What could Dav Kaufman's UFO be?

[Alytha]

Reptile Adventurer Dav Kaufman had a weird experience in Australia recently (don't have any date, unfortunately):



Filmed near Silverton, New South Wales, on the border with South Australia, as per his narration.

The thing, whatever it is, doesn't seem to be moving much, so probably not a plane or a satellite for once?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Tentatively...

The landing lights of a distant aircraft approaching Broken Hill Airport. And the well known hovering illusion. A distant aircraft heading more or less along the line of sight of the camera appears to "hover."

The lights are distorted by the atmosphere. Over a desert like that the ground cools rapidly, creating strong temperature gradients. The refractive index of air depends on temperature and density. The air breaks into constantly shifting cells with slightly different refractive indices. Scintillation, in other words.

Why such a short video segment? Because the object eventually resolved into a recognizable fixed wing aircraft?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

The runway points generally to the northeast. A plane miles to the northeast of the airport would also be visible, fairly head on, from the Silverton area.

If you continued to watch it, it would eventually move slowly to the right. To a naive witness it could appear as strictly lateral movement to the right, because the plane is not moving straight toward the camera.

All well known stuff.

Eventually that movement would start to look more like a movement across the line of sight of the camera... if you showed the full video...

 

[flarkey]

Some wide angle views:

Do we have an date & time other than 'a couple of weeks ago'...?

 

[jarlrmai]

It should be geo-locatable, there's one main road with centre lines and the double non dashed lines only appear at rises and dips to prevent overtaking.

You can also see lights in the distance down the road, like a town glow

Where does the Silverton location information come from I couldn't find it on the video or comments/description.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

You can also see lights in the distance down the road, like a town glow.

Likely the town of Broken Arrow. We'd need to know what highway they're on.

I'd guess the A32...

 

[jarlrmai]

Likely the town of Broken Arrow. We'd need to know what highway they're on.

It's called Broken Hill...

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Wow. Broken Arrow was an old TV show I watched as a kid. You never know what my stutter will bring up.

 

[jarlrmai]

The problem with the road from Silverton to Broken Hill is that it has outer lines but the section we see in the video does not, and it doesn't seem as if they are covered just never painted. So that almost more likely puts it somewhere on the road north of Silverton which is not painted with outer lines

 

[flarkey]

From Dav Kaufman's Facebook page , he was in Australia from 20 to 30 March, no additional videos though.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1DpQBYGL6N/

 

[jarlrmai]

Likely the town of Broken Arrow. We'd need to know what highway they're on.

I'd guess the A32...

The A32 has white outers and is not near Silverton, I am gonna reach out to Dav to try and get some more information.

 

[flarkey]

Although he does have this UFO video ....

(edit - from Minneapolis)
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BACLNHmfA/

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

There was a Starlink launch from Vandenberg on March 20. And one from Cape Canaveral on March 22. Could this be a train visible through a gap in scattered clouds? Seems like it would be moving faster, though.

 

[flarkey]

There was a Starlink launch from Vandenberg on March 20. And one from Cape Canaveral on March 22. Could this be a train visible through a gap in scattered clouds? Seems like it would be moving faster, though.

The launch on March 22 was predicted on the Starlink Observers Facebook Group to be visible from South Australia on the morning of the 23rd at around 5AM..

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?custom=15857/DavKaufman (Maybe_)/20260427_122710.js

 

[jarlrmai]

The starlink video seems to be from Minneapolis

 

[flarkey]

The starlink video seems to be from Minneapolis

It is. But it shows that he has a tendency to spot things in the sky and not know what they are.

 

[jarlrmai]

It is. But it shows that he has a tendency to spot things in the sky and not know what they are.

Yes but it your screenshot shows Australia so it's confusing

 

[flarkey]

Also, he says the sighting was 'last night' so probably not at 5AM....

 

[JMartJr]

I think the Minneapolis one is something like this:


Source: https://youtu.be/4ewQnEvnBmM?t=5

EDIT: Video swapped, the first one was not loading properly for me .

Edit for the last time, I promise, just to add a picture of the lights going up the kite string as opposed to hanging from it.

Lights like these sometimes run up the string like this video, or sometimes hang off the string or act as a tail for the kite. In any case, that diagonal positioning is very typical.


I don't think the Australian one is kite-related, but I'll look at it on a bigger screen later.

 

[flarkey]

I think the Minneapolis one is something like this:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T_3-Q5Q2oEE


Lights like these sometimes run up the string like this video, or sometimes hang off the string or act as a tail for the kite. In any case, that diagonal positioning is very typical.

I don't think the Australian one is kite-related, but I'll look at it on a bigger screen later.

The Minneapolis one is a Starlink train.

 

[JMartJr]

The Minneapolis one is a Starlink train.

Are we certain? I can't tell from the video if it is moving across the sky -- if so, it can't be a kite, kites being tethered and all. The twinkling looks so much like the "semi-random looking" flashing of led strings I've seen for kites. I agree Starlink seems more likely, assumingit is low enough in the sky for that much scintillation, since millions of people would be able to see a given Starlink train but only hundreds or dozens a given kite!

But I'll keep a marker on the table for kite LED string in case it is ever shown not to have been crossing the sky! ^_^

 

[fizzBuzz]

could this be the location? This is facing West.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/enLPH4dpY8LtDx5Z8

 

[jarlrmai]

That was the closest I found as well I think it must be it

 

[jarlrmai]

If so I think the one wide lit shot we get the headlights create an optical illusion we are looking at the crest of a rise and thus up into the sky.

There is the possibility the object is on the ground

 

[fizzBuzz]

If so I think the one wide lit shot we get the headlights create an optical illusion we are looking at the crest of a rise and thus up into the sky.

There is the possibility the object is on the ground

Ummm.. maybeeeeee. The object(s) would have to be at or near the horizon if so. This is just going off my intuition. But it looks to be in the air to me. This is very LIZ, less than half the image is even useful.

 

[jarlrmai]

Sitrec is being a pain, slows my computer right down and wont let me get the camera low enough 0ft AGL is still ~10 feet up or so

@Mick West not sure if you are working on anything?