Personal Video- NJ Drones [Two Planes]

BirdNerd99

New Member
I personally took this video, Fairfield NJ. Thursday December 12 at 6:21pm.

 
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It looks as if this video was taken through double glazing.

The two pairs of lights here move in tandem, and the fainter one of each pair is offset by the same angle as the "ghost image" of the Christmas lights on the roof, so we are just looking at two objects in the sky here. Towards the end of the video there is a third one over to the right, which is too faint to create a ghost "twin".

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So there are three objects of interest: the red one circled in the above screenshot which appears to be heading roughly towards the camera; the yellow one which is moving across from left to right, and the third one that appears at the end, from the right edge and heading left.
 
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Trailblazer's post about the windows (second one above this one) raises the possibility that the lights in the sky are reflections of something inside the room. I think it would be unlikely that you'd get the same spacing of the second reflection with the same spacing for things inside and outside the room, but maybe. Worth being considered and rejected, anyway.

I am NOT saying BirdNerd99 did this, but it occurs to me that an version of this image could be done by shooting reflections in the window from OUTSIDE, with the room inside darkened, essentially seeing a double-mirror of everything outside the house. I don't think that was done here, as the effect does not gain you anything, just turning around and shooting in the other direction from the window would get the same shot without the double reflection. But in another context, in the hands of a hoaxer, I could see some fairly effective "Pepper's Ghost" illusions done that way, using lights being moved around inside the room (and maybe a single-glazed window to avoid double reflections! ^_^)
Edit to clarify which post was being referenced... can't seem to insert a quote from a thread while editing...
 
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I'd feel more comfortable in a private chat with that information if thats ok? I dont want to dox myself.
Yes, in fact I think @flarkey has found the location but I have hidden that reply, I don't think we need the exact location to be made public to confirm the ID. If you send me a private message I could confirm if his location was correct.
 
18:21 EST is 23:21 UTC.

Looking at the flight radar to the north east of Fairfield there was a helicopter flying straight towards the town, two possible candidates for the yellow circled blob flying left to right, and one (green) for the fainter one that appears from the right at the end.

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Trailblazer's post about the windows (second one above this one) raises the possibility that the lights in the sky are reflections of something inside the room. I think it would be unlikely that you'd get the same spacing of the second reflection with the same spacing for things inside and outside the room, but maybe. Worth being considered and rejected, anyway.

I am NOT saying BirdNerd99 did this, but it occurs to me that an version of this image could be done by shooting reflections in the window from OUTSIDE, with the room inside darkened, essentially seeing a double-mirror of everything outside the house. I don't think that was done here, as the effect does not gain you anything, just turning around and shooting in the other direction from the window would get the same shot without the double reflection. But in another context, in the hands of a hoaxer, I could see some fairly effective "Pepper's Ghost" illusions done that way, using lights being moved around inside the room (and maybe a single-glazed window to avoid double reflections! ^_^)
Edit to clarify which post was being referenced... can't seem to insert a quote from a thread while editing...
I was inside when filming if that helps?
 
Metadata confirms the time is correct:

External Quote:
2024:12:12 18:21:10-05:00
I am struggling to make things match at the moment in a 3D view and have to leave this for now but will take a look when I have more time if nobody else has solved it.
 
OK I think I have worked it out. The helicopter was a red herring, it was hidden behind the houses to the left at the video timestamp.


3D view from the video location.

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N824CA is listed as unidentifed on FR24 but I got the tailnumber from ADSB Exchange.

There is another plane flying left to right (N907SA) very close to N824CA but it is too low to be visible.

Here is the 3D view with that N907SA track added in, in pink:

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Flight info:

N824CA was a private Cessna Citation flight from Westchester NY to Miami FL.
UAL205 was a Boeing 737 Max 8 on a United flight from Fort Myers FL to Newark NJ
DAL2206 was a an Airbus A220 on a Delta flight from LaGuardia NY to Boston MA
 
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Metadata confirms the time is correct:

External Quote:
2024:12:12 18:21:10-05:00
I am struggling to make things match at the moment in a 3D view and have to leave this for now but will take a look when I have more time if nobody else has solved it.

Pretty sure one of the lights is this Citation 680 N824CA - heading straight towards Fairfield, and the other is UAL205 a 737 .
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Google Earth View: (sanitised)
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I do not doubt you are from New Jersey but why do you think this is a video of a drone? Fairfield is about 15 miles west of me. Teterboro Airport is about one mile from me. There is always aircraft above my home. At any one moment day or night I can count four or five aircraft. Much of what flies above my head I cannot identify. If I were to go outside to make a video of all the things I cannot identify in the sky I would never spend anytime inside. I attribute this not to UFOs or drones. I would attribute to a lack of knowledge on my part. I'm not saying you did not see a drone. I'm only asking why you think it's a drone.

The only evidence you provided is a very low resolution video. A very low resolution video would provide a lot less detail then then a higher resolution video. Your video is 480 x 360 pixels or 172.8 kilo pixels. I suggest using the highest resolution for your next "drone" video. I have viewed your video several times on my 55 inch 4K TV. The video is very tiny. If your video was done in HD or 4K the video would fill my screen and hopefully reveal more detail.
 
I do not doubt you are from New Jersey but why do you think this is a video of a drone?

Just a heads up. I assume your replying to the post above yours, but it can get confusing. Best practice is to hit the "reply" button at the bottom of the post you're replying to:

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Or you can highlight just the portion of a post you want to reply to, and you'll get this option:

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Which is what I did to reply to you. It helps keep things clear and organized.

And yes, I had the same question, why assume these are drones?
 
And yes, I had the same question, why assume these are drones?
A lot of people are assuming things they see are drones right now. Its not a huge mystery as to why, the social milieu folks are embedded in is full of people telling them "go outside and look up and see all the drones," which people are doing and, expecting to see drones and so are primed to interpret anything they do see as maybe a drone. The media is telling them the same thing, and is showing them videos of planes as examples of what drones look like, and their elected officials are all-in with all of this.

Not saying @BirdNerd99 is caught up in all that, but a lot of folks are. And others are just on the edges of it and wondering if stuff they see might be drones, or are not buying any of it but would like somebody to provide them with definitive info on what it WAS, if not a drone -- and MB is pretty good at that!
 
Just a heads up. I assume your replying to the post above yours, but it can get confusing. Best practice is to hit the "reply" button at the bottom of the post you're replying to:

View attachment 74865

Or you can highlight just the portion of a post you want to reply to, and you'll get this option:

View attachment 74866

Which is what I did to reply to you. It helps keep things clear and organized.

And yes, I had the same question, why assume these are drones?
Sorry I'm new to this forum. I have only been here a few short days. I have been distracted by the swarm of alien drones that have been holding the state of New Jersey captive. For some reason the movie "The birds" (1963) by Alfred Hitchcock keeps coming to my mind.
 

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I do not doubt you are from New Jersey but why do you think this is a video of a drone?

Well as others have said, there is a lot of attention on this at the moment. And, as I discovered from looking at this video, it can be pretty confusing to work out where and what these lights are, even if you used to looking at the sky and identifying planes etc.

For instance, leaving aside the doubled image for each object, it would be easy to assume that the one circled in red is closer to the camera than the yellow one. It's brighter, and it's higher in the sky - both visual signs that something is closer to you, right?

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But in fact, the red circled plane is approximately twice as far away from the camera location (inside the pink circle) as the yellow one.

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It's brighter because it is flying almost directly towards the camera, so the bright light on the front is highly visible.

And it's higher in the sky because it is literally at a higher altitude - over 3x the altitude in fact (10725ft vs 3500ft), so even though it is 2x further away, it is still at a higher angle above the ground from this location.

Meanwhile, another plane right next to the red circled one on the map isn't even visible at all, because even though it's slightly closer to the camera, it is too low to be seen (about 2,700ft)

As I say, I've been messing around with flight trackers for many years and even I had a bit of trouble working this one out at first. For the majority of the public who have never bothered to look at them (and why would they?) it's not at all obvious.

So kudos to @BirdNerd99 for asking the questions and for being receptive to the answers. If more of the public had the same curiosity then there would be a lot less confusion around.
 
So kudos to @BirdNerd99 for asking the questions and for being receptive to the answers. If more of the public had the same curiosity then there would be a lot less confusion around.
Yes.
It's also a good example of how something unexplained can be identified with proper date/time/location/direction data.

If a report doesn't have that data, it's absolutely normal for it to remain unexplained even if it would be perfectly explainable with that data.
 
It's brighter because it is flying almost directly towards the camera, so the bright light on the front is highly visible.
It's also brighter because it is higher, and less attenuated by the ground haze. Look at the glow in the sky in the lower portion; that's light reflecting off of particulates, probably mist in this case.
 
For some reason the movie "The birds" (1963) by Alfred Hitchcock keeps coming to my mind.
Interesting when you recall that that movie just sort of stopped with no real explanation or understanding of what had happened... no resolution. Suddenly, it was just over. We'll see if that happens here, as is usual with flaps.
 
Interesting when you recall that that movie just sort of stopped with no real explanation or understanding of what had happened... no resolution. Suddenly, it was just over. We'll see if that happens here, as is usual with flaps.
I had forgotten that. But then, I last saw that movie in 1963...
 
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