Rare things that have been documented much better than UFOs

Edward Current said:
This could also be considered a rare thing that was captured much better than UFOs, video of the outer layer apparently loose and flapping about during launch:
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It looks too flexible to be steel, which I think would have broken off quickly after a few bends. Is there any rubberized layer, perhaps connecting a booster that is to be detached?
 
Ann K said:
It looks too flexible to be steel, which I think would have broken off quickly after a few bends. Is there any rubberized layer, perhaps connecting a booster that is to be detached?
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Duct tape? It holds everything else together, after all.
 
The flapping bit of metal (it looks like paper flapping like that but that's steel! It's flapping close to "max Q" when the aerodynamic forces on the rocket are at their peak. Less powerful rockets than Starship have had metal deform and even been torn apart by these forces) is just a thin cover over the lift/catch hardware and bump plate. It's not a structural component (I'm honestly not sure what purpose it serves, prior flights and the first stage just have those little lift pegs sticking out the whole time. I's also a long distance from where the leak was. That was at the aft, a fuel line leaked into the space between the engine plate and the bottom of the tank.

Scott Manley has a pretty deep dive into the flight and explosion:


Source: https://youtu.be/vfVm4DTv6lM


Biggest highlight is that somebody was able to match exif data from pictures of the explosion to the timeline. The rocket coasted for over three minutes after losing telemetry before what was probably the flight termination explosives destroyed it. This was done while the craft was dropping and close to reentry, if it had been fired immediately debris would have showered a much larger area. Scott Manley questions if it was even best for the FTS to fire at all, since Starship was heading well out into the Atlantic and a single object is likely less dangerous than a shower. He also notes a number of planes in the risk zone changed their routes in an abundance of caution.



Edit: also, if you've been following the test campaign since the Starhopper tests, a Starship exploding is not a particularly rare event.
 
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Trailblazer said:
Duct tape? It holds everything else together, after all.
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Ooh, I remember "green tape" circa 1965, six inches wide and very difficult to peel off a roll, that was used to hold guided missiles together. We had a roll that we ripped into narrower strips for household repairs, and many years later celebrated the fact that our marriage had lasted longer than that roll of green tape.
 
Ann K said:
Ooh, I remember "green tape" circa 1965, six inches wide and very difficult to peel off a roll, that was used to hold guided missiles together.
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Don't tell the Apollo deniers, who get all in a tizzy because tape was used in holding the kapton on the Lunar Module together, under the assumption that tape is an inferior way to hold things together in all circumstances, that all tape is cellophane adhesive tape, and that taping parts on a high-tech flying machine is just a silly idea that would never happen.

unnamed.jpg
 
Being "swallowed" by a humpback whale, along with your kayak, must be quite rare.

External Quote:

A humpback whale briefly trapped a kayaker in its mouth off Chilean Patagonia before quickly releasing him unharmed.

Adrián Simancas was kayaking with his father, Dell Simancas, when the massive whale suddenly surfaced, trapping the young man and his yellow kayak in its mouth for a few seconds before letting him go.

Dell, just meters away, captured the moment on video while encouraging his son to stay calm.

"I thought it had eaten me and swallowed me", Adrián said.
BBC News, Latin America, 13 February 2025 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c2k5e14vwx4o;

Fox News video on YouTube

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OZj1MJM9_U
 
A runway near-miss, with an aborted landing, captured apparently by a bystander or plane spotter will a cell phone. One assumes that aborted landings aren't as rare as crashes (often caught on camera as well). But what makes this relevant to the thread is that the video is rolling along, clear as day, for some time before the rare event occurs. Also rare is how close the landing gear gets to touching down — seemingly inches — and this, too, was captured, with a zoom-in no less. Depending on when the thrust-reverse got disarmed, that could have been a problem.


ABC News story: https://abcnews.go.com/US/southwest-plane-lands-safely-chicago-after-close-call/story?id=119174069
 
Edward Current said:
A runway near-miss, with an aborted landing, captured apparently by a bystander or plane spotter will a cell phone. One assumes that aborted landings aren't as rare as crashes (often caught on camera as well). But what makes this relevant to the thread is that the video is rolling along, clear as day, for some time before the rare event occurs. Also rare is how close the landing gear gets to touching down — seemingly inches — and this, too, was captured, with a zoom-in no less. Depending on when the thrust-reverse got disarmed, that could have been a problem.
View attachment 77714

ABC News story: https://abcnews.go.com/US/southwest-plane-lands-safely-chicago-after-close-call/story?id=119174069
Click to expand...
No video of this one, but it's getting to be a habit:
External Quote:
An American Airlines flight arriving at Ronald Reagan National Airport was forced to abort its landing to avoid another aircraft Tuesday, officials said, less than a month after a midair collision killed 67 people near the same airport and roughly 90 minutes before a close call between a passenger plane and a private jet in Chicago.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/26/us/reagan-national-american-airlines-go-around/index.html
 
Ann K said:
No video of this one, but it's getting to be a habit:
Click to expand...
Runway incursions are not a rare or recent problem; the worst one that really forced aviation to address the issue was the 1977 Tenerife airport disaster. But they're happening all over the world, usually without incident as one of the crews is aware of the situation and avoids a collision.
And sometimes these happen in quick succession randomly; for example (avherald.com):
External Quote:


 
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Ann K said:
No video of this one, but it's getting to be a habit:
External Quote:
An American Airlines flight arriving at Ronald Reagan National Airport was forced to abort its landing to avoid another aircraft Tuesday, officials said, less than a month after a midair collision killed 67 people near the same airport and roughly 90 minutes before a close call between a passenger plane and a private jet in Chicago.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/26/us/reagan-national-american-airlines-go-around/index.html
Click to expand...
Unlike the near-miss at Chicago posted above (and the examples I posted), this incident is much less severe. The CNN article does explain why:
Article:
The Tuesday incident at the Washington, DC, airport happened around 8:20 a.m. as American Airlines Flight 2246, en route from Boston, was preparing to land, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Air traffic control instructed the American Airlines flight to perform a go-around to "ensure separation was maintained between this aircraft and a preceding departure from the same runway," the FAA told CNN.
A go-around is a routine maneuver that allows an aircraft to safely make an alternate landing "at the discretion of a pilot or at the request of an air traffic controller," the FAA said.

The plane that was preparing to take off was moving, but still on the runway, by the time Flight 2246 started its go-around, according to FlightRadar 24.

Flight 2246 eventually landed safely, and Tuesday's go-around was a standard maneuver "to allow another aircraft more time for takeoff," American Airlines told CNN Wednesday in an email.
"It's a tool in both the pilot's and air traffic controller's toolbox to help maintain safe and efficient flight operations, and any assertion that flight 2246's canceled approach was more than that is inaccurate," the airline's email reads.

The closest Flight 2246 came laterally to the departing plane before Flight 2246 turned and climbed was about 1.25 miles, and its lowest altitude before its climb was 450 feet, according to FlightRadar 24.

Basically, air traffic control (ATC) has to line up the landing aircraft some time in advance as they approach, and fit departures into the spaces in that line. For one reason or another, a departure may take longer than anticipated, and then ATC takes the nearest approaching aircraft out of the line and has them queue up again at the back, so to speak. In those situations, ATC typically informs the crew of the approaching aircraft well in advance that another aircraft is setting up for departure, so one of the pilots is going to monitor the situation, and they'd both be prepared that a go-around may be necessary. It's very much "business as usual" and not an emergency.

I can't speak to whether the reported minimum separation distance/altitude rates this as an official "incident" or not.
 
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Currently adjusting my priors on looking out a plane window at cruising altitude and seeing a person.

External Quote:
A paraglider in China has survived an unexpected climb to 28,208 feet in the air without oxygen after being caught in a powerful updraft
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paraglider-survives-pulled-28000-feet-into-air-without-oxygen-china/

Edit: looks like at least some of the footage published that he alleged to have been from the flight are likely AI generated, but the accidental flight itself is real, supposedly.

External Quote:
Video purported to be from Peng's mounted camera went viral, but has since been challenged over its veracity. At least some parts of it are believed to have been AI generated. NBC News said the first five seconds of the footage provided by China's state broadcaster CCTV, and distributed by Reuters, had been determined to be AI-generated.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-peng-yujiang-survives-8000-metre-high-flight
 
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Kyle Ferriter said:
Currently adjusting my priors on looking out a plane window at cruising altitude and seeing a person.

External Quote:
A paraglider in China has survived an unexpected climb to 28,208 feet in the air without oxygen after being caught in a powerful updraft
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paraglider-survives-pulled-28000-feet-into-air-without-oxygen-china/

Edit: looks like at least some of the footage published that he alleged to have been from the flight are likely AI generated, but the accidental flight itself is real, supposedly.

External Quote:
Video purported to be from Peng's mounted camera went viral, but has since been challenged over its veracity. At least some parts of it are believed to have been AI generated. NBC News said the first five seconds of the footage provided by China's state broadcaster CCTV, and distributed by Reuters, had been determined to be AI-generated.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-peng-yujiang-survives-8000-metre-high-flight
Click to expand...

Are we at the point now that even IF one manages something incredible like a 28,000' flight in a paraglider, we still need some AI enchantments to zshush it up or no one cares?
 
Kyle Ferriter said:
Currently adjusting my priors on looking out a plane window at cruising altitude and seeing a person.
Click to expand...

There's Larry Walters' 1982 flight on his sunlounger, tethered to 42 [some accounts 45] helium balloons:
He reportedly reached approx. 16,000 feet, 4877 metres in altitude.
Maybe the aircrew who by chance witnessed his flight were as surprised as if they'd seen a flying saucer...

External Quote:
Pilots occasionally see and report some rather bizarre happenings of which some turn out to be true and others just illusions. But one of the strangest airborne reports was by the Captain of an airliner approaching Los Angeles International Airport on July 2, 1982. He radioed that he was passing a man in a chair at 16,000 feet holding a pistol in his hand. A sceptical controller duly acknowledged the report, obtained a radar fix and began tracking the peculiar object.
SP's Aviation website, "Hall of Fame: Larry Walters (1949 - 1993)", https://www.sps-aviation.com/story/?id=2738


External Quote:
As Larry and his lawnchair drifted into the approach path to Long Beach Municipal Airport, perplexed pilots from two passing Delta and TWA airliners alerted air traffic controllers about what appeared to be an unprotected man floating through the sky in a chair.
"Did Larry Walters Fly in a Lawn Chair Attached to Helium Balloons?" [rated "True"], Snopes, David Mikkelson, 21 December 2000 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/up-up-and-away/:

External Quote:

The incredible flight of Larry Walters, a 33-year-old Vietnam veteran and North Hollywood truck driver with no pilot or balloon training, took place on 2 July 1982. Larry filled 45 weather balloons with helium and tethered them in four tiers to an aluminum lawn chair he purchased at Sears for $110, loading his makeshift aircraft (dubbed the "Inspiration I") with a large bottle of soda, milk jugs full of water for ballast, a pellet gun, a portable CB radio, an altimeter, and a camera.

Donning a parachute, Larry climbed into his chair from the roof of his girlfriend's home in San Pedro while two friends stood at the ready to untether the craft. He took off a little earlier than expected, however, when his mooring line was cut by the roof's sharp edges. As friends, neighbors, reporters and cameramen looked on, Larry Walters rocketed into the sky above San Pedro. A few minutes later Larry radioed the ground that he was sailing across Los Angeles Harbor towards Long Beach.

Walters had planned to fly 300 miles into the Mojave Desert, but the balloons took him up faster than expected and the wind didn't cooperate, and Walters quickly found himself drifting 16,000 feet above Long Beach. (He later reported that he was "so amazed by the view" that he "didn't even take one picture.") As Larry and his lawnchair drifted into the approach path to Long Beach Municipal Airport, perplexed pilots from two passing Delta and TWA airliners alerted air traffic controllers about what appeared to be an unprotected man floating through the sky in a chair.

Meanwhile, Larry, feeling cold and dizzy in the thin air three miles above the ground, shot several of his balloons with the pellet gun to bring himself back down to earth. He attempted to aim his descent at a large expanse of grass of a north Long Beach country club, but Larry came up short and ended up entangling his tethers in a set of high-voltage power lines in Long Beach about ten miles from his liftoff site. The plastic tethers protected Walters from electrocution as he dangled above the ground until firemen and utility crews could cut the power to the lines (blacking out a portion of Long Beach for twenty minutes).
See also,
"Mysteries of Flight: Lawn Chair Larry", Plane & Pilot website, 09 July 2019 https://planeandpilotmag.com/lawn-chair-larry/;
"Lawnchair Larry flight", Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawnchair_Larry_flight
 
Article:
On 14 February 2007, in spite of a forecast of violent thunderstorms, Wiśnierska decided to try to fly in order to train for the 2007 World Paragliding Championships near Manilla, New South Wales, Australia. She was sucked into the ascending current of a cumulonimbus cloud, a cloud responsible for large and heavy rains, usually with hail inside and extremely low temperatures. Unable to get out, she was lifted to an altitude of 10,054 metres (32,986 ft), according to her global positioning system (GPS) data. The GPS variometer also tracked vertical speeds of up to 21 m/s (77 kilometres per hour (48 mph)).[4] She landed more than three hours later about 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of her starting position.

Article:
At some point, I remember feeling really tired and that's when I lost consciousness and passed out. When I came to, I soon realized that 45 minutes had passed. All my equipment was covered in ice. I had to scratch it over and over to get the ice off of my GPS and finally saw that my altitude was around 22,966 feet.

I later learned that I had reached over 32,986 feet while I was unconscious. It was so cold, probably around minus 55 degrees. You cannot imagine this cold. It was the most horrible thing I had ever felt. I had no idea where I was. I just kept my hands in front of my face, trying to stay warm because all I had on was a T-shirt and a light jacket.
 
I'm watching the movie "In A World...", and at 32:15 into the movie, a fire truck siren sounds. At exactly that moment a fire truck drove by my open windows with its lights flashing but without its siren on (I live near a fire station and it's a residential area so they can leave their sirens off at night while there's no cars blocking the way. I hear maybe 1 or 2 sirens a day but this is just a guess). The coincidence was so noticeable and disorienting that I paused the movie to confirm the sound really was from the TV, not the actual fire truck driving by. I then rewound the movie 30 seconds to try again, and while it was paused, another fire truck drove by my window, but this one had its siren on. Perhaps a glitch in the matrix.
 
Kyle Ferriter said:
I'm watching the movie "In A World...", and at 32:15 into the movie, a fire truck siren sounds. At exactly that moment a fire truck drove by my open windows with its lights flashing but without its siren on (I live near a fire station and it's a residential area so they can leave their sirens off at night while there's no cars blocking the way. I hear maybe 1 or 2 sirens a day but this is just a guess). The coincidence was so noticeable and disorienting that I paused the movie to confirm the sound really was from the TV, not the actual fire truck driving by. I then rewound the movie 30 seconds to try again, and while it was paused, another fire truck drove by my window, but this one had its siren on. Perhaps a glitch in the matrix.
Click to expand...
Hah! Yes, it's weird when real life and "transmitted life" coincide. I was once driving home from work with the radio on. I hit a pothole just at the very moment the recording on the radio skipped, and for a moment I felt very guilty! :)
 
This is more sombre than most of our examples here, but I think extraordinary.

Tragically, an airliner crashed in India just under 2 days ago.

b.JPG


External Quote:

Air India Flight 171 was a scheduled international passenger flight operated by Air India from Ahmedabad Airport in India to London Gatwick Airport in the United Kingdom. On 12 June 2025, at 13:38 IST, the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner operating the flight crashed, approximately 30 seconds after takeoff, into the hostel block of B. J. Medical College in the Meghaninagar neighbourhood of Ahmedabad.

The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. Only a single passenger survived, making it the deadliest aviation accident with a sole survivor. At least 28 people on the ground were killed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_171

Short clip from The Sun newspaper on YouTube showing the aircraft descending, perhaps thankfully out of view just before a large fireball is seen:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LfPZPoO3nDg


There was extensive damage on the ground; a 6-storey hostel for medical students was hit by debris and was rapidly gutted by fire. Other buildings in the same row appear to have been fire-damaged.
Shri_Amit_Shah_visiting_the_crash_site_of_Air_India_Flight_171.jpg
12india-crash-lvmw-jumbo.jpg

(Top picture courtesy of Indian Interior Ministry; Minister Shri Amit Shah visits the site)

Astonishingly, a man on the aircraft survived, and walked away from the crash site towards an ambulance, the man here in the short-sleeved white shirt:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-Ek_WYqDKqA


When I first saw this clip, I thought maybe there's been a mistake: Perhaps the man was on the ground in the vicinity of the crash, and was concussed or traumatised. Goes to show I can be too sceptical:

He is confirmed as being Vishwashkumar Ramesh from Leicester, UK. He was in seat 11A, and was travelling with one of his brothers.
External Quote:

"I still cannot believe how I made it out alive," he said.

"At first, I thought I was going to die. I managed to open my eyes, unfastened my seat belt and tried to exit the plane."

Mr Ramesh said the side of the plane that he was sitting on did not hit the hostel and was closer to the ground floor. "My door broke down and I saw a small space," he said. "I tried to get out of the plane."
BBC News, Asia, "What we know so far after Air India flight to London crashes in Ahmedabad", 12 June 2025
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y5nq170z4o
 
Edward Current said:
Here's a cool category: Icebergs flipping over.
Click to expand...
It would make sense that they frequently flip soon after calving. They're suddenly going from the physics of things splitting off a mass of ice to the physics of things establishing equilibrium due to the buoyancy of an irregular object. More rarely seen is one flipping in open water due to differential melting.
 
flarkey said:
Ballistic missiles being launched from Iran, recorded from an airliner over Dubai...


Source: https://x.com/gotravelyourway/status/1934507826392519095
Click to expand...

The airport in Dubai is over 120 miles from the nearest point of the Iranian mainland. Seems a stretch for a cell phone cam but maybe not. I suspect this was filmed from closer than that.

Missiles capable of reaching Israel, Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) are fired singly from hardened sites or Transporter-Erector-Launcher (TEL) vehicles.


More data required.
 
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