Video purportedly from Afghanistan showing some "dripping" objects

I've seen this before, usually just the short clip where the missile or whatever hits them. It was claimed that the objects were some sort of IR targets suspended under balloons, either for target practice or to draw fire away from a valuable target. Never saw anybody back that part up, though.

As I typed, Mick was typing, too, so yeah, what he said. If anybody has examples of such flares being used as targets for heat seeking missiles or the like, that would probably wrap it up.
 
The full video dates back to at least JUl 13, 2017
(embedding disabled)
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmgrkDdcU9A

External Quote:

Possible Nocturnal Show of Force Afghanistan


Arturo J. Mireles
79 subscribers

22,111 views Jul 13, 2017
22,111 views • Jul 13, 2017
10th Mountain Light Infantry Division
3Brigade Combat Team (Spartan)
2nd Battalion 87th Infantry Regiment (Catamount)
Bravo Company (Blackhawk)

Kandahar 2011

A-10 Warthog makes contact directly or with a sidewinder at 1:53

I left my own ethnoctentricism as an Infantryman and started viewing this in the context of a field artillery mission. Not being an expert in their field, I started observing through the context described. I would rather understand than push lore. Honestly thought there was something more to this, but as one challenger pointed out, they were having fun with targets.... and I also think it was a Nocturnal show of force to the enemy.

Pseudoscience must always be combated through presenting data, I would rather admit that I was a gullible Private First Class when I made the conclusion based off of my own experience.
After discussing my experience with family members, I believe the lights I saw moving on a mountain was that... Firelight fighters moving through, in and out of the caves in the Southern Bowl of mountains that surrounded FOB Shank and OP English. Exposing Pseudoscience is important issue anthropologists and archaeologists face... Whether it is Air Force Special Reconnaissance putting up combat communication satellites with weather balloons or a Nocturnal Infrared Fire Mission.

Although I still would like to study the culture around prayer, I think documenting coordinated American Badassery is cooler than any UFO.

After debating with many people on this issue, I am ready to debate people within my unit on this in the context as a fire mission.

I will be doing a full analysis of the video soon.

Shout out to A T for explaining the video thoroughly.



 
JMartJr said:
I've seen this before, usually just the short clip where the missile or whatever hits them.
Click to expand...
I don't think it actually hits them. I think it's an A-10 releasing flares near them. You can see just before it "hits" the second one, the flare is already being deployed
2024-11-16_13-50-55.jpg
 
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Mick West said:
I don't think it actually hits them. I think it's an A-1o releasing flares near them. You can see just before it "hits" the second one, the flare is already being deployed
Click to expand...
I believe you are likely correct. Which raises the question, why release flares next to parachute flares?* Might they be "targets" for a practice run of releasing flares at a specific point? If so, why?

Don;t know if this is the case for everybody, but trying to look at specific bits of the video link provided by moleculo takes me over to that webpage in a sort of annoying way, this should embed a copy of the same video from a UFO channel over on YouTube, which might be a little easier to navigate from this page:

Source: https://youtu.be/Q4vkOhXaCwA?t=20


* I had not seen the full video before, and had thought they were suspended under balloons, and tethered, which made me think of "target practice." In the full video, they pretty clearly settle towards the ground, making them act more like they are under parachutes, so that's my working assumption for the moment.
 
JMartJr said:
* I had not seen the full video before, and had thought they were suspended under balloons, and tethered, which made me think of "target practice." In the full video, they pretty clearly settle towards the ground, making them act more like they are under parachutes, so that's my working assumption for the moment.
Click to expand...
I agree, parachutes seem to be what is happening. They are a lot further away than they look, so the descent is slow.

Should be able to do some calculations assuming that actually is an A-10 (as the original video states). Note the speed seems off, about 50% fast, based on the clock in the lower right.
 
This video is really confusing when the subtitles prime you to see what's coming as a missile that's hitting both targets.

For me at least, it tricked my brain into thinking the objects are much closer than they might otherwise appear, and this in turn made the slow fall much more confusing than it otherwise might have been. Once my brain already assumed a distance and speed, reading it might have been an A-10 instead of a rocket still didn't click because that still wouldn't explain the slow flares (despite the fact that the idea that the flares are close came from assuming the object was a rocket).

It took me until I read this
Mick West said:
They are a lot further away than they look, so the descent is slow.
Click to expand...
to re-evaluate how far the flares might actually be, and once I did, the slow descent made a lot more sense, as does the object not hitting the flares (since thinking about it, firing a rocket/missile with the expectation that it will go through a target and into the next is kind of weird, though maybe it isn't)
 
Very roughly. On this clip, It's about 50 pixels long, an a-10 is 53 feet long it travels about 567 pixels in 1 second of video, or 567/50 it's own length, or 53*567/50 feet, per second. Or about 400 mph. Around the top speed of an A-10.
 
Calter said:
This video is really confusing when the subtitles prime you to see what's coming as a missile that's hitting both targets.
Click to expand...

That's the power of suggestion for you.

What struck me was how the fact that the "missile" detonated twice and then kept going completely intact didn't seem to register with many people.
 
Ann K said:
Agreed, they're flares ...but what is the blinking "FAULT" on the top right?
Click to expand...
It likely means one of the auxiliary systems devices that provides the telemetry that would be present there is not connected/malfunctioning/not configured correctly.

For instance if there was a laser range finder range configured to display there and it was not providing an expected feed then the device would let the operator know.
 
Mick West said:
Very roughly. On this clip, It's about 50 pixels long, an a-10 is 53 feet long it travels about 567 pixels in 1 second of video, or 567/50 it's own length, or 53*567/50 feet, per second. Or about 400 mph. Around the top speed of an A-10.
View attachment 73207
Click to expand...
This also mean that if the claim it is a Sidewinder missile (~10 feet) is correct then it is moving at 77mph which is nowhere near fast enough for a sidewinder missile.

(sources for Sidewinder AIM-9X missile length)

https://www.af.mil/News/Art/igphoto/2000420237/#:~:text=AIM-9X Next Generation Sidewinder.,in., wingspan 13.9 in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder
 
jimmyslippin said:
I found this video on Youtube showing an A-10 dropping a bunch of flares in pretty much the exact same manner.
Click to expand...
To avoid confusion, the aircraft in the still image is not the A-10, this is the A-10, which is a smaller plane, as seen in the video link.

Capture.JPG
 
On X, someone posted (and I can't find it now) that it looked like a test of an automatic anti-missile countermeasure deployment. Suggesting that the flares are simulating an incoming missile. I don't know about that, as it seems like the countermeasures are deployed too late. But it's an interesting idea.
 
Geolocating it would be cool, here's a panorama of the mountains. The flare area is tiny, inset in the right
mountain pan with detailed overlay.jpg


Here's a vertical pan from the base:

full vertical pan - 01.jpg
 
20x video (edit to just segments showing flares) clearly shows the descent

 
Mick West said:
They are target thermal flares, suspended from balloons or parachutes, the dripping is the flare burning.

This is pretty old video, and has been explained before.
Click to expand...

Indeed, the Daily Mail reported the story last week as if it was amazing new video, but my first thought was ' I'm sure I've seen these videos before '
 

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I think the base was known as Combat Out Post (COP) Ashoque. I cant find any records or maps identifying that area specifically, but there was a COP Ashoque in the Zhari district of Kandahar province which this location is, there's a town 4.4km to the east called Ashoqah and Google Maps shows a building nearby called "Da khalozo Ashoqa".

This military newsletter has a story and photos of COP Ashoque
1731952352333.png

https://media-cdn.dvidshub.net/pubs/pdf_8602.pdf

I also found these images elswhere that refer to COP Ashoque.
1731952207655.png 1731951173201.png

I think these features around the small bridge confirm that the base in the newsletter is the base in Google Earth.
1731952587024.png



This shows the proximity to the Da khalzo Ashoka.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Da+khalozo+Ashoqa+alkozai+دخالوزو+عاشقه+الکوزي‭/@31.5936194,65.4948268,929m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!1m7!3m6!1s0x3ed67700704de665:0xf3a2d319fcc9c93b!2sFOB+WALTON!8m2!3d31.6167827!4d65.7947076!16s/g/11vx2ft_7r!3m5!1s0x3ed66978fc1534ad:0xdc1d56485dfb1c84!8m2!3d31.5944922!4d65.4973109!16s/g/11nn1776yb?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTExMy4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw==
1731950971519.png

31.592852018118244, 65.49316420249453
 
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Don't often post on here, however was interested to see video being flagged on the Daily Mail website earlier this week under the headline "Bombshell 10-minute video shows UFO swarm 'completely unaffected' by missile attack outside military base."

The fact I can't see reference to the clear reality in the post, or any of the many comments, is somewhat depressing...
 
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JustSteve said:
Don't often post on here, however was interested to see video being flagged on the Daily Mail website earlier this week under the headline "Bombshell 10-minute video shows UFO swarm 'completely unaffected' by missile attack outside military base."

The fact I can't see reference to the clear reality in the post, or any of the many comments, is somewhat depressing...
Click to expand...
It might be worth contacting Kelly Garino and highlighting this thread to see if she would like to publish a follow up report explaining the video:

1732031047240.png



1732030927800.png

source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/profile-2481/kelly-garino.html
 
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Great point, John. I would love to think that any journalist "worth their salt" would have done some rudimentary fact-checking before publishing.

And, indeed, she may well have done, to be fair. But "boringly explicable solution" and "easily clickable thrill-bait" do not good bed-fellows make, I fear...

And so, for the sake of my sanity, in a world where critical thinking has seemingly gone walkies, I joined Metabunk. I might not have the IQ, or technical experience to do what some of you do, but I sure enjoy reading it :)
 
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