If two things look the same it doesn't mean they are the same thing.
i agree
I don't think those balloons are very elastic. So I don't think size would change much.
true and false at the same time
they arent properly inflated to begin with, so they can expand at higher altitude. some
even have altitude ratings (i kid you not, i believe they are purely theoretical though).
so while the material wont stretch, they can get "ticker", more "rounded" which explaints why the ufo one has a less defined edge top center.
Maybe. I still find it implausible an F-18 WSO was playing candy crush on a flight an was just lucky enough to take 3 pictures of multiple balloons on one flight. But it is possible.
i have no fucking idea what they do on a flight. from how i know the military, i wouldnt be surprised if they were streaming youporn on their atflir display (while playing candy crush).
Not so much but we do have a lot of uncertainty.
We do know. We have two successive pictures that clearly show flight path and attitude.
i would argue its not so "clear" though. based on camera sensor and movement of the camera the balloon could appear smaller than he really is.
i dont know where you see the altitude though?
We can only guesstimate altitude true. Wind is irrelevant when flying.
oh no not at all! wind is highly relevant when flying. you can go 100 knots against the wind while basically standing still over the ground. thats why wingsuit tunnels are a thing for example or wave swim training pools.
Why would it be relevant?
Just shape. We don't know size, pattern and color.
size was roughly estimated (roughly) with pixel calculation versus picture size, where we could assume a distance to the camera when the balloon should match the other one. so yeah we dont know the exact size but we can say if the size would be plausible (within ballpark with this very rough calculation or very unlikely).
pattern is a perfect match as you can see on the comparison shots.
someone loaded the pic into photoshop and showed the orange hue on the outside. so we have a color match as well.
Agree to disagree?
No
Btw, we could do some testing if the pixel / size method works. We could take some shots of objects we know the size of from 200 meters and see what size comes out with the calculation method.
btw2: why do we know it was an iphone 8? are we 100% sure it wasnt an iphone 8 plus or an iphone 7? are these single shot pictures or stills from a video (can this be validated somehow?)
(this is really just for fun and giggles because its really a "but theres still a 1% chance it is something entirely different" discussion and we both know it pal ;-) )