Looked like an airship, could be fun to figure out which one and why

[Nullxata]

Hey everyone!

On 08-27-2023 at 18:34 we were driving East through Atlanta, Georgia on I-20 and saw this. By the time we got nearer to it the dip in the highway and trees obscured it entirely. Looks like a smoke plume (near a large insect hit on my friend's windshield) and a silver airship slowly turning. During the brief time I saw it, I didn't see any logos on it and it looked smaller to my eye than the Goodyear Blimp which I've seen many times. Maybe something was going on in whatever Glenwood Park is.

Anyways, I'm not a believer in UFO's but I just thought I'd post it for fun and to see if anyone can figure out which airship it was.

Here are the pics and a pic of where we were on the map. Some I zoomed in with my phone before taking the pic so that's why some are a little muddy. The original images are .heic but those don't seem compatible here? I uploaded the originals but I think Metabunk transcoded them into .pngs. But I'm not certain. My phone has location EXIF data turned off for work reasons but the marker on the map is almost exactly where we were at the time, including the direction we were facing. Thanks! It's my first post with images so I hope I'm doing it correctly.

 

[Landru]

It was the Goodyear blimp.


Source: https://twitter.com/GoodyearBlimp/status/1695867546614813034/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1695867546614813034%7Ctwgr%5Ed8429c93be9ba94d8d2c6eeb56d6256b9c402ab1%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2FGoodyearBlimp2Fstatus2F1695867546614813034widget%3DTweet

 

[tobigtofool]

Solved almost as fast as three pines.

 

[Nullxata]

Wow, that's kinda blowing my mind in a great way. Thanks! All of us in the car, said something like "Well, it's not the Goodyear," because we've seen it before on many occasions. So what blows my mind is how something really familiar to us, in that circumstance looked so different, (eg. it just looked silver without any logos and a lot smaller.) That goes to show how easily something familiar can look so unfamiliar depending on angle, distance, lighting, etc...

 

[Mendel]

That goes to show how easily something familiar can look so unfamiliar depending on angle, distance, lighting, etc...

Such is the way of the TicTac.

 

[FatPhil]

"Well, it's not ...

Top tip - statistics confirm that if your disproof of the mundane is nothing but simple naysaying, there's still a pretty good chance it's the thing you're denying. C.f. Starlink (or "satellites" generally).

 

[jarlrmai]

ADSB confirmation

 

[Ann K]

During the brief time I saw it, I didn't see any logos on it and it looked smaller to my eye than the Goodyear Blimp which I've seen many times.

Goodyear has recently phased out its old blimps and replaced them with three-engine dirigibles; I'm not sure if they've all been replaced yet or whether yours is still one of the old ones. Unfortunately for me they don't sound the same, and I can't yet recognize the sound of the new ones. That means that even though I live on their usual Akron-to-Cleveland flight path, I can't hear when to step out my door and see them. The new ones are slimmer in profile than the old ones but of course that's hard to tell when viewing them at an angle.

BUT ...you're new here, so it's time for the same old "UFO" caveat. If you don't know the distance, then you don't know the size and/or speed, and vice versa. We can judge a distance (well, some people can, with varying accuracy) only to some familiar object of known size, and similarly we can judge the size only if we know the distance. And it's exceptionally hard for airborne items, because we lack the visual cues we would see down on the ground.