jackfrostvc
Senior Member
Do we know what country this was filmed in?
Middle East 2022 MQ-9 Observed Apparent Spherical UAP (via AARO)
- Thread starter Eburacum
- Start date
You can see it, just scrub the first few seconds. Here it's 5x speed, stabilized a little more for the ground
Everything gets a bit bigger. The drone is flying roughly toward the building, but you only really see dramatic parallax when the line of sight passes over the sphere.
Notice at the end of the short loop, everything snaps back, shrinking
This initial stillness seems to be confusing a lot of people.
I don't see a "very likely explanation" here. It seems to me that it's something like a balloon, but that is not an explanation.
Unfortunately, Kirkpatrick has expressed that such independent analyses be submitted to scientific journals for peer review. He does not think "blogs" are a good medium for investigation. He's wrong, of course, but it seems unlikely he'd be interested in this page by itself - it would at least need to be written up in a summary post. And right now, there's no real conclusion.
jarlrmai
Senior Member.
Have you ever heard the expression "the fox is in the hen house"?
jarlrmai
Senior Member.
No but it's likely Iraq would be my guess.
randobrando
New Member
I mean, it's possible there are some "true believers" in there that want to believe there are alien visitors or want the public to believe that, despite more plausible alternative explainations. I don't know anything about Dr. Kirkpatrick really. I just found it inconsistent the level of detail they went to to determine what was in the second video. The second video looked more difficult to solve. And, as Mr. West says above, the first video isn't "solved" but I think enough facts have been brought out to at least say "we have no reason to believe this is anything other than a mostly stationary object like a balloon".
jarlrmai
Senior Member.
Have you watched the Greenstreet series?
Source: https://youtu.be/3Tsg0X4onCo?t=921
This whole flap and the containing nudge/wink stuff from AARO is a results of the Bigelow funded "infiltration" of the US Gov with UFO enthusiasts. Kirkpatrick is the latest.
Eburacum
Senior Member.
Here is a piece of idle speculation. We've seen similar spheres in two drone videos now. Even though the full Mosul clip has not yet been made public, it looks very similar to this one. Perhaps these are normal, toy balloons intended to act as distractions: every time a drone comes over someone might release a bunch of cheap balloons, and the drone operator is naturally diverted to filming them rather than the ground and any activity occurring there.
Hmm; even if they aren't doing this now, perhaps they will start after seeing these clips.
Hmm; even if they aren't doing this now, perhaps they will start after seeing these clips.
deirdre
Senior Member.
It wouldnt be a new tactic
Nov 2016
Article: Syrian rebel fighters are using children's balloons filled with hydrogen packed with small explosives to bring down Russian jets over Aleppo .
Children have also been filmed preparing balloons filled with helium and metallic parts attached to confused the weapon's systems of the Russians.
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NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Of course, this was the attitude of the so-called "Chilian Air Force" UAP investigators and the previous Stratton/Taylor led UAP task force. This does open one up to possibly embarrassing results. Leslie Kean had to backtrack on the Chilian UFO, while saying that "amateurs" on forums should not be doing the analysis, even if they get it right.
I don't know about Taylor and the bhoka, stars and drone UAPs. Last I saw, he was still insisting they were "unexplained", so I guess the thing about a public forum, is it can more easily ignored, even if they get it right.
It would be interesting to find more images of these improvised radar decoys.
There's the actual (Chinese) military version here, a large balloon with a lightweight radar reflector under it. Looks like they are using them in pairs here.
Source: https://tv.cctv.com/2022/11/18/VIDEm3CTueRxHJKSHIR6et4U221118.shtml
The radar reflector is quite hard to see against the ground.
Object size.
We have some rough references on the upper size of the object by comparing it to the people and objects in the scene.
It appears to be about 2x the width of the telegraph pole, and around 3x-4x the width of the person's head. This give and apparent size of about 2 feet in diameter.
However, that's the maximum size it could be, if it was actually flying fast and close to the ground. The curved path matching the banking drone indicates parallax is more likely, which very roughly suggests it's something like 25% to 50% of the altitude of the drone, making it somewhere between 1.5 feet and 1 foot in diameter.
Party balloon size.
We have some rough references on the upper size of the object by comparing it to the people and objects in the scene.
It appears to be about 2x the width of the telegraph pole, and around 3x-4x the width of the person's head. This give and apparent size of about 2 feet in diameter.
However, that's the maximum size it could be, if it was actually flying fast and close to the ground. The curved path matching the banking drone indicates parallax is more likely, which very roughly suggests it's something like 25% to 50% of the altitude of the drone, making it somewhere between 1.5 feet and 1 foot in diameter.
Party balloon size.
No, it's described as "Middle East", the data of 12 July 22 might be a clue.
Article: July 12, 2022
Release Number 20220712-01
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TAMPA, Fla. - U.S. Central Command Forces conducted a UAS strike outside Jindayris, northwest Syria targeting two senior ISIS officials, July 12, 2022. Maher al-Agal, one of the top five ISIS leaders and the leader of ISIS in Syria, was killed in the strike. A senior ISIS official closely associated with Maher was seriously injured during the strike. Extensive planning went into this operation to ensure its successful execution. An initial review indicates there were no civilian casualties.
Jindayris is an agricultural town, which roughly matches the background and house styles in the video. Bit of a long shot for geolocation, though.
Update:
Article: A picture shows debris at the site where a U.S. drone strike killed Maher al-Agal, a leader in the Islamic State militant group, near the village of Khaltan, near Jindayris in northern Syria, on July 12, 2022.
Khaltan does not show up in Google maps, might need the Arabic version of the name.
Khalţān Gharbī is to the North of Jindayris, it shows up in Mapcarta:
https://mapcarta.com/12682446
In Google Earth this is labeled "xalta"
I'm not sure if it's a good fit though, as it's kind of hilly and very dotted with trees (olives?)
https://mapcarta.com/12682446
In Google Earth this is labeled "xalta"
I'm not sure if it's a good fit though, as it's kind of hilly and very dotted with trees (olives?)
12 July 2156Z is one or two hours past midnight in Middle East. The video doesn't look like a night video.
What else can be wrong about what has been made public about the video?
Surveillance ops could be taking place earlier. But, like I said, it's a bit of a long shot.
Just to clarify what I'm think here: I think the drone is orbiting, but not orbiting the region the camera is pointed at.
This makes sense for a covert assassination op. If a drone is spotted above a high-value target, then that might alert them that target is in danger. But it it's orbiting a few miles away, then it's harder to make that connection (and to spot the drone).
Martinicus1
Member
Interesting article in the daily mirror, how much could a party balloon actually lift (and stay in the air) - a decoy like the child appears to be making from sticks and foil or explosives and a detonator? Seems a bit far fetched, perhaps multiple balloons tethered together with some something dangling below it. I think it would be easily identifiable.
Bernd Lauert
New Member
What puzzles me most is the apparent small size of the object. If we assume it is 1 - 1.5 ft or 30 - 50 cm, a balloon of this size cannot carry any significant payload other than itself and is extremely inefficient.
Buoyancy depends upon the difference of the densities between air and lifting gas. 1.292 kg/m³ for air and 0.090 kg/m³ for hydrogen under standard temperature and pressure (0°C at sea level). Under such ideal conditions, 1 m³ of hydrogen can lift 1.2 kg.
1.292 - 0.090 kg/m³ = 1.202 kg/m³
Performance is about 8% worse for helium and worsens with rising temperature. At more reasonable Middle Eastern 20°C it's 1.2041 - 0.0827 = 1.1214 kg/m³ for hydrogen and 1.0407 kg/m³ for helium. But we still have to add the weight of the balloon itself which is significant at small sizes.
According to Wikipedia, Mylar foil typically weighs around 10 g/m², maybe less. So if my calculations are correct, roughly speaking a ballon can realistically lift a little less than 1 kg per m³ of its volume.
A spherical Mylar balloon with 1 ft (30 cm) diameter has a surface of 0.3 m², weights ~3 g and has a volume of about 0.015 m³.
It could only lift a payload of 10 - 15 g which is nothing.
At 50 cm diameter, the balloon has a surface of 0.8 m² weighing 8 g and a volume of 0.065 m³. It could lift 50 - 60 g. Still not overly useful.
So if this object is a Mylar gas balloon with a diameter of 30 - 50 cm, this is the realistic payload it could carry. About 50 g, definitely less than 100 g unless I have made a fundamental mistake. At 1 m diameter it would be a much more substantial payload of 0.5 kg but that seems impossible from the video footage.
So what to make of this? It is definitely too small to carry anything useful like explosives or surveillance / telecommunication equipment. The Syrian rebels mass-launched balloons with small metal parts or foil attached against Russian jets with little success, a single small one is extremely unlikely to do anything other than confuse drone operators. Yet given that we have two similar objects in the same conflict area spotted by US UAVs, I doubt this is a coincidence / civilian party balloon. Especially not this one in a war-torn rural area full of rebels or IS fighters. It might indeed be directed against the UAVs even if it's a rather desperate attempt.
Buoyancy depends upon the difference of the densities between air and lifting gas. 1.292 kg/m³ for air and 0.090 kg/m³ for hydrogen under standard temperature and pressure (0°C at sea level). Under such ideal conditions, 1 m³ of hydrogen can lift 1.2 kg.
1.292 - 0.090 kg/m³ = 1.202 kg/m³
Performance is about 8% worse for helium and worsens with rising temperature. At more reasonable Middle Eastern 20°C it's 1.2041 - 0.0827 = 1.1214 kg/m³ for hydrogen and 1.0407 kg/m³ for helium. But we still have to add the weight of the balloon itself which is significant at small sizes.
According to Wikipedia, Mylar foil typically weighs around 10 g/m², maybe less. So if my calculations are correct, roughly speaking a ballon can realistically lift a little less than 1 kg per m³ of its volume.
A spherical Mylar balloon with 1 ft (30 cm) diameter has a surface of 0.3 m², weights ~3 g and has a volume of about 0.015 m³.
It could only lift a payload of 10 - 15 g which is nothing.
At 50 cm diameter, the balloon has a surface of 0.8 m² weighing 8 g and a volume of 0.065 m³. It could lift 50 - 60 g. Still not overly useful.
So if this object is a Mylar gas balloon with a diameter of 30 - 50 cm, this is the realistic payload it could carry. About 50 g, definitely less than 100 g unless I have made a fundamental mistake. At 1 m diameter it would be a much more substantial payload of 0.5 kg but that seems impossible from the video footage.
So what to make of this? It is definitely too small to carry anything useful like explosives or surveillance / telecommunication equipment. The Syrian rebels mass-launched balloons with small metal parts or foil attached against Russian jets with little success, a single small one is extremely unlikely to do anything other than confuse drone operators. Yet given that we have two similar objects in the same conflict area spotted by US UAVs, I doubt this is a coincidence / civilian party balloon. Especially not this one in a war-torn rural area full of rebels or IS fighters. It might indeed be directed against the UAVs even if it's a rather desperate attempt.
deirdre
Senior Member.
it could be a rogue balloon that broke offf of a bunch.
in Israel area (middle east?) balloons seem to be all the rage. Although these seem to be used to set things on fire, but not sure you can set anything on fire in iraq as there is so much sand.
I don't think we can entirely rule party balloons out. We don't know where this is exactly, or what relatively normal regions are nearby They can travel a long way, a few hours of drifting in upper winds could carry them 100 miles, a few days, even more.
It's unlikely, but if we are to consider other possibilities like a novel propulsion mechanism, then it should be on the list.
Bernd Lauert
New Member
Definitely, Mick!
We'd have to know more about how and what common Mylar party balloons are in rebel areas. Mosul was still firmly under IS control in Apr 2016 and they probably didn't like party balloons. And a similar object in a remote NW- Syrian rebel stronghold (if true) raises some questions. I'm sure the military thinks the same way. In Syrian cities liberated from the IS like Raqqua, such balloons are of course a popular thing, like everywhere.
I tried to take more environmental factors into account to calculate a realistic payload for such a balloon. Mosul / Iraq is situated at 200 m, Khaltan / NW Syria at 500 m altitude. If we assume a balloon is flying at 500 – 600 m on a hot July day with 30 °C air temperature and 20% humidity. maximum achievable lift drops further, to 1 kg / m³ for hydrogen and 0.9 kg / m³ for helium. However no plausible environmental conditions drastically change the results and it could still carry the lower payload boundaries I previously stated to several thousand meters. I still think 1 kg / m³ is a good approximation for most real world balloon scenarios.
But yes, if this is a balloon I highly doubt it was meant to carry anything. It's probably just a normal Mylar balloon. What can you even do with 10 - 50 g payload? A slightly bigger balloon would give an enormous performance boost and chained together with thin steel rope such a large barrage balloon array would be a serious hazard to any aircraft in the area. I wonder why they never came up with something like this. Hydrogen is cheap and can even be mass-produced from battery acid and scrap metal if necessary. This has been done since the late 18th century.
Ballooon clusters for incendiary ground attacks make little sense in Syria / Iraq. It's only practical to indiscriminately target an entire country like Hamas does with Israel or Japan against the US in WWII. Even then it's totally ineffective. I've never heard about anything like that in Syria. Only the balloons rebels used against jets and like those of Hamas it was very simple latex balloons or even condoms. It had, to no surprise, no noteworthy effect.
We'd have to know more about how and what common Mylar party balloons are in rebel areas. Mosul was still firmly under IS control in Apr 2016 and they probably didn't like party balloons. And a similar object in a remote NW- Syrian rebel stronghold (if true) raises some questions. I'm sure the military thinks the same way. In Syrian cities liberated from the IS like Raqqua, such balloons are of course a popular thing, like everywhere.
It' called parallax propulsion and it easily yields relativistic speeds without a sonic boom. After all, it's all a matter of perspective!
I tried to take more environmental factors into account to calculate a realistic payload for such a balloon. Mosul / Iraq is situated at 200 m, Khaltan / NW Syria at 500 m altitude. If we assume a balloon is flying at 500 – 600 m on a hot July day with 30 °C air temperature and 20% humidity. maximum achievable lift drops further, to 1 kg / m³ for hydrogen and 0.9 kg / m³ for helium. However no plausible environmental conditions drastically change the results and it could still carry the lower payload boundaries I previously stated to several thousand meters. I still think 1 kg / m³ is a good approximation for most real world balloon scenarios.
But yes, if this is a balloon I highly doubt it was meant to carry anything. It's probably just a normal Mylar balloon. What can you even do with 10 - 50 g payload? A slightly bigger balloon would give an enormous performance boost and chained together with thin steel rope such a large barrage balloon array would be a serious hazard to any aircraft in the area. I wonder why they never came up with something like this. Hydrogen is cheap and can even be mass-produced from battery acid and scrap metal if necessary. This has been done since the late 18th century.
Ballooon clusters for incendiary ground attacks make little sense in Syria / Iraq. It's only practical to indiscriminately target an entire country like Hamas does with Israel or Japan against the US in WWII. Even then it's totally ineffective. I've never heard about anything like that in Syria. Only the balloons rebels used against jets and like those of Hamas it was very simple latex balloons or even condoms. It had, to no surprise, no noteworthy effect.
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Mendel
Senior Member.
Article from Oct 26, 2015:
Maybe the next year they got their hands on some black balloons to do the job.
Article: To fend off air strikes, Islamic State militants in Syria appear to have launched dozens of small bombs attached to balloons — possibly condoms full of lighter-than-air gas — on at least one occasion. While the homemade weapons are of dubious quality, the idea of an anti-aircraft "mine" isn't as crazy as it might seem.
On Oct. 21, Russia Insider posted a video online claiming to show the militants assembling and releasing the bombs in the skies over Idlib province. Appearing to be nothing more than a black plastic pouch suspended from clear plastic sacks, the mines could have a rudimentary fuze that goes off when the charge bumps into something, or a simple timing device that sets off the explosive after a predetermined time.
Maybe the next year they got their hands on some black balloons to do the job.
Martinicus1
Member
It could be a tactic, I think Kirkpatrick mentioned it's consistent with other silver spheres. My question would be why the use of relatively uncommon round silver Mylar Party balloons? Wouldn't they use whatever they could get their hands on, coloured, heart shaped and so on? If it happened consistently they would likely be aware of it as a tactic.
Bernd Lauert
New Member
Seeing the hype about the Navy UAP videos I have limited confidence in their sorting abilities.
I wonder if such a glistering unusual balloon could be used as a signaling device. Tethered it could be used to mark a certain position as gathering point visible from afar from the ground but hard to make sense of from an aircraft. Changes in altitude could even be used to send simple messages over considerable distances safe from electronic surveillance. When launched untethered, a balloon could also be a highly visible signal. For any such use the balloon obviously has to be distinct from ordinary party balloons.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_Insider
It cannot be verified where and when this video was taken and what it actually shows. My point remains, it is physically impossible to launch practical "explosive devices" with a balloon this size and also makes no sense overall. Palestinian militants mostly used incendiary balloons often mislabeled as explosive in the news. They did sometimes use large helium balloon clusters with dozens of standard size latex balloons which can carry a significant payload but most consist of 3 - 6 balloons and only carry a small bit of slow burning incendiary material which is enough to set the dried out bushland across the border ablaze.
Source:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-official-threatens-more-explosive-balloons-into-israel/
Here we see a cluster of three ~1 ft balloons with their tiny incendiary payload. This is about what our UAP balloon would be about to carry. 50 g at max, probably less. Definitely no explosive device consisting of the explosive, primer, fuse, shrapnel and casing. The 40 mm grenades dropped from small drones in Ukraine weight around 200 - 250 g, the larger ones like 82 mm mines dropped from octocopters go to 3-4 kg and more.
Also it makes no sense on many levels. You could easily use a slightly larger or simply more balloons for such purpose but most of all you don't want explosive stuff randomly floating above your heads in your own territory to battle enemy aircraft. Not even the IS is that stupid. You'd rather use steel rope, ball bearings or other scrap attached to balloons which do little harm when they fall from the sky but are capable of damaging or at least confusing aircraft. This is what we've seen in the footage from Idlib posted in this thread. I highly doubt this is the case here as it was a single drone the people on the ground probably weren't even aware of, not waves of fighter jets repeatedly bombing a city. And only a single metallic sphere was spotted, not an entire swarm. Also I could not find a single case of balloons used against US aircraft in Syria or Iraq. I will look more into balloons used in Syria / Iraq.
Another possibility - if this object is more advanced than your ordinary insurgent tech, it could also be of Iranian or Turkish origin.
I wonder if such a glistering unusual balloon could be used as a signaling device. Tethered it could be used to mark a certain position as gathering point visible from afar from the ground but hard to make sense of from an aircraft. Changes in altitude could even be used to send simple messages over considerable distances safe from electronic surveillance. When launched untethered, a balloon could also be a highly visible signal. For any such use the balloon obviously has to be distinct from ordinary party balloons.
I purposefully ignored this source as 'Russia Insider' is a known Kremlin propaganda platform known for spreading Antisemitism and Right Wing extremism in both Russia and the US.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_Insider
It cannot be verified where and when this video was taken and what it actually shows. My point remains, it is physically impossible to launch practical "explosive devices" with a balloon this size and also makes no sense overall. Palestinian militants mostly used incendiary balloons often mislabeled as explosive in the news. They did sometimes use large helium balloon clusters with dozens of standard size latex balloons which can carry a significant payload but most consist of 3 - 6 balloons and only carry a small bit of slow burning incendiary material which is enough to set the dried out bushland across the border ablaze.
Source:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-official-threatens-more-explosive-balloons-into-israel/
Here we see a cluster of three ~1 ft balloons with their tiny incendiary payload. This is about what our UAP balloon would be about to carry. 50 g at max, probably less. Definitely no explosive device consisting of the explosive, primer, fuse, shrapnel and casing. The 40 mm grenades dropped from small drones in Ukraine weight around 200 - 250 g, the larger ones like 82 mm mines dropped from octocopters go to 3-4 kg and more.
Also it makes no sense on many levels. You could easily use a slightly larger or simply more balloons for such purpose but most of all you don't want explosive stuff randomly floating above your heads in your own territory to battle enemy aircraft. Not even the IS is that stupid. You'd rather use steel rope, ball bearings or other scrap attached to balloons which do little harm when they fall from the sky but are capable of damaging or at least confusing aircraft. This is what we've seen in the footage from Idlib posted in this thread. I highly doubt this is the case here as it was a single drone the people on the ground probably weren't even aware of, not waves of fighter jets repeatedly bombing a city. And only a single metallic sphere was spotted, not an entire swarm. Also I could not find a single case of balloons used against US aircraft in Syria or Iraq. I will look more into balloons used in Syria / Iraq.
Another possibility - if this object is more advanced than your ordinary insurgent tech, it could also be of Iranian or Turkish origin.
jarlrmai
Senior Member.
Can you expand on what you mean here?
I am not really sure of your direction? Are you saying it's not a balloon because they can't attach explosives to a balloon? Balloons can also be used as attempted radar foulers etc without a payload.
However there are the reasons a balloon could be there other than it being used against the specific drone filming the footage, context missing from this short clip. Including it not being involved at all in whatever operation the drone was engaged in.
This is the problem with Metabunk threads sometimes (especially where the video is so in the LIZ that there's not much more we can do) we try to offer a lot of interesting conjecture and ideas when there is not much to go on and it can seem like the agreed theory here is this is a balloon being used against this drone because insurgents are known to sometimes use balloons and here's some examples, then the specifics get dived into and maybe some of those examples don't 100% apply in this case.
But the issue is that this is not main issue. The issue is does this video demonstrate anything that cannot be explained by a known phenomenon or device, object etc?
It can be best to take step back rather than get lost in unknown specifics.
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Mendel
Senior Member.
I didn't quote them. I found this interesting, as you wrote "Mosul was still firmly under IS control in Apr 2016 and they probably didn't like party balloons", referring to the older sighting, and a) the blog post predates that sighting, showing that insurgents using balloons is not a new idea, and b) it provides motivation for them to launch party balloons. So it's evidence (however flimsy) countering your unsourced opinion.
Bernd Lauert
New Member
Sorry I tend to make overly long posts, I'll try to summarize it one more time:
I've always considered a Mylar balloon launched for whatever reason the most likely explanation for what we see in the video and potentially the Mosul sphere and I cannot see any anomalous behavior in the video. Just because a video ends up in an UAP report doesn't mean much. An ordinary latex balloon or clusters of such would probably have been filtered out but just because there's no immediate identification doesn't mean it's overly mysterious. See all Navy UFO videos. We'd need to look for more reports of 'silver spheres' in the Middle East but it does not appear to be a singular event.
Most of all I wanted to calculate the potential payload of a 1-1.5ft gas balloon and I think my calculation of 10 – 50 g is sound and easily reproducible. This as well as the overall foolishness of launching single explosive-packed balloons against recon aircraft over your territory lets me assume the hypothesis of a explosive-carrying balloon is very unlikely. Furthermore I have not found credible sources for such tactics. The video from 'Russia Insider' cannot be considered credible evidence and also does not match the object in this thread in shape and number of launched balloons. Neither do the incendiary balloons launched by Palestinians. Such a mass-launch tactic would be far more effective against aircraft but to my knowledge this has never been reported against US forces in Syria / Iraq.
My hypothesis is those balloons were deployed by insurgents on purpose. For which remains a mystery but it does not have to be related to the recon crafts recording them. The IS did allegedly use tethered Dora the Explorer party balloons with cameras for reconnaissance against Kurdish Peshmerga in Mar 2016 which is only a month before to the Mosul Sphere event. Unfortunately we don't see how exactly this was achieved in the article but I have a keycam from 2015 which weighs 12 g and can record somewhat decent video to a microSD card. That's a suitable payload for a standard size balloon and as the article is talking about many balloons they were probably clusters of several to carry a cam.
Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/651354/dora-the-explorer-isis-islamic-state-daesh-isil-is-drone-balloon
I also looked into military tethered surveillance balloons for comparison but they are magnitudes larger with a diameter of several to dozens of meters to carry significant payloads in the range of of tens of kg. Both Israel and Turkey deploy such aerostats on the Syrian border but they look like huge white airships.
Source: https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-surveillance-balloon-patrolling-syria-border-156744
What looks most like a silver sphere is the Winch Aerostat Small Platform (WASP) deployed by the US which has also seen service in the Middle East according to the manufacturer but it is also significantly larger with a diameter of about 5 m.
Source: https://www.unmannedsystemstechnology.com/company/drone-aviation-corp/
I've always considered a Mylar balloon launched for whatever reason the most likely explanation for what we see in the video and potentially the Mosul sphere and I cannot see any anomalous behavior in the video. Just because a video ends up in an UAP report doesn't mean much. An ordinary latex balloon or clusters of such would probably have been filtered out but just because there's no immediate identification doesn't mean it's overly mysterious. See all Navy UFO videos. We'd need to look for more reports of 'silver spheres' in the Middle East but it does not appear to be a singular event.
Most of all I wanted to calculate the potential payload of a 1-1.5ft gas balloon and I think my calculation of 10 – 50 g is sound and easily reproducible. This as well as the overall foolishness of launching single explosive-packed balloons against recon aircraft over your territory lets me assume the hypothesis of a explosive-carrying balloon is very unlikely. Furthermore I have not found credible sources for such tactics. The video from 'Russia Insider' cannot be considered credible evidence and also does not match the object in this thread in shape and number of launched balloons. Neither do the incendiary balloons launched by Palestinians. Such a mass-launch tactic would be far more effective against aircraft but to my knowledge this has never been reported against US forces in Syria / Iraq.
My hypothesis is those balloons were deployed by insurgents on purpose. For which remains a mystery but it does not have to be related to the recon crafts recording them. The IS did allegedly use tethered Dora the Explorer party balloons with cameras for reconnaissance against Kurdish Peshmerga in Mar 2016 which is only a month before to the Mosul Sphere event. Unfortunately we don't see how exactly this was achieved in the article but I have a keycam from 2015 which weighs 12 g and can record somewhat decent video to a microSD card. That's a suitable payload for a standard size balloon and as the article is talking about many balloons they were probably clusters of several to carry a cam.
Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/651354/dora-the-explorer-isis-islamic-state-daesh-isil-is-drone-balloon
I also looked into military tethered surveillance balloons for comparison but they are magnitudes larger with a diameter of several to dozens of meters to carry significant payloads in the range of of tens of kg. Both Israel and Turkey deploy such aerostats on the Syrian border but they look like huge white airships.
Source: https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-surveillance-balloon-patrolling-syria-border-156744
What looks most like a silver sphere is the Winch Aerostat Small Platform (WASP) deployed by the US which has also seen service in the Middle East according to the manufacturer but it is also significantly larger with a diameter of about 5 m.
Source: https://www.unmannedsystemstechnology.com/company/drone-aviation-corp/
JMartJr
Senior Member.
Can't immediately spot where Bernd Lauert wrote that, and am about to run to the airport, but...
Do we know that IS dislikes party balloons? It would not surprise me, but is it established? (My fast and dirty seach for information on that point got swamoped by lnks to a news story where authorities in Sweden were called when birthday party balloon display featuring a big "12" was misread as an "IS" signal or sign... what a world we live in...
Bernd Lauert
New Member
Shopkeeper in IS occupied Raqqa got harrassed for heart-shaped balloon in 2014:
I think the religious aspect is far less relevant for the time and location of the video we're discussing here as the IS does not hold authority over significant territories anymore but still simply flying suspicious balloons near the remote hideout of some IS leader is probably not the smartest idea for any civilian.
Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/worl...ia-raqqa-militants-balloon-breasts-extremists
I think the religious aspect is far less relevant for the time and location of the video we're discussing here as the IS does not hold authority over significant territories anymore but still simply flying suspicious balloons near the remote hideout of some IS leader is probably not the smartest idea for any civilian.
John J.
Senior Member.
I agree, but people do misguided or ineffectual things all the time, including in wartime.
If nothing else, releasing the odd few party balloons might "show willing" to the local bosses with (I would guess) relatively low risk to yourself.
Martinicus1
Member
My point here was to do with 'consistent with other metallic orb observations in the region' as stated in the briefing which I think is interesting. Perhaps collection bias, although I'm not sure all other irregular types would be so easy to identify. There's a lot of posts here detailing how party balloons are/could be utilised. If operators are indeed seeing and filtering out party balloons (except the round silver ones) there would likely be an awareness of such tactics and similarities regardless of if it was a metallic sphere balloon or not, a pattern.
Martinicus1
Member
Do you have evidence that balloons, without payload are used as attempted range foulers or is this just conjecture? Sorry, I do actually agree with you, this video provides very little to go on. It's interesting this was chosen to present to congress when it could so obviously be a balloon.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
That may be all they got.
Bernd Lauert
New Member
I had the pleasure of observing an escaped silver mylar party balloon a few days ago. It rose slowly and gained considerable horizontal speed though there barely was wind on the ground. However, as it was round-cushion shaped and chaotically tumbled around all axes it continuously changed its shape - which is not what we see in this video. Basically all mylar-foil balloons sold by street vendors consist of two fused foils and are therefore relatively flat and not spherical. While spherical silver latex balloons exist, they are much rarer and I do not see what advantages they would offer to specifically look for them in rural Syria. See the report of IS using ordinary Dora the Explorer mylar ballons. Note that even the usual egg-shaped balloons tend to tumble unless they are either tethered to the ground or have some payload attached and this results in an alternation between circular and non-circular shape when viewed from above.
Bottom line - while most likely some sort of balloon I still do not believe this is an escaped ordinary party balloon, but something more sophisticated that is there for a purpose.
See this post about similar-sized spherical balloons used by Germans in WWII
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/silver-orbs-reported-over-berlin-in-wwii.12974
Bottom line - while most likely some sort of balloon I still do not believe this is an escaped ordinary party balloon, but something more sophisticated that is there for a purpose.
See this post about similar-sized spherical balloons used by Germans in WWII
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/silver-orbs-reported-over-berlin-in-wwii.12974
John J.
Senior Member.
Member MapperGuy posted this
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/silver-orbs-reported-over-berlin-in-wwii.12974/post-291112,
(Acknowledgements to MapperGuy, I can't seem to use the "Reply" function across threads at the mo.)External Quote:
This is the pic MapperGuy refers to:
The Iraqi Army seems to have a lot of tube artillery according to Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_equipment_of_the_Iraqi_Ground_Forces
During the 1991 Gulf War the Iraqis had loads of S-60 57mm AA guns. It seems some have ended up with non-state groups
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZP_S-60External Quote:
-I think this German WW2 balloon bears at least a superficial resemblance to the spherical UAP under discussion.
Maybe armed forces (of whatever affiliation) of the region in question use balloons like this for a similar purpose.
I have no idea if AA artillery would use balloons in the way that ground artillery do (or at least did), but if so, ISIS might be switched-on enough to try and optimize their S-60's performance- particularly if they were fearing airstrikes.
Equally, the UAV footage was clearly taken in an area where some sort of conflict was continuing; maybe the balloon was released by an artillery unit (like the WW2 one in the picture) not directly connected with the gunmen in the footage, but present in the region because of ongoing fighting.
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