoughts are these might possibly be some sort of electrical discharge (the date in question (last Saturday)was a very stormy day here, with much thunder, lightning etc). Or perhaps Chinese lanterns. The guy who filmed this rules that out though, along with reflections from his dashboard onto the car window.

Not enough information to make a judgement methinks.........

 

[solrey]

The photographer said:

"They didn't seem to be those chinese lanterns as they looked very high and a lot brighter than the lanterns usually are. They didn't move like lanterns either."

You said it was stormy that day and those look like storm clouds. Lanterns caught in the turbulent updraft of a storm could be lofted to high altitudes and move erratically. Looks like they got sucked into the storm.

Chinese lanterns released during weddings have been mistaken for UFO's over Swansea in the past and the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea hosts weddings, some involving the release of chinese lanterns.

From 2009:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/ufo-sightings-were-just-chinese-2092773

http://www.hanginglanterns.co.uk/inspirations/weddings/national-waterfront-museum-swansea

https://www.museumwales.ac.uk/waterfrontweddings/

Seems that chinese lanterns are the most likely explanation.

Edit: The social club where that vid was shot is just a couple of kilometers north of the National Maritime Museum.

 

[MikeC]

do they have lightweight white plastic supermarket bags in Swansea? 'cos they look to me like they could as easily be 3 of those being buffeted by wind as anything else.

 

[Mick West]

Looking at the video, it looks more like something reflective flickering. Something like a mylar balloon.

 

[solrey]

Looking at the video, it looks more like something reflective flickering. Something like a mylar balloon.

It could be... or a flame flickering in the wind perhaps?

Edit: or they were moving in and out of a jagged cloud edge before fully entering the cloud.

 

[n0sweat]

AS above....Lanterns are a likely explanation, supermarket carrier bags too. I know the area that the film was taken, it is looking eastwards over the Swansea Valley bounded by two large hills. That cloud could be quite low over the Tawe river that runs below so a false impression as the height of the objects would be an easy mistake to make. It's a highly urbanised area so a mundane source of the objects is very possible.

 

[n0sweat]

It could be... or a flame flickering in the wind perhaps?

About 3-4s into the vid I too noticed a slight reddish momentary tinge/flicker on the furthest left of the triangle of lights. Seems lanterns would be a good guess.

 

[Mick West]

It's probably destined to remain unidentified. But of course unidentified does not imply "aliens", it just mean there are several quite plausible explanations.

A youtube search for "balloon release" yields some interesting comparisons.

Skip to 3:50 here for flickering lights in the sky that move oddly. A combination of balloons with flashing lights, and later some chinese lantersn.


At around 6:30 here there's some mylar balloons that flash in the sun:

 

[Mick West]

Good one of a low quality video of a mylar balloon flickering bright then dark


Some interesting "kites" made of mylar balloons, sure to be taken as UFOs


This person filmed some Mylar balloon to compare them to an earlier "UFO" video:


Here's the earlier video, looks like a star shape balloon.

 

[n0sweat]

It's probably destined to remain unidentified. But of course unidentified does not imply "aliens", it just mean there are several quite plausible explanations

Of course...I really dislike the way that the words "UFO" and "Aliens" are conflated in these newspaper articles, there's a typical example in the source for the video I linked above, a caption/headline above a picture of a mysterious sky object.... "Is this a UFO?" grrrrrrr.