More Strange lights in the Sky! [Short Sunlit Contrails]

Jarmey 657

Jarmey 657

Member
Again, I call upon you guy's to have a look at these two photos that look remarkably similar. Both were taken approx the same time but 80 miles apart! One In South London and One in Swindon Wiltshire. Both were taken by Mobile phones so no high tech stuff i'm afraid. The South London observer said the 'lights' were stationary all the time they were being watched, the Swindon observer said they were stationary but then fell earthwards. Meteorites sprung to mind as I guess these could be seen 80 miles apart? Broken Contrails have also been mentioned, but the coincidence of two nearly identical patterns 80 miles apart does not sit right. Your thoughts and explanations will as always be greatly appreciated. IanLondon.jpg Swindon.jpg
 
JRBids said:
What time of day is this? They both show 3 lights but they're not quite identical.
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approx 06:45 The pictures could have been taken a couple of minutes apart which may explain why they are not identical? Or it may be 2 totally different phenomena?
 
It looks like the same pattern from two different perspectives. Could be just some random cloud remnants lit by the rising sun.

Edit: Were those pics taken yesterday, Sunday Oct. 27? There was that big St. Jude's Day storm that blew through this morning but the sky in those pics looks pretty calm and clear. Atmospheric conditions like isolated pockets of turbulence and/or moisture ahead of that storm could have produced little random clouds like that.
 
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Jarmey 657 said:
Again, I call upon you guy's to have a look at these two photos that look remarkably similar. Both were taken approx the same time but 80 miles apart! One In South London and One in Swindon Wiltshire. Both were taken by Mobile phones so no high tech stuff i'm afraid. The South London observer said the 'lights' were stationary all the time they were being watched, the Swindon observer said they were stationary but then fell earthwards. Meteorites sprung to mind as I guess these could be seen 80 miles apart? Broken Contrails have also been mentioned, but the coincidence of two nearly identical patterns 80 miles apart does not sit right. Your thoughts and explanations will as always be greatly appreciated.
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I am puzzled how you come by these pictures, are you a member of a 'skywatch' group spread throughout the Country? How does it work... do you post on a website or call each other up?
 
solrey said:
It looks like the same pattern from two different perspectives. Could be just some random cloud remnants lit by the rising sun.

Edit: Were those pics taken yesterday, Sunday Oct. 27? There was that big St. Jude's Day storm that blew through this morning but the sky in those pics looks pretty calm and clear. Atmospheric conditions like isolated pockets of turbulence and/or moisture ahead of that storm could have produced little random clouds like that.
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Taken Thursday Morning 24th October
 
Oxymoron said:
I am puzzled how you come by these pictures, are you a member of a 'skywatch' group spread throughout the Country? How does it work... do you post on a website or call each other up?
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Nothing so dramatic i'm afraid! By shear coincidence, two friends posted these pictures up on Facebook, I posed a few questions and asked if I could let the experts have a look. I find this sort of thing fascinating and love to find a plausible answer. Chemtrails have got a big following here in the UK and I cannot understand it at all. I have taken numerous pics of obscure Contrails and disproved they are not Chemtrails by naming the airlines, flight paths, altitude etc by using simple apps like Planefinder HD, the die hards think I am employed by the government!!! In reality, I am just a normal guy, 55 years old who looks after his disabled wife 24/7...
 
solrey said:
It looks like the same pattern from two different perspectives. Could be just some random cloud remnants lit by the rising sun.

Edit: Were those pics taken yesterday, Sunday Oct. 27? There was that big St. Jude's Day storm that blew through this morning but the sky in those pics looks pretty calm and clear. Atmospheric conditions like isolated pockets of turbulence and/or moisture ahead of that storm could have produced little random clouds like that.
Click to expand...
The two pics were taken 80 mile apart? The same Contrails or clouds surely would not be visible 80 miles away? Or do you think by coincidence it was two separate sights?
 
Jarmey 657 said:
Nothing so dramatic i'm afraid! By shear coincidence, two friends posted these pictures up on Facebook, I posed a few questions and asked if I could let the experts have a look. I find this sort of thing fascinating and love to find a plausible answer. Chemtrails have got a big following here in the UK and I cannot understand it at all. I have taken numerous pics of obscure Contrails and disproved they are not Chemtrails by naming the airlines, flight paths, altitude etc by using simple apps like Planefinder HD, the die hards think I am employed by the government!!! In reality, I am just a normal guy, 55 years old who looks after his disabled wife 24/7...
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That's pretty amazing in my book that 2 friends, (80 miles away), both take very similar pics at the same time and post them on facebook. Wouldn't they have to be extremely high in the sky to be the same objects visible that far apart and also massive.
 
Oxymoron said:
That's pretty amazing in my book that 2 friends, (80 miles away), both take very similar pics at the same time and post them on facebook. Wouldn't they have to be extremely high in the sky to be the same objects visible that far apart and also massive.
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absolutely! hence the posting on here.
 
Oxymoron said:
That's pretty amazing in my book that 2 friends, (80 miles away), both take very similar pics at the same time and post them on facebook. Wouldn't they have to be extremely high in the sky to be the same objects visible that far apart and also massive.
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I don't think it's that incredible, I posted the same sunset a friend at least 100 miles away posted, and they both had pretty much the same contrail in them.
 
Jarmey 657 said:
The two pics were taken 80 mile apart? The same Contrails or clouds surely would not be visible 80 miles away? Or do you think by coincidence it was two separate sights?
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The photographers may have been 80 miles apart, but if the contrails/clouds were roughly halfway between them then each photographer was only around 40 miles from the contrails/clouds.

Hah, and I see Bracknell is about 45 miles from Swindon and depending on exactly where in South London, Bracknell could be about halfway between the two photographers. So it looks as if neither photographer was more than 50 miles from the contrails/clouds.

After reading the account of Christine Phillips from Bracknell and how she described seeing three after photographing two earlier, I'm thinking they're probably contrail segments rather than clouds at this point.
 
solrey said:
The photographers may have been 80 miles apart, but if the contrails/clouds were roughly halfway between them then each photographer was only around 40 miles from the contrails/clouds.

Hah, and I see Bracknell is about 45 miles from Swindon and depending on exactly where in South London, Bracknell could be about halfway between the two photographers. So it looks as if neither photographer was more than 50 miles from the contrails/clouds.

After reading the account of Christine Phillips from Bracknell and how she described seeing three after photographing two earlier, I'm thinking they're probably contrail segments rather than clouds at this point.
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Wow, sounds promising! The only thing that still does not add up is the Swindon photographer said that the lights went from stationary to falling earthwards. Now maybe they did that too from the London location but was not viewed for long enough. Having studied contrails myself in quite a bit of depth, they don't suddenly drop to earth? Broken contrails are quite regular occurrences over Lyneham where I live as we are on a major flight path from London Heathrow to Bristol, Ireland and the US. I have not witnessed any quite like this?
 
Jarmey 657 said:
Having studied contrails myself in quite a bit of depth, they don't suddenly drop to earth?
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How quickly did the lights "drop"?

Could perspective account for the perceived drop? As planes move away from you and towards the horizon, they appear to drop. Even though they are really maintaining a constant altitude.
 
Trigger Hippie said:
How quickly did the lights "drop"?

Could perspective account for the perceived drop? As planes move away from you and towards the horizon, they appear to drop. Even though they are really maintaining a constant altitude.
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Pretty quick I understand, quicker than planes moving into the distance and dropping out of view. Are you thinking three planes now rather than broken contrails? This would tie in with the Bracknell account were she said they were moving?
 
Jarmey 657 said:
Pretty quick I understand, quicker than planes moving into the distance and dropping out of view. Are you thinking three planes now rather than broken contrails? This would tie in with the Bracknell account were she said they were moving?
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Quote Christine from Bracknell -
Ms Phillips said five to 10 minutes later she was in the kitchen and saw "another three flame like shapes coming down" when she looked out of the window.
She went on: "One seemed to changed direction."
 
Jarmey 657 said:
appreciate where you coming from, but contrails just don't fall or appear to fall at any speed. It's a very slow movement as I am sure Mick would agree.
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There's often a significant disconnect between what what we get from a description, and what actually happens. Ships are said to drop below the horizon, and yet they don't "drop" in any real sense. If they were planes then they could appear to be more or less stationary, then kind of sink.
 
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Jarmey 657 said:
appreciate where you coming from, but contrails just don't fall or appear to fall at any speed. It's a very slow movement as I am sure Mick would agree.
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Let me clarify. I'm thinking it could be planes leaving short lived contrails that dissipate almost as soon as they are created (like in the picture below). In that case, those short contrails would appear to sink/fall/drop as the aircraft move away from an observer.

contrail.jpg

I wasn't suggesting they're contrail remnants from some long gone plane, which hang around the sky for a while and then start to fall and change direction.
 
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Also staring at lights in the sky with less reference marks, any motion could be illusory, like a brief vertigo or similar.
Unless they actually disappeared down out of sight.
 
Mick West said:
There's often a significant disconnect between what what we get from a description, and what the actually happens. Ships are said to drop below the horizon, and yet they don't "drop" in any real sense. If they were planes then they could appear to be more or less stationary, then kind of sink.
Click to expand...

We went camping a few weeks ago (last one before the winter) and sat by the campfire admiring the stars we noticed a light in the distance low to the horizon. It looked like a plane but seemed to be stationary for a while then dropped from view below the horizon. A short while later another did the same and then another. I soon realised that we were facing towards the coast about 30 miles away to the east and that I regularly see planes crossing the coast on their approach to Newcastle International airport, a quick check on a map when we got home and I found that the eastern end of the runway was about 20 miles nearly due east from our location and the runway runs east-west. :)
 
Due to perspective, an object which moves directly away from you in the sky will appear to be headed towards the horizon, or to fall. Similarly, an object high in the sky which is headed directly towards you will appear to be "going straight up", like the mystery missile launch flap Mick debunked before. Just last night, my wife and I watched a light fall slowly towards the horizon. I explained the light was from a jet headed away from us.

The description sounds like the contrail segments were drifting away from the observer's position.
 
M Bornong said:
I found a similar phenomenon on Youtube. It looks like short contrails to me, especially @1:07 when one makes a turn.
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Similar to this video that I made (sped up 20x)


I agree with Trigger Hippie, in that they are not contrail remnants, but actual short contrails, attached to planes.
 
I bow to your experience guy's, thanks again for your input! Something still niggles in my mind which says not contrails, but, I have no better explanation and you guy's have seen much more of this than I have!
 
IMG_20131030_155121.jpg IMG_20131030_154634.jpg IMG_20131030_154523.jpg IMG_20131030_154414.jpg IMG_20131030_153448.jpg
Jarmey 657 said:
I bow to your experience guy's, thanks again for your input! Something still niggles in my mind which says not contrails, but, I have no better explanation and you guy's have seen much more of this than I have!
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Had a bit of time on my hands today so I thought I would track and photograph a random plane on a flight path over my home. Using just a good quality mobile phone to take the pics, just like the original pics submitted. The atmospherics were perfect today for Contrails, so trusty iPad and Plane finder HD to hand I picked my plane to track. I picked a plane which would maintain a height of around 32000 feet so I would have a good view from a decent distance on it's approach to and departure from my home at Lyneham. The plane I tracked was flight FX4, Federal Express flight FedEx 4 from Memphis US to Cologne France. The flight first became visible over Westbury on Trym (Approx 30 miles away) and as you can see the plane is hardly visible on the mobile phone pic. I then took a pic when it was directly overhead and again as It was just disappearing out of sight above Newbury (Approx 36 miles away. My conclusion referring to the original pictures on this thread is that IF these were broken contrails, then they must be very close to get such a close image on a mobile phone. And If they were close, then they could not have been seen that clear 45 -80 miles away? Also the angle of the photo on the originals with the house roofs in view would also imply that the contrails were very close. My thoughts are that whatever it was, which was viewed in London, Bracknell and Swindon approx the same time, must have been larger than a plane/plane contrails. Unless of course by pure coincidence there was a set of 3 broken contrails almost directly overhead in 3 different places 80 and 48 miles apart at the same time. Does my rational on this make sense?
 
Jarmey 657 said:
I then took a pic when it was directly overhead and again as It was just disappearing out of sight above Newbury
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There are some significant differences between your pictures and those taken on the morning of Oct. 24.

The early morning pictures had the planes illuminated from below. I would think that would help make distant objects more visible; Objects that would typically blend into the background during the daytime. You're also assuming the weather conditions (smog, haze) were the same.
 
Jarmey 657 said:
IMG_20131030_155121.jpg IMG_20131030_154634.jpg IMG_20131030_154523.jpg IMG_20131030_154414.jpg IMG_20131030_153448.jpg
Had a bit of time on my hands today so I thought I would track and photograph a random plane on a flight path over my home. Using just a good quality mobile phone to take the pics, just like the original pics submitted. The atmospherics were perfect today for Contrails, so trusty iPad and Plane finder HD to hand I picked my plane to track. I picked a plane which would maintain a height of around 32000 feet so I would have a good view from a decent distance on it's approach to and departure from my home at Lyneham. The plane I tracked was flight FX4, Federal Express flight FedEx 4 from Memphis US to Cologne France. The flight first became visible over Westbury on Trym (Approx 30 miles away) and as you can see the plane is hardly visible on the mobile phone pic. I then took a pic when it was directly overhead and again as It was just disappearing out of sight above Newbury (Approx 36 miles away. My conclusion referring to the original pictures on this thread is that IF these were broken contrails, then they must be very close to get such a close image on a mobile phone. And If they were close, then they could not have been seen that clear 45 -80 miles away? Also the angle of the photo on the originals with the house roofs in view would also imply that the contrails were very close. My thoughts are that whatever it was, which was viewed in London, Bracknell and Swindon approx the same time, must have been larger than a plane/plane contrails. Unless of course by pure coincidence there was a set of 3 broken contrails almost directly overhead in 3 different places 80 and 48 miles apart at the same time. Does my rational on this make sense?
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We'd have to see the original photos. The photos you posted in the OP look like crops of a small area of a larger photo. Also digital zoom may have been used.

Going by the angle of the roof only makes sense if you know exactly where the photo was taken from.
 
Mick West said:
We'd have to see the original photos. The photos you posted in the OP look like crops of a small area of a larger photo. Also digital zoom may have been used.

Going by the angle of the roof only makes sense if you know exactly where the photo was taken from.
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All pictures taken have a roof in view. Even if a digital zoom had been used the roof to object ratio would change. This has not happened. In fact, my house roof is a lot closer and the object is further away. If a digital zoom had been used on the original pics then they would look even closer.
 
Jarmey 657 said:
All pictures taken have a roof in view. Even if a digital zoom had been used the roof to object ratio would change. This has not happened. In fact, my house roof is a lot closer and the object is further away. If a digital zoom had been used on the original pics then they would look even closer.
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What is the "roof to object ratio"?

Zoom (digital or otherwise) does not change the relative size of objects in a photo. It's just cropping and enlarging.
 
Trigger Hippie said:
There are some significant differences between your pictures and those taken on the morning of Oct. 24.

The early morning pictures had the planes illuminated from below. I would think that would help make distant objects more visible; Objects that would typically blend into the background during the daytime. You're also assuming the weather conditions (smog, haze) were the same.
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I don't think if all the criteria you have mentioned were replicated today it would make my images look closer. Far to much difference in the size.
 
Mick West said:
What is the "roof to object ratio"?

Zoom (digital or otherwise) does not change the relative size of objects in a photo. It's just cropping and enlarging.
Click to expand...
Exactly! If you crop and enlarge then not only would the object appear larger, then so would the roof of the house. My pics show the roof closer and the objects are further away. I would have to decrease the view of my roof slightly to replicate the original pics, and by doing that, the object would be further away.
 
M Bornong said:
I found a similar phenomenon on Youtube. It looks like short contrails to me, especially @1:07 when one makes a turn.


https://www.facebook.com/groups/globalskywatch/permalink/10153392661625302/

This is the link that led me to this video. A bit off topic, but I'd like to point out the fear in the replies to this post. It is rather sad to see the fear and paranoia that a misunderstood phenomenon like this will provoke.
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Here's a comment "notice the face top right mouth wide open.... ufo entry??"

They see faces in the clouds. Oh my.
 
I have just spoken to the London Lady who took the photo on her mobile and the photo posted is the original. No Zoom, no cropping or any alteration at all. Uploaded straight from her phone to facebook....
 
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