Tic Tac in Greece?

steviemac

Member
sooo....what do you make of this one Mick? It wasn't taken by some 'UFO chaser' type. It was taken by a guy who shoots tourism videos of Greece (his other videos are tourist videos of Greece too), so that makes it pretty authentic to me - in the sense I just can't see any reason for him to deliberately fake this.

I mean why would you want to create a faked UFO in the middle of your Greece promotion channel. His description comes across as genuine I think

Looks very intriguing to me anyway. Your thoughts will be appreciated.

 
If its a bird, its the fastest damned bird I've ever seen! At a rough calculation it covered maybe half a mile in under 2 seconds. Come on Mick...that's a bit lazy from you...dismissing it straight out as a bird. :p

What bird travels at that velocity, I'm intrigued. lol
 
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It's a something so far away that it is just a dot. Can't tell if it is TicTac shaped or bird shaped or something else shaped. It is the right color to be a seagull, flying over the sea, about the way seagulls do. There is nothing about it to make you think it is NOT a seagull. So I'm guessing it's a seagull. But there is unlikely to ever be any way to be certain, it's just too far away.1637697160815.jpg
 
It's a something so far away that it is just a dot. Can't tell if it is TicTac shaped or bird shaped or something else shaped. It is the right color to be a seagull, flying over the sea, about the way seagulls do. There is nothing about it to make you think it is NOT a seagull. So I'm guessing it's a seagull. But there is unlikely to ever be any way to be certain, it's just too far away.1637697160815.jpg

Yep, it's just another "low information zone" video.
 
Now everyone is seeing tic tacs after the term has entered public consciousness.
well that's perhaps because that's been the shape of many of these reported things over the years and Fravor just happened to invent the phrase tic tac. Thats all
 
Now everyone is seeing tic tacs after the term has entered public consciousness.
I've said it before I have no idea if it was intentional but it applies to a lot of common LIZ objects like distance planes and motion blurred birds.
 
If its a bird, its the fastest damned bird I've ever seen! At a rough calculation it covered maybe half a mile in under 2 seconds. Come on Mick...that's a bit lazy from you...dismissing it straight out as a bird. :p

What bird travels at that velocity, I'm intrigued. lol

I just made a pencil tip wizz across the entire face of the moon in well under 2 seconds.
This mysterious pixel seems to be powered by parallax drive.
 
This is the grid ref of the video location, searching it in Google Earth/Maps will take you there.

34SGH3378254835

The image overlay says top is north but this seems incorrect, top appears to be north east.

1637772063083.png

vlcsnap-2021-11-24-16h41m27s262.png
 
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If its a bird, its the fastest damned bird I've ever seen! At a rough calculation it covered maybe half a mile in under 2 seconds. Come on Mick...that's a bit lazy from you...dismissing it straight out as a bird. :p
He didn't dismiss it as a bird, he said that at a first look it looks like a bird. He's right, it does.
What bird travels at that velocity, I'm intrigued. lol
What velocity is it traveling at? To calculate that, you'd need to know how high and thus how close to the camera it is. To know that, if all you have us what's in the vid, you'd need to know how big it is. You'd also need info on the optics of the camera, possibly, people who know more camera stuff than I do can revise and extend that as appropriated. But in general, the smaller it is, the closer it is, and the slower it would be to cover the range in view of the camera.
 
well that's perhaps because that's been the shape of many of these reported things over the years and Fravor just happened to invent the phrase tic tac. Thats all

Yup, that is what people think was the shape. Looking like it does not make it actually shaped like a tic-tac.
 
If you have not seen it already, this thread is useful in understanding the issues in determining size/distance/speed of white indistinct objects seen from drones. Not 100% similar, as the object in question seems further away -- emphasis on "seems," early impressions are often wrong -- and the drone seems closer to stationary, but provides some useful info on how another case of something flying by a drone was investigated:
https://www.metabunk.org/utah-drone-video.t10370/#post-227888

Edited for an annoying typo
 
ok...

so to back up my claim (with some data) that this was no seagull. I have taken the distance of this stretch in the video from google maps (below)



So the distance is approx 311 metres. I think we would all agree the object takes approx 2 seconds to cover this distance. Therefore by my mathematical calculations, the object (which in my opinion is indeed cylindrical in appearance) has to be flying at a speed of somewhere around 700 MPH.

From Google - 'a seagull can fly between 15 and 28 km / h at an actual speed of 22 km'

So what kind of seagull is this?
 
Mick just said it was a bird, straight off the bat....about 5 minutes after I posted the original video. He is supposed to be a man who delves into data and loves to analyse the fine detail. Even at a glance you can see the object is moving at incredible speed. Clearly Mick couldn't be bothered with this one...just swatted it away with the old 'swamp gas' dismissal :p
 
ok...

so to back up my claim (with some data) that this was no seagull. I have taken the distance of this stretch in the video from google maps (below)



So the distance is approx 311 metres. I think we would all agree the object takes approx 2 seconds to cover this distance. Therefore by my mathematical calculations, the object (which in my opinion is indeed cylindrical in appearance) has to be flying at a speed of somewhere around 700 MPH.

From Google - 'a seagull can fly between 15 and 28 km / h at an actual speed of 22 km'

So what kind of seagull is this?
Your image is broken for me
 
I just made a pencil tip wizz across the entire face of the moon in well under 2 seconds.
This mysterious pixel seems to be powered by parallax drive.
Why would this guy want to do this?? He's clearly not some UFO chaser. Its a Greek tourist company which takes videos of Greece, you can tell he filmed this probably by accident. His long winded explanation appears completely plausible. Which, in my view, distinguishes it, from other random fake 'UFO' videos.
 
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so to back up my claim (with some data) that this was no seagull. I have taken the distance of this stretch in the video from google maps (below)



So the distance is approx 311 metres. I think we would all agree the object takes approx 2 seconds to cover this distance. Therefore by my mathematical calculations, the object (which in my opinion is indeed cylindrical in appearance) has to be flying at a speed of somewhere around 700 MPH.

From Google - 'a seagull can fly between 15 and 28 km / h at an actual speed of 22 km'

So what kind of seagull is this?
Is that the distance at ground level? Is the UFO at ground level? If it us higher, the distance it way less. I've done a fast and dirty diagram, using a beach ball instead of a tictac or a bird so as to maintain neutrality...

If the object crosses the field of view at ground level, and if the ground level distance is 311 meters, it's moving pretty fast. But if it is smaller and a higher, say at Distance 2, it covers less distance in the time alloted, and so is goin slower. If higher still, up around the Distance 3 line, the distance is still less and the speed even slower! To know how fast it is actually going, you need to know more than you know yet.

geek tictac distance.jpg
 
From Google - 'a seagull can fly between 15 and 28 km / h at an actual speed of 22 km'

Also, sorry to be nitpicky, but that citation isn't "from Google", it's from this page:

https://howtodiscuss.com/t/how-fast-does-a-seagull-fly/54167

which is chockablock full of really hilarious gobbledygook:

How fast does a seagull fly?

For example, a seagull can fly between 15 and 28 km / h at an actual speed of 22 km / h without increasing its metabolism by more than 15%. Most birds fly within 500 feet except during migration.

How long can a seagull fly?

Researchers have documented for the first time that birds can stay awake for more than six months through a crack.

Also, how does a seagull fly?

So far, Anderson said the bird's average altitude is 50 feet. The tallest a bird has flown is 124 feet. Aircraft must fly no less than 500 feet over open areas such as forests or waterways, or less than 1,000 feet over built-up areas, with the exception of take-off and landing.

And how fast do birds fly?

The cruising speed for most bird species is between 20 and 30 miles per hour. However, if they are tracked or are, they can certainly fly much faster.

What is the fastest flying bird in the world and how fast does it fly?

Peregrine Falcon

Why do seagulls scream?

Seagulls scream to warn of danger and to be ready to fly. They keep doing this, but after take off they get a little longer and deeper to fly somewhere.
Content from External Source

Sorry to be giving you a hard time - I'll bet most of us here felt we got a bit of a "baptism of fire" when we first joined - but good, well-informed sources are probably a better way to go than "the first hit on Google".

(NB: I'm not saying it's wrong on the speed. And am I glad you posted it: I got a good kick out of some of those sentences. :))
 
Is that the distance at ground level? Is the UFO at ground level? If it us higher, the distance it way less. I've done a fast and dirty diagram, using a beach ball instead of a tictac or a bird so as to maintain neutrality...

If the object crosses the field of view at ground level, and if the ground level distance is 311 meters, it's moving pretty fast. But if it is smaller and a higher, say at Distance 2, it covers less distance in the time alloted, and so is goin slower. If higher still, up around the Distance 3 line, the distance is still less and the speed even slower! To know how fast it is actually going, you need to know more than you know yet.

geek tictac distance.jpg
The drone is flying at 250m. His hunch (thought he can't be sure) is the object is halfway between the drone and the earth. So maybe at 120m above land perhaps. However I think you simply can't watch this without the clear impression it's moving very fast. Even at distance 2 its still probably moving at over 300 mph. Its clearly not a bird...and despite what other people say, when you see the zoom in, it definitely has a cylindrical appearance in my opinion.
 
f
Also, sorry to be nitpicky, but that citation isn't "from Google", it's from this page:

https://howtodiscuss.com/t/how-fast-does-a-seagull-fly/54167

which is chockablock full of really hilarious gobbledygook:

How long can a seagull fly?

Researchers have documented for the first time that birds can stay awake for more than six months through a crack.

Also, how does a seagull fly?

So far, Anderson said the bird's average altitude is 50 feet. The tallest a bird has flown is 124 feet. Aircraft must fly no less than 500 feet over open areas such as forests or waterways, or less than 1,000 feet over built-up areas, with the exception of take-off and landing.

And how fast do birds fly?

The cruising speed for most bird species is between 20 and 30 miles per hour. However, if they are tracked or are, they can certainly fly much faster.

What is the fastest flying bird in the world and how fast does it fly?

Peregrine Falcon

Why do seagulls scream?

Seagulls scream to warn of danger and to be ready to fly. They keep doing this, but after take off they get a little longer and deeper to fly somewhere.
Content from External Source

Sorry to be giving you a hard time - I'll bet most of us here felt we got a bit of a "baptism of fire" when we first joined - but good, well-informed sources are probably a better way to go than "the first hit on Google".

(NB: I'm not saying it's wrong on the speed. And am I glad you posted it: I got a good kick out of some of those sentences. :)

Further note any source using the colloquial term seagull is probably not the most accurate, gulls are a whole family of birds with many different species.

They are also not the only white birds this could be egrets, storks, swans could all be present around coastal areas.
 
My point was just this object is not a seagull....99% sure.
you are not 99% sure.
but you can figure the estimate of the boat sizes, then figure out the size of a seagull and do the math to show what altitude the seagull would have to be in order to be that size in relation to the boats.

then once you figure out the altitude, you can determine the speed.
 
The drone is flying at 250m.
OK, provisionally accepted subject to later verification request if that becomes imprtant.

His hunch (thought he can't be sure) is the object is halfway between the drone and the earth.
My hunch is that it is much closer to the drone. But like his hunch, my hunch is not evidence. We don't know.

So maybe at 120m above land perhaps. However I think you simply can't watch this without the clear impression it's moving very fast.
It can indeed give that mpression. Is that impression correct, or illusory?

Even at distance 2 its still probably moving at over 300 mph.
And if at Distance 3, still less. What about a hypothetical Distance 4, or 5? We don't know the distance. Recall that my diagram is not to any scale, it's just to demonstrate the shrinking distances as you go higher. There's room for a lot of shorter distances as you get closer to the camera, though like the beach ball the object would have to get smaller, at some point too small to be a bird. Which would open up "is it a bug? Is it wind-blown seed-fluff?" discussion. No reason to go there, yet, since we do not know the distance the object is below the camera.

Its clearly not a bird...
Or it is a bird, one of the two. :)
We'd need more data to find out.

and despite what other people say, when you see the zoom in, it definitely has a cylindrical appearance in my opinion.
As would be roughly what you'd expect with motion blur of a small moving object a few pixels across.
 
why would this guy want to do this?

I think he probably genuinely thinks it's something interesting.

the distance is approx 311 metres.

I estimate it at more like ~270m:

1637785775696.png
(I had enough fannying around with that, but the red line is 1.04x longer than the white line, therefore 272m.)

Its clearly not a bird

I mean, it looks like a bird to me. Among other things it could be.

it definitely has a cylindrical appearance in my opinion.

Aeroplanes with enormous wings also look like wingless white cylinders in photographs and videos.

oh for god sakes...lol...it was just a lightening quick grab from google search

They have higher standards here at metabunk. ;)

I think you simply can't watch this without the clear impression it's moving very fast.

Impressions are pretty unreliable. A good example of that is the recent "rubber duck" UFO:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/dhs-rubber-duck-footage.12054/

Believers - including some "experts" (including pilots, iirc) - thought it was travelling at between 90 and 200mph. Turns out it's more like 10-15mph.

I would think, if you're really set against it being a bird, the thing to do would be to exclude the bird hypothesis.

Some things we can use:

Drone height of ~250m
Ground distance travelled: ~270m
Time to cover 270m: idk - probably best to stick the video in a program where you can get a more accurate measurement
How big birds are: ?
How fast gulls fly: let's say up to 30mph

So with some triangles and trigonometry it's not too difficult to say something like: "an object travelling at 30mph would have to be at x altitude to cover the distance in this video."

Then you can work out what size the object is (assuming 30mph) and if it's completely unlike a bird's size - voila! Birds are off the table. :)
 
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I made a quick Google Sheets calculator for the various factors:

1637793442485.png

Will share when finished. But does anybody know what the equation is for estimating the length of an object given its distance; its size in pixels; and pixels per metre derived from a known distance please?

Anything else that should be added?
 
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So the distance is approx 311 metres. I think we would all agree the object takes approx 2 seconds to cover this distance. Therefore by my mathematical calculations, the object has to be flying at a speed of somewhere around 700 MPH.

311 metres in 2 seconds = 9330m per minute = 560 kmph = 348 mph if it's travelling along the ground

Did you maybe work it out for 311m in one second?

Though I've timed it a bit more precisely and it seems like ~1.3s to me.
 
I make the area covered by the video around 642x374 metres.

I loaded blender and added a rectangle of that size then set the camera to a wide angle 15 mm on 35mm sensor

I had to set a camera height of 550 metres to get coverage in the camera frame of the full area.

With a more usual 24mm FF equiv I have to got to 900 metres.
 
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yea its gotta be higher than 820 feet like the video says. the buildings at 840feet are alot bigger
1637799781151.png
 
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