UFOs Hovering Over AIR FORCE ONE At LAX Airport

[Rick Robson]

On three separate timestamps a live stream by LA Flights YT Channel captured on camera UFOs hovering over President Joe Biden's Air Force One as it taxied to a private gate at LAX Airport on December 10, 2023.
Here is the mentioned video:



Timestamps 2:24:00, 2:27:00 and 3:14:30.

 

[JMartJr]

Source: https://youtu.be/Gn0xAEMXhd8?t=8647



Source: https://youtu.be/Gn0xAEMXhd8?t=8824

(less distinct, at upper right corner)


Source: https://youtu.be/Gn0xAEMXhd8?t=11676

(enters frame at lower center over the "T" in "International)

 

[Rick Robson]

^Has it indeed been already discussed here?

 

[Alien Chess Fiend]

Has Mick West already explained that event away yet?

Third one looks like a balloon as the commentator says. Second one looks like a bird. First one could be either.

Not seeing anything that would need to be explained away. What is it that you think you're seeing?

 

[Mendel]

Has Mick West already explained that event away yet?

We explain (if we can). We have not discussed this footage yet.

UFOs hovering over President Joe Biden's Air Force One as it taxied to a private gate at LAX Airport

I don't see that in the footage.

I see white fuzzy blobs that don't do anything unusual; could be surveillance drones, birds, balloons, or wind-blown debris.

 

[Rick Robson]

Not seeing anything that would need to be explained away. What is it that you think you're seeing?

Thanks. No I thought it might rather be a metallic drone or something like that. But yea a bird might sound more reasonable to me. It's amazing how just anything like that can cause so much buzz about it on the web, mind you .

 

[Scaramanga]

On three separate timestamps a live stream by LA Flights YT Channel captured on camera UFOs hovering over President Joe Biden's Air Force One as it taxied to a private gate at LAX Airport on December 10, 2023.

Do we know which direction the cameras are facing ? I suspect the 'UFO' is actually Venus, which at magnitude -4.15 can actually be visible in broad daylight. It was about 40 degrees west of the Sun on the day in question. They say it is 'morning'....during most of which Venus was 50 degrees or so elevation in the sky. The 'UFO' looks exactly like what I'd expect with a zoom in on Venus, which actually has a distinct size, about 1/120th that of the Moon in the sky. So it would indeed look like a 'balloon' if zoomed in on closely. With a high zoom level Venus would also appear to be 'moving' across the sky.

At around 9am Venus would have been almost 60 degrees elevation in the sky ( even higher than in the illustration below )....which would correspond with them talking about it being so high in the sky for them recording. So...we need to know both the time and the direction of the video...especially the clip at 3:14:30 which I am almost certain is Venus.

 

[Nemon]

Has Mick West already explained that event away yet?

This is what he told the Daily Mail:

Author Mick West, who has become renowned as a UFO debunker, reviewed the Los Angeles orb footage for DailyMail.com and said his best guess was a balloon.

'That's what AARO would call a "balloon-like entity",' he said. 'It looks like a balloon and moves like a balloon, but as it's in the LIZ [low information zone], you can't prove it's a balloon.'



The object was filmed in the skies above LAX airport and experts say they cannot definitively state it was a balloon due to its position within the low information zone
West said that the object's apparent motion in the video is likely an illusion, due to it being closer to the camera than the fast-moving plane in the background.

'It appears to be a white object, not moving in the air, just moving with the wind, so zero airspeed,' he said. 'There's nothing to suggest it's not a balloon – you just can't prove it.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12886827/UFO-Air-Force-1-Joe-Biden-Los-Angeles-LAX.html

 

[Mick West]

What I wrote in full was:

That's what AARO would call "a balloon-like entity". It looks like a balloon and moves like a balloon, but as it's in the LIZ, you can't prove it's a balloon.

Note the direction of motion in all three cases. Exactly in the opposite direction to the plane. This is a common illusion in UAP videos where there's a large magnification, and you are tracking an object. A balloon that is not moving at all, that's much closer to the camera than the plane, will appear to move in the opposite direction to the tracked object. Maybe it's coincidentally moving exactly opposite, but more likely it's not moving, and the camera motion gives the illusion of motion.

You see this when the clip is stabilized on the plane

and then even more so with an echo

So it appears to be a white object, not moving in the air (just moving with the wind, so zero airspeed). Basically, there's nothing to suggest it's not a balloon - you just can't prove it.

 

[Eburacum]

The point-like object at 3:14:44 certainly looks like Venus. It is quite difficult to see Venus at 11:00 in the morning, but not impossible, and since this camera has a fairly powerful telephoto lens, it is not unlikely that Venus is the culprit here.


Source: https://youtu.be/Gn0xAEMXhd8?t=11684

 

[Scaramanga]

The point-like object at 3:14:44 certainly looks like Venus. It is quite difficult to see Venus at 11:00 in the morning, but not impossible, and since this camera has a fairly powerful telephoto lens, it is not unlikely that Venus is the culprit here.

Having watched more of the video, I have established that they are north of the east-west aligned runways...facing south. At the start of the video it shows the local time as 07.55 am, and you can see from that section of video that they are directly facing the Sun ( i.e you actually see the Sun in the Video )

And lo and behold.....look what is there 'high up in the sky' directly in the direction they are facing. It could not be more clear that it is Venus they are seeing....

Can't believe they even brought in Avi Loeb to comment on this on The Hill youtube site, and it never once occurs to him that it is Venus.

 

[Duke]

What I wrote in full was:

That's what AARO would call "a balloon-like entity". It looks like a balloon and moves like a balloon, but as it's in the LIZ, you can't prove it's a balloon.

Note the direction of motion in all three cases. Exactly in the opposite direction to the plane. This is a common illusion in UAP videos where there's a large magnification, and you are tracking an object. A balloon that is not moving at all, that's much closer to the camera than the plane, will appear to move in the opposite direction to the tracked object. Maybe it's coincidentally moving exactly opposite, but more likely it's not moving, and the camera motion gives the illusion of motion.

You see this when the clip is stabilized on the plane

View attachment 64781

and then even more so with an echo

View attachment 64782


So it appears to be a white object, not moving in the air (just moving with the wind, so zero airspeed). Basically, there's nothing to suggest it's not a balloon - you just can't prove it.

Won't venture a guess what that is, but those F-35s (and supporting KC-10) were almost certainly a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) protecting AF1 inbound to LAX. There would also have been an AWACS within radar range sweeping the skys around AF1. Between the aircrews' Mark 1 eyeballs, AWACS radar and advanced sensor suite on the F-35s, they would have picked up any unidentified object/craft anywhere near AF1 and assumed it hostile. In that case, AF1 would have never gotten near LAX. The fighters would have taken a blocking position and AF1 would have beat feet toward a pre-established divert base with the cavalry en route.

 

[Mendel]

Between the aircrews' Mark 1 eyeballs, AWACS radar and advanced sensor suite on the F-35s, they would have picked up any unidentified object/craft anywhere near AF1 and assumed it hostile.

• Obviously, the UAP exhibited advanced signature management.
• The UAP exhibited no aerodynamic means of lift.

Check for two of the five anomalous "observables" of TTSA, if you're a believer and not a debunker. Confirmation bias is wonderful.

 

[Nemon]

And lo and behold.....look what is there 'high up in the sky' directly in the direction they are facing. It could not be more clear that it is Venus they are seeing....

At 3:15:48 they say: "it's directly above us"; wouldn't be Venus rather "in front of us"? And they're saying: "It's moving — it's not a star. (…) they're flying in from the ocean. Very strange right now." Does that match your Venus model?

 

[Eburacum]

At 3:15:48 they say: "it's directly above us";

Who is providing this commentary? Is it live, or added later?
If the commentary was added later, then how do they know which direction it was moving, if any?

 

[Scaramanga]

At 3:15:48 they say: "it's directly above us"; wouldn't be Venus rather "in front of us"? And they're saying: "It's moving — it's not a star. (…) they're flying in from the ocean. Very strange right now." Does that match your Venus model?

It does. Firstly, people are notoriously unreliable at judging angular elevation. There were posts on the forum on that very issue not long ago. Someone judged an object to be at 45 degrees, when in fact it was at just 23 degrees...

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/so...in-the-sky-the-star-antares.13078/post-296692

Also, if you look at the planes in the video they are clearly not 'directly overhead'. They are at an angle that is perfectly consisted with being seen at 60 degrees elevation.

As for the object 'moving'.....he's making that comment while viewing the object through a zoom lens...which would increase the apparent motion across the sky of any stellar object. At 30 times magnification in my telescope the Moon quickly moves across the field of view. Also, he's observing a parallax effect ( as Mick West points out ) due to the planes moving past the object...which makes it appear the object is the thing moving. Shortly after the video clip he even states that he would not be able to capture the object again with the naked eye....so he's clearly not using naked eye to judge the 'speed' of the object.

 

[Scaramanga]

then how do they know which direction it was moving, if any?

We know which direction they are facing because near the start of the video you actually see the Sun in the sky in the south east...in the direction of the runways they are videoing. So we can establish they are north of the airport, facing more or less south. Which is pretty much the direction Venus was in....at 60 degrees elevation at 7.55am...the local time shown in the video. My Stellarium image above highlights this.

 

[Nemon]

Shortly after the video clip he even states that he would not be able to capture the object again with the naked eye....so he's clearly not using naked eye to judge the 'speed' of the object.

I'm not 100% sure about that. After all, he had previously filmed a plane in the video that was... I can't remember exactly... some 50 km away. This was touted as a record. So one would assume that he knows the effects of camera shake at zoom levels and the narrow angle of view. Anyway, I didn't watch it any further. How long would Venus have been in the observers field of vision assuming that it was not obscured by fog or something similar?

 

[Scaramanga]

I'm not 100% sure about that. After all, he had previously filmed a plane in the video that was... I can't remember exactly... some 50 km away. This was touted as a record. So one would assume that he knows the effects of camera shake at zoom levels and the narrow angle of view. Anyway, I didn't watch it any further. How long would Venus have been in the observers field of vision assuming that it was not obscured by fog or something similar?

I would not 'assume' anything of the sort. We have no idea how much actual camera experience he has. The US Navy's 'Go Fast' video shows that even the most experienced people can be fooled by parallax effects. Also, you are saying that you are 'not sure' about something the cameraman actually states himself. He himself says that if he lost the object in the camera view he would not be able to pick it up again with the naked eye. By definition that means he can only have been using the zoomed camera to judge the 'speed'....according to his own words.

As for how long Venus would have been visible........all morning and most of the afternoon in the sky itself. In a telephoto lens with high magnification it would move across the field of view at a speed dependent on the magnification and focal length. One is basically magnifying the rotation speed of the Earth. It makes any stellar object appear to 'move'.

I'm not clear why you are so determined the object was not Venus...when Venus was right there in the sky in the very direction and elevation the camera was pointing !

 

[Nemon]

I'm not clear why you are so determined the object was not Venus...when Venus was right there in the sky in the very direction and elevation the camera was pointing !

I'm not at all determined the object was not Venus.
I'm just not sure how to interpret the cameraman's statements and I wouldn't want to contradict you either.
Basically, the only thing that triggers something in me about this matter, and nothing positive at all, is that these profane pictures show again how much the UAP topic has taken on a life of its own and is largely misunderstood. This also means that Avi Loeb once again takes the opportunity to ramble on about his stuff instead of seriously contributing something to the immediate clarification. He says it's probably man made but immediately moves on to the Galileo project etc.

Edit: That Avi Loeb statement (from 0:50) was part of a video posted elswhere, not in this thread, was it?

Source: https://youtu.be/U2sxlvSUts4

 

[Eburacum]

In a telephoto lens with high magnification it would move across the field of view at a speed dependent on the magnification and focal length. One is basically magnifying the rotation speed of the Earth. It makes any stellar object appear to 'move'.

That's true. Anyone who has looked through a decent telescope would be familiar with this slow, steady movement. In the Northern hemisphere this is almost always from left to right, except for a region near the pole star, where the movement is more circular in nature.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

At 3:15:48 they say: "it's directly above us"; wouldn't be Venus rather "in front of us"? And they're saying: "It's moving — it's not a star. (…) they're flying in from the ocean. Very strange right now." Does that match your Venus model?

it's directly above us

Witnesses often use ambiguous language.

Some examples:

"It was over my head." In the same way that a light fixture on the ceiling 50 feet down the hallway is over your head. Meaning at a higher elevation. A compound error could occur when someone later pictures the UFO hovering a few feet directly above the witness.

"It was over my house." Meaning the way you could see a distant plane over the roof of your house. A compound error could occur when someone later pictures the UFO hovering directly over the house.

In this case the object is clearly not at the zenith. The witness is just complaining that he can't hold the camera easily at that angle. Hyperbole and sloppy language.

(BTW, the tone throughout the video is bit overdramatic; not just when the UFOs are in evidence, I should say. Understandable. They're trying to "sell" their video in an oversaturated entertainment market, in an era in which being overdramatic is pretty much the norm.)

It's moving... they're flying in from the ocean.

Cause and effect errors. Adding up to a narrative.
-Venus moves through the camera frame as the camera pans to keep the planes in frame = the UFO is passing by relative to the witnesses.
-Several different sightings of Venus = several different UFOs
-Narrative: several UFOs have been seen traveling past. Since they are "traveling inland" they must be coming in from the ocean.

it's not a star.

When a witness spontaneously says, "It's not X," there's a 95 percent chance it is X.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I don't think the rotation of the Earth is relevant. It's all camera movement. When Venus zooms thorugh the frame from left to right the camera is moving to our left. When Venus is "hovering" it's wiggling around in the frame due to the unsteady camera.

 

[MapperGuy]

How many of the LA TV channels were covering this live?
How many of the LA TV news helicopters were following the UFO around?
What has the FAA said about it? Have they halted flights into and out of the airport?
What has the Secret Service said about this? Are they transferring the POTUS to a secure location?
Local government comments? State government statements?
How many videos of the UFO have been posted on social media other than this one?

Events happening far from population centers might be seen by only a single person.
But events over a major city would have been observed and commented on by multitudes.
So the idea this is a misidentification is highly plausible.

 

[Scaramanga]

I don't think the rotation of the Earth is relevant. It's all camera movement. When Venus zooms thorugh the frame from left to right the camera is moving to our left. When Venus is "hovering" it's wiggling around in the frame due to the unsteady camera.

I think its a combination of all the factors....

1) Parallax effect of the planes passing Venus
2) Camera itself moving to the left to follow the planes...thus making Venus appear to move.
3) Magnification of movement of Venus in the sky due to zoom lens

The last one may well be the smallest component. It really depends how high the magnification of the lens was. The moon moves through an arc equivalent to its own diameter in about 2 minutes....same speed of motion applies to Venus, quarter of a degree every minute. That doesn't seem much until you start using zoom lens or telescope and your entire field of view may be only 1 degree. Even at 30x magnification in my telescope, the Moon quite visibly moves across the field of view.

 

[Mick West]

Venus does not seem to work.

Here's the sitch, the video is synced based on the on-screen clock. 11:08:37 PST is 19:08:37 ETC

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?sitch=laxuap

The green line points at Venus. The white line points at the KC-10. It's over 30° away.

It does pass a star at around that time, but it's not a particularly bright one.


Then the refueling shot at 10:18:08 (18:18:08 UTC). Video is not synced (as I only took a short clip). It's even further away.

18:21:08 is similar

So ... balloon-like entities?

 

[Mick West]

At 3:15:48 they say: "it's directly above us"; wouldn't be Venus rather "in front of us"? And they're saying: "It's moving — it's not a star. (…) they're flying in from the ocean. Very strange right now." Does that match your Venus model?

It wasn't "directly above" them. The white line here is the line of sight to the plane at that point. It's about 30° from vertical. But many people will still consider that to be "directly above". If you point straight up, or at 30°, then you are still pointing at the ceiling, and the ceiling is directly above you.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

As I pointed out earlier, that kind of ambiguous or sloppy language is common. In this case we have a video rather than a purely verbal description.

If ambiguous language is allowed to stand, errors can compound. When reading or hearing verbal descriptions of a UFO as overhead and big as a house, people tend to picture the UFOs as close, filling up one's field of view and straight up. So distant aircraft or Venus or balloon sightings become more dramatic. Something that couldn't be prosaic.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Venus does not seem to work.

Here's the sitch, the video is synced based on the on-screen clock. 11:08:37 PST is 19:08:37 ETC

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?sitch=laxuap
View attachment 64812

The green line points at Venus. The white line points at the KC-10. It's over 30° away.

It does pass a star at around that time, but it's not a particularly bright one.


Then the refueling shot at 10:18:08 (18:18:08 UTC). Video is not synced (as I only took a short clip). It's even further away.
View attachment 64811

18:21:08 is similar

View attachment 64813
So ... balloon-like entities?

Could this be one balloon-like entity seen several different times? What would the "flight-path" be in that case?

 

[Mick West]

I don't think so. The three shots don't make a line.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

In sequence:

First sighting: 10:18:08 PST
Second sighting: 10:21:08
Third sighting: 11:08:37

You have to concentrate on the relative positions of line of sight to Venus and line of sight to UFO.

First two could be the same object. The third doesn't fit.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

If sighting one and two are the same object, this is very roughly the flight path. From north to south. The line isn't meant to represent start and end points. Just to give a rough idea. I may be making an error, so this needs to be checked.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I remember one witness repeatedly asking something like "Who uses white balloons"? Well that's pretty obvious, isn't it?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

They don't have to be weather balloons.

Amazon
60 Pcs Memorial Balloons White Funeral Balloons White Latex Balloons 12 in

At a wedding

 

[Mick West]

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?sitch=laxuap

I've tweaked it a bit, adding a sphere that's along one LOS with an offset so it appears in the right place

What's interesting here is the size. This is set to 1 foot, which is small for a balloon. To get it the correct scale this needs to be over 12,000 feet up! More if it's a larger balloon. See the two LOS Sphere parameters for tweaking.

This makes me lean a little in the direction of it being something even smaller, like some seed fluff - something that's just an inch or so in size, and more like 1,000 feet up.

Some type of drone is not impossible. Even small drones can get over 10,000 feet. Not a good idea over LAX, of course.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/how-high-can-a-helium-balloon-float

How high can a helium balloon float?

Helium makes your voice go high, but how close balloons go to space will surprise you.

Watching them fly off up into the sky, there seems no limit to how high a helium balloon can go. In reality, there are two major constraints: the strength of the balloon material, and Archimedes' principle. As a balloon ascends, the pressure of the surrounding air drops while the helium inside expands. Toy balloons burst at around 10km, while professional meteorological balloons reach heights of 30km.

Note that toy balloons = latex, not mylar.

https://www.quora.com/How-high-can-...-balloon-travel-if-it-is-inflated-with-helium

Mark Barton
·
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Gravitational Wave Researcher at University of Glasgow (2019–present)6y

Not so high, and in particular not so high as latex balloons, because the Mylar is strong but very unyielding, so sooner rather than later it has to withstand a large fraction of atmospheric pressure. One study found an average of about 1.5 km and a maximum of 4.5 km - see Balloon Study

12km = 39,000 feet. So no reason these can't be a swarm of 12 inch latex balloons.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?sitch=laxuap

I've tweaked it a bit, adding a sphere that's along one LOS with an offset so it appears in the right place
View attachment 64824

I have a question about Video Zoom % 295
-How is this defined? What does percent of video zoom mean?

-Are you getting the number - 295 in this case - from metadata?

I'm wondering if video zoom is another way of saying digital zoom? Maybe 295 percent is a (digital) zoom range factor?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Does the program get LOS Sphere dist ft 12725 from manually putting in LOS Sphere size ft 1 (a reasonable estimate of 1 foot in diameter)?

The program looks at the proportional size of the sphere within the frame and compares it to the FOV of the camera frame (in degrees) and comes up with an angular diameter of the sphere in degrees? Then given an (estimated) absolute size of 1 foot in diameter, it comes up with a distance along the camera's line of sight of 12,725 feet? That wouldn't be an altitude.

Plane Camera FOV 1.61 means the apparent diameter of the airplane is 1.61 degrees? (A Full Moon is 1/2 degree.)

What does Main FOV 30 mean? 30 what?

 

[tobigtofool]

They don't have to be weather balloons.

Amazon
60 Pcs Memorial Balloons White Funeral Balloons White Latex Balloons 12 in
View attachment 64822


At a wedding
View attachment 64823

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

You've attached a photo of the infamous Chinese Balloon. So you mean maybe it's a giant balloon?

But I think we've established that there's more than one of these balloon-like entities.

And it would have to be impossibly high.