Paul M Smith's video of fast-moving light in sky

[rmoore]

Paul M. Smith is a nature photographer well-known for his images of atmospheric phenomena like auroras, weather events, and sprites. He recently posted on Facebook about some strange lights he saw (and recorded on video) in the night sky while aboard a cruise ship off the coast of Hawaii. He says he saw three of the fast-moving lights (he doesn't say how long between sightings), and was able to get video of one of them, which he posted on his Facebook page. I'm an amateur astronomer with 50 years' experience, and having watched Smith's video a few times I can say that I'd have been curious about the nature of these lights too.
The stars in the video are easily identifiable and show the object traversing the constellations of the southern and southeastern sky. Over the course of the video the light covers approximately 67 degrees of sky beginning in the constellation Centaurus, passing through Norma, Scorpius, Sagittarius, and disappearing in Scutum. I measured the path of the object against the star field and timed its angular speed in the first part of the video (when the object was apparently moving more or less perpendicular to the camera) at about 6.2 degrees per second. Given this, one could calculate the straight line speed of the object, if we knew how far away it was, or how far away it was, if we knew how fast it was moving. Since we know neither, we can only say how fast it would be moving at a given distance from the camera or vice versa. My own guess as to the object's identity is that it was a quadcopter or something similar at relatively close proximity to the cruise ship. I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts. Here's a link to the video on Facebook (I couldn't find it on any other of Smith's social media outlets). https://fb.watch/lFP243BKI6/

 

[MonkeeSage]

Welcome to MB!

Description from the FB video post:

From last month in the Pacific.
There was a lot of interest in this at the time so here's a better, cleaned-up version of the UAP I caught from my cruise ship off Hawaii.

In summary:
Fast-moving object, straight line, below clouds, no sound, either reflective or giving off light.
Bird? Possibly, though all birds I saw otherwise were obvious- flapping wings, erratic flight, etc
Meteor? No, it was below clouds.
Satellite? No way, it was below clouds.
Aircraft? Maybe, though others I saw were flashing and I would have expected to hear something so close.
Insect up close lit up by ship lights? A good possibility, but I saw 3 like this and one came overhead (over the ship) and would have to be high- therefore suggesting something larger.
Balloon? Could be a weather balloon or similar caught in upper-level winds seeming faster because of the ship moving. But a previous one I saw was moving perpendicular to this direction.

All in all, a little mystery that I thought was interesting to share. And after all, independence day is for celebrations, fireworks, and alien invasions, right?

I submitted this to ufowitness.tv to see what their possible take could be.

Content from External Source

It's hard to tell because of the low light and low resolution, but I'm not certain I can see any frames where it is clearly in front of the clouds in the vid. It looks like the path kind of cuts between the clouds/goes through very minimal cloud cover so I am not personally confident to say it's certainly in front of the clouds. Based on your identification of the constellations we know what direction the camera was pointed but It would be helpful to have more information on the date and time the video was recorded.

 

[Scaramanga]

Over the course of the video the light covers approximately 67 degrees of sky beginning in the constellation Centaurus, passing through Norma, Scorpius, Sagittarius, and disappearing in Scutum. I measured the path of the object against the star field and timed its angular speed in the first part of the video (when the object was apparently moving more or less perpendicular to the camera) at about 6.2 degrees per second.

At a mile distance that is 376 mph ( based on 1 degree being 92 feet, 6 is 552 feet, in 1 second )
At 2 miles distance that is 753 mph
At 4 miles distance that is 1506 mph
At 6 miles distance that is 2261 mph

That's within the speed of the fastest fighter jets..craft like the Mig 25 for example. At 6 miles, any sound would not be audible until 30 seconds or so later....and we don't know whether the guy stayed around to hear it. I can't hear jets flying overhead at 30,000 feet, so I am not sure the sound would even be audible from that distance.

 

[Ann K]

At a mile distance that is 376 mph ( based on 1 degree being 92 feet, 6 is 552 feet, in 1 second )
At 2 miles distance that is 753 mph
At 4 miles distance that is 1506 mph
At 6 miles distance that is 2261 mph

That's within the speed of the fastest fighter jets..craft like the Mig 25 for example. At 6 miles, any sound would not be audible until 30 seconds or so later....and we don't know whether the guy stayed around to hear it. I can't hear jets flying overhead at 30,000 feet, so I am not sure the sound would even be audible from that distance.

If a plane is over Hawai'i, it is not out there in the middle of the Pacific to cruise past at high altitude, but is almost certainly taking off or landing on one island or another. I'd lean toward the lower distances in your table. That would give a perfectly plausible lower speed that one might expect from a plane near the airport.

 

[rmoore]

Based on your identification of the constellations we know what direction the camera was pointed but It would be helpful to have more information on the date and time the video was recorded.

Smith indicated that the sightings occurred on the night of June 9, and based on the positions of stars in the video relative to the horizon I'd say it was shot about 8:50pm local time.

 

[rmoore]

If a plane is over Hawai'i, it is not out there in the middle of the Pacific to cruise past at high altitude, but is almost certainly taking off or landing on one island or another. I'd lean toward the lower distances in your table. That would give a perfectly plausible lower speed that one might expect from a plane near the airport.

Smith says he was north of Hawaii (he doesn't say which island) when he recorded the video. The object passes across the southern sky which means the object was seen in the general direction of the islands. But considering that there's no land (nor artificial lights from a town or airport) noticable in the video, his ship must have been fairly far out at sea. Given the angular speed of the object, the fact that it presents only a single point of light, appears to have a pretty constant speed, and traces a path that remains more or less parallel to the horizon throughout the video I'd say it's unlikely to have been an aircraft taking off or landing. I'm still leaning toward it being something relatively close to the ship...a drone/quadcopter perhaps. The fact that he saw the light several times would make sense if that's what it was.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Insufficient data for analysis.

Speculation?

It appears to be a dot, Captain.

 

[Scaramanga]

If a plane is over Hawai'i, it is not out there in the middle of the Pacific to cruise past at high altitude, but is almost certainly taking off or landing on one island or another. I'd lean toward the lower distances in your table. That would give a perfectly plausible lower speed that one might expect from a plane near the airport.

There's a massive carrier task force based in Hawaii. In fact there are regular large naval exercises in the region. According to USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker the USS Nimitz was in Hawaii in the time frame of the video. It carries the Super Hornet...top speed 1915 mph.

So the whole incident could have been 100 miles from Hawaii and not need any conventional airport, as the jets were from carriers.

​

 

[Scaramanga]

The object passes across the southern sky which means the object was seen in the general direction of the islands. But considering that there's no land (nor artificial lights from a town or airport) noticable in the video, his ship must have been fairly far out at sea. Given the angular speed of the object, the fact that it presents only a single point of light, appears to have a pretty constant speed, and traces a path that remains more or less parallel to the horizon throughout the video I'd say it's unlikely to have been an aircraft taking off or landing.

As I replied to Ann, that is to overlook the Nimitz task force, which was in the area at the time. That allows any jet fighters to be much further out at sea, without need for conventional airport. In my view one is simply seeing the afterburner on some jet fighter doing around 2000 mph.