Triangular UFO filmed in San Diego, California, June 2010

[Ovniologia]

Witness description: "I filmed a Black Triangular UFO hovering over the San Diego (CA) neighborhood on June 13, 2010. I used a Sony TRV-99 camcorder... sorry, no tripod. The UFO hovered for 5 minutes, in complete silence, and then disappeared."

Relevant debate taking place in this Reddit post:
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1dwutbz/awesome_black_triangle_footage_san_diego/


Sorry if there's anything wrong with the post, I'm from Brazil, I don't speak English and I created the account today.

 

[SuppaCoup]

perhaps a very distant airplane or helicopter viewed at an angle such that small course corrections make its visible lights shift position enough to create weird illusory movements? Those lights look very reminiscent of some kind of aircraft.

 

[Eburacum]

There is definitely a triangular shape hidden there in all that noise.

The fact that it isn't moving very fast rules out most types of aircraft.

I suspect some kind of hoax - although whether the person making the video is the hoaxer or the victim I can't tell. It might be an illuminated kite or tethered balloon with lights. The witness claims he didn't see it disappear (he posted at Above Top Secret).
https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread602439/pg4

I filmed the black triangle UFO, referenced in this topic, on 6/13/10 and posted it on YT about a week later.
Let me start off by saying that I realize the video leaves much to be desired. It certainly didn't do the experience justice. Additionally, with hindsight, I agree that using the "audioswap" feature on YT was a mistake, as the original audio confirms that this baby made no sound, whatsoever. With enough interest, I'll re-post with the original audio. However, I really didn't offer any commentary, as I was filming. The original audio captures my fumbling with the camera, which was the reason for initially wanting to replace it.
I live in the Rancho Penasquitos area of San Diego, which is a few miles north of MCAS Miramar. I spotted the craft from my car, a few blocks before pulling into my driveway. I went inside and headed straightaway for my backyard, to get a better look and observed the UFO for a minute or two, before going back inside to grab my video camera. The UFO hovered silently, for about 3 more minutes, at an altitude of ~150 meters over one of the rooftops, a few houses down my street. I stopped recording to go back inside, grab my laser pointer and then head out front and down the street, for a closer look. In the 30-45 seconds this took, the UFO had disappeared. My intention was not only to get a closer shot, without so much zoom, but I also had in mind to use the laser pointer to see if it would reflect off of the craft, or perhaps illicit a reaction from the UFO.
Having lived near MCAS (formerly NAS) Miramar, for almost 20 years, I'm very familiar with the conventional-type of aircraft flown in, out and over the base. I've seen all the standard jets and helicopters, including some of the newer models, but also the B1B, B2 and F117A fly over (albeit during airshows), and this was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like ANYTHING I've EVER seen live and directly. There are some vids on YT that look similar, but not exactly the same.

 

[Eburacum]

If this object was really hovering at a height of 150 metres above a house down the street, it wasn't huge.

 

[JMartJr]

The fact that it isn't moving very fast rules out most types of aircraft.

Unless it is flying towards us?

 

[NorCal Dave]

Unless it is flying towards us?

Yeah, the landing lights of a slowly banking AC head towards the camera maybe? I also thought the lights looked a lot like one light and an internal lens reflection kind of thing, but maybe not.

 

[John J.]

Some opinions on Reddit might be described as "unimpressed",

-Though some are confident it's a US stealth aircraft ("Aurora" was mentioned).
Several posters on the Above Top Secret website that Eburacum provided a link for state (or imply) they see black triangles quite frequently- the discussion was in 2010.

I've played around with screengrabs using my very basic photo software, at one point thought maybe I could see a triangle but decided it was pareidolia amongst the various splodges of dark grey and black. Posters on Above Top Secret are persuaded that they can resolve a triangle.

The vid's timestamp reads 7:45:00 pm (19:45) to 7:46:34 pm, 13 June 2010.

A Reddit user stated that it would be unlikely to be this dark at that time in San Diego, another mentioned that maybe the timestamp hadn't been adjusted for daylight savings (so actual time 20:45).
But even if that were correct, would it really be so dark?

-Data from "timeanddate" website, no idea if it's reliable. (Table edited for brevity).

I live at a higher latitude, so I'm used to summer evenings being light for quite a long time after sunset- but would it be as dark as the film suggests 48 minutes after sunset in San Diego, in June?

 

[NorCal Dave]

A Reddit user stated that it would be unlikely to be this dark at that time in San Diego, another mentioned that maybe the timestamp hadn't been adjusted for daylight savings (so actual time 20:45).
But even if that were correct, would it really be so dark?

According to the chart you posted, sunset was at 19:57 or 7:57pm. So, if the camera time stamp is correct it doesn't work, the sun had not even set yet. If the camera is off by an hour, then it was filmed at 8:45pm or ~00:48 after sunset. I think it would still be a bit light, especially if he was filming towards the west.

I'm about 500-600 miles north of that part of San Diego and sunset today is at 8:37pm, so I'll check out the sky 00:48 later or around 9:25pm. Should be getting dark.

More importantly, is this "case" trending again? It's from 14 years ago and by the claimants own admission on Above Top Secret:

Let me start off by saying that I realize the video leaves much to be desired. It certainly didn't do the experience justice.

It's just a bad video of some lights in the sky, why is it back around again?

Also, right at the very end, another similar light appears for a split second to the right as well as some sort of outline. I can't seem to advance and shuttle back and forth in the video like on YouTube. Best I could do, different light to the right after the UFO fades, likely do to the zoom out of the camera:

Maybe some buildings or something, but there is a brief moment when part of the screen lightens just a bit, possibly the auto-exposure. And the new light on the right is now dancing around due to camera shake:

 

[John J.]

Out of focus, but a hint of cyan/ magenta; conventional navigation lights? Should be green and red but distance/ atmosphere, camera's colour balance in low light etc....

Aircraft carry a green light at right, red at left

If they are nav lights, and the aircraft is right-way up, it would seem to be heading towards us
(or at least the nose is closer than the tail), e.g.

(no specific a/c types intended!)
The aircraft could also be nose-up of course.



Definitely a hint of landscape, but rather brief (brightness+, exposure+, contrast-)

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

clearer and longer

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

My best guess... It's an ordinary fixed wing aircraft. Very distant. We are only seeing two landing lights and not the dimmer navigation lights. It was not hovering. That is simply the familiar hovering illusion due to the aircraft being very distant and moving - mostly - along the line of sight of the witness. Straight toward or pretty much straight toward the witness, in other words.

There are a some quirks here that make it look strange. Color changes and the inability of the camera to record light sources below a certain threshold.

It's been noted that the sky is too dark for the time, place and season. But the darkness of the scene is easily explained: the lens was stopped down too far. It's an underexposed image. This is an important point because the plane was actually in a relatively bright sky and therefore there was less contrast between the lights on the plane and the sky. The dynamic range of the camera was reduced by this low contrast lighting situation.

Note that the lights cycle through a number of colors. I toyed with the idea that this was a model and the lights are LEDs cycling through the colors of the rainbow. But note that the sky itself is cycling through different colors. At one point it is red and shortly after that it's green. The lights were not changing color. They are bright white landing lights. They are not red or green navigation lights. The apparent colors are artifacts.

Note at this point that the lights suddenly appear out of a dark sky.


This is not due to the camera moving nor the object moving. This is due only to the lens zooming in. At a certain point the landing lights are bright enough for the sensor to record... and they suddenly appear. This isn't just about brightness, but also about low contrast between the lights and the relatively bright sky. The landing light on our right blinks on and off simply because it's right on the edge of being bright enough/contrasty enough for the sensor. The one on our left wavers also, for the same reason. When the lens zooms in more, the lights become steady. The navigation lights never reached the brightness/contrast threshold and were never recorded by the sensor. No, not even a xenon flash. A quirk of the camera and the lighting conditions.

The dark splotch which can, sometimes, be imagined to be triangular, is a tricky artifact. To me it looks like an ordinary fixed wing aircraft in partial profile, moving mostly toward us and also somewhat across our line of sight to our right. I have no confidence in that.

I think the most likely scenario is that this is an ordinary airliner heading toward an airport.

 

[Landru]

A Reddit user stated that it would be unlikely to be this dark at that time in San Diego, another mentioned that maybe the timestamp hadn't been adjusted for daylight savings (so actual time 20:45).
But even if that were correct, would it really be so dark?

-Data from "timeanddate" website, no idea if it's reliable. (Table edited for brevity).

I live at a higher latitude, so I'm used to summer evenings being light for quite a long time after sunset- but would it be as dark as the film suggests 48 minutes after sunset in San Diego, in June?

If the actual time is 20:45 then that would place it during the period of Nautical Twilight.

Article:

Nautical Twilight:
Begins in the morning, or ends in the evening, when the geometric center of the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon. In general, the term nautical twilight refers to sailors being able to take reliable readings via well known stars because the horizon is still visible, even under moonless conditions. Absent fog or other restrictions, outlines of terrestrial objects may still be discernible, but detailed outdoor activities are likely curtailed without artificial illumination.

Source: https://www.weather.gov/lmk/twilight-types

Note the disclaimer "absent fog or other restrictions." I lived in San Diego for 11 years and there is a term for the usual weather conditions that occur that time of year, June Gloom. Other notes, San Diego is a big area. There are at least four airfields that I know of off the top of my head. San Diego Lindbergh (near downtown), North Island Naval Airstation (across the bay in Coranado), Miramar Marine Corps Air Station and Montgomery.

A typical approach into San Diego Lindbergh (R27):

https://www.flightaware.com/resources/airport/KSAN/IAP/RNAV+(GPS)+Y+RWY+27

 

[jdog]

I live in San Diego. Sunset has been at about 8 p.m. for the last couple of weeks. Fireworks at Seaworld start up around 9 p.m.; there were some starting as early as 8:45 p.m. on July 4, so it's definitely dark enough.

In an oddly related note, I went in my back yard during the fireworks to see if I could see any, since there are several shows within a few miles of us in northern San Diego and I noticed a weird green light in the sky, not moving at all. Realized it was two green lights blinking on and off -- off for a count of three, on for a count of two. Then it sank in that it was a drone getting aerial footage of at least one of the displays; presumable the red lights were on the opposite side.

It was maybe 35-45 degrees up from the horizon, but there was no way to estimate distance or altitude and if I think back on it I'm sure I'd imagine some incorrect details.

 

[Ridcully]

There is definitely a triangular shape hidden there in all that noise.

The fact that it isn't moving very fast rules out most types of aircraft.

I had a look at the video and heavily increased the brightness. Most parts of the video just show color noise from the compression artifacts but between second 00:18 and 00:28 in the original video the quality is a bit better due to the camera having focus. I cut that part of the video out, increased the brightness and reduced the frame rate a little:

From the original video:

From the Youtube video:

To me the shadow looks very much like a plane.

 

[Ridcully]

Hmm, looks like the videos were not uploaded correctly. I did not see an error during the upload. Is there a constraint to the video format?

 

[Ridcully]

I had a look at the video and heavily increased the brightness. Most parts of the video just show color noise from the compression artifacts but between second 00:18 and 00:28 in the original video the quality is a bit better due to the camera having focus. I cut that part of the video out, increased the brightness and reduced the frame rate a little:

From the original video:
Your browser is not able to display this video.

From the Youtube video:
Your browser is not able to display this video.

To me the shadow looks very much like a plane.

Seems like the video player is not able to handle the original video format I uploaded. I converted the videos and tested in the sandbox, now it seems to work. Sorry for the redundant posts.

From the original video:

From the Youtube video:

Edit : finally managed to repair the broken videos. Replaced the videos in this post since I did not want to create a new post (again). Sorry for the trouble.

 

[jdog]

Seems like the video player is not able to handle the original video format I uploaded. I converted the videos and tested in the sandbox, now it seems to work. Sorry for the redundant posts.

From the original video:
View attachment 69908

From the Youtube video:
View attachment 69909

Edit : finally managed to repair the broken videos. Replaced the videos in this post since I did not want to create a new post (again). Sorry for the trouble.

You're also dealing with compression artifacts from the original camera -- the Sony TRV-99 originally came out in 1998 and recorded analog signals onto Hi8 8mm tape. (I used to have a similar model.) It had a "NightShot" feature for trying to trying to extract more detail in the dark, mostly with the help of an infrared emitter next to the lens.

Then whoever posted the video shot with the then-12-year-old camera would have had to digitize the tape into a video file of roughly 720x480 pixels, which converts the signal yet again; you used to have to wire the camera up to a capture device which you'd plug into your computer. Then you have compression of the image when you or YouTube or your streaming server prepare the video for streaming.

There might have been a triangular object darker than the night sky between and above those two points of light, but it could well be an artifact of 26-year-old technology or a later compression algorithm; I wouldn't bet any money on it.

 

[Ridcully]

You're also dealing with compression artifacts from the original camera -- the Sony TRV-99 originally came out in 1998 and recorded analog signals onto Hi8 8mm tape. (I used to have a similar model.) It had a "NightShot" feature for trying to trying to extract more detail in the dark, mostly with the help of an infrared emitter next to the lens.

Then whoever posted the video shot with the then-12-year-old camera would have had to digitize the tape into a video file of roughly 720x480 pixels, which converts the signal yet again; you used to have to wire the camera up to a capture device which you'd plug into your computer. Then you have compression of the image when you or YouTube or your streaming server prepare the video for streaming.

There might have been a triangular object darker than the night sky between and above those two points of light, but it could well be an artifact of 26-year-old technology or a later compression algorithm; I wouldn't bet any money on it.

Yes, unfortunately the video only contained very little information.

However if watched over a few seconds the barely visible shadow does not look like a strict triangle to me. The two edges faces in the direction of the camera look a bit curved. Much like a plane would look like from this perspective. Which would also fit with the green and red positioning lights.

But as you said, that could of course very well be the result of the compression artifacts, so I wouldn't bet any money either.

 

[FatPhil]

Yes, unfortunately the video only contained very little information.

However if watched over a few seconds the barely visible shadow does not look like a strict triangle to me. The two edges faces in the direction of the camera look a bit curved. Much like a plane would look like from this perspective. Which would also fit with the green and red positioning lights.

But as you said, that could of course very well be the result of the compression artifacts, so I wouldn't bet any money either.

It might not be irretrievable, as we have multiple frames. Stabilising on the plane, rescaling/rotating as necessary to get all the objects to line up as closely as possible, and then averaging over many frames should decrease the noise (not sure if I should add "significantly" here - if you can gather 25 frames, you could reduce the noise by a factor of up to 5 (noise on different frames isn't independent, alas, so that's an upper bound, but if the object doesn't remain stationary compared to the macroblock grid, the worst parts of DCT quantisation noise can be so addressed - and that seems to be the harshest bit of the noise) - is that "significant"?) Once you've done that, there might be something that can have its levels adjusted, and some (un)sharpening applied. However, given the size of the object I suspect you would get little more than the answer to the actual-triangle vs. not-quite triangle question. (But the EHT, and the crisp packet reflection microphone have told me understimating how much data can be extracted from so little apparent signal can be a mistake.)

 

[Ridcully]

It might not be irretrievable, as we have multiple frames. Stabilising on the plane, rescaling/rotating as necessary to get all the objects to line up as closely as possible, and then averaging over many frames should decrease the noise (not sure if I should add "significantly" here - if you can gather 25 frames, you could reduce the noise by a factor of up to 5 (noise on different frames isn't independent, alas, so that's an upper bound, but if the object doesn't remain stationary compared to the macroblock grid, the worst parts of DCT quantisation noise can be so addressed - and that seems to be the harshest bit of the noise) - is that "significant"?)

Good idea.

I tinkered a little bit and managed to stabilize the object as best as I could. The extremely low details makes this a bit tricky for the OpenCV object tracking so the result is still a bit shaky. After stabilizing the video I applied a mix filter from ffmpeg with the configuration to blend 25 frames. As I understood the documentation this does not merge these 25 frames into one frame rather it "smears" 25 adjacent frames. The result should be the comparable to merging the frames. (See documentation under https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#tmix)

However the result is still mostly just a blurry blob. It is hard to tell of the edges are curved or straight. I am still leaning to curved but I could understand if somebody would argue otherwise. Its a gray area (pun intended).

Once you've done that, there might be something that can have its levels adjusted, and some (un)sharpening applied. However, given the size of the object I suspect you would get little more than the answer to the actual-triangle vs. not-quite triangle question.

I am hesitant to apply further filters like sharpening or increasing the contrast. Up until now I only applied filters to the video that should not "invent" new information. I increased the brightness, removed the saturation, cropped and trimmed and stabilized twice. Then I added the mix filter which smooths the information over time but should not add something.

However increasing the contrast or trying to sharpen a video with such low contrast is likely to generate some visual information that is not present in the original video. Therefor I skipped that part.

(But the EHT, and the crisp packet reflection microphone have told me understimating how much data can be extracted from so little apparent signal can be a mistake.)

There is probably more information hiding somewhere in the video. Sadly I have just started playing around with OpenCV and ffmpeg and well... one step at a time. If you have any hints or ideas I would be happy to investigate further.