What's your best guess on these "sightings"?

Jack Mallory

Senior Member
Indulge me for a moment, if you will. Think of this as a thought experiment, of sorts. :)

I wanted to share some images and a video, not unlike many of the things I've seen float around the Internet with all sorts of outrageous claims attached. It's always interesting to me how much the public's perception of an image can be shaped by an attached narrative (without anyone ever actually verifying said narrative.) We see this sort of thing all the time. "Classified image leaked from Trident sub surveillance of the Marina Trench!" when it's really just a distorted underwater photo from someone's backyard pool. But that narrative can set the imagination wild! People will then tend to read all sorts of details into the image based on those imaginings, rather than the image itself.

Or, if I'm being more charitable, there are the cases where someone taking pictures doesn't notice anything unusual occurring at the time, but later when their reviewing their camera roll, they're astonished by something or other that was captured by their lens. Truly an intriguing mystery that warrants further investigation!

With that mind, please allow me to share some images, with descriptions that may or may not be fictitious. I'd very be curious to get your initial impressions, as well as your best sense of what the Twittersphere would make of such things if left to their own devices (although I'm fairly confident that I already know the answer to the latter). No detailed analysis required here (there reasoning for that will become apparent later), just have some fun with it and let me know what you think.

With all that in mind, I will promise you two things:

1) None of these images were deliberately altered in any way in terms of editing, filters or any such thing (except where obvious indicators such as arrows or other graphic overlays were added for clarity).

2) I will absolutely provide all the specifics behind each image, fully explaining their legitimate origin and method of capture. (This will occur either in a subsequent post, or hidden behind a set of spoiler tags in this post. I just need to experiment a bit with the formatting here first to determine the best method.)

Onward...

A) Suppose you were told that these orb-like objects were spotted bouncing across the Sky somewhere in South Korea in the summer of 2022. What would make of it?
UFO chain.jpeg


B) What if you were told that this intriguing image was captured on camera outside an apartment complex in Turkey. It appears to be a small craft, possibly, being either chased or followed by two smaller drone-like objects. With a close-up of the larger craft, it almost appears to consist of a solid bowl-shape on the bottom, with a clear dome attached to the top and with what could be interpreted as a single occupant.

single occupant craft.jpeg
single occupant closeup.jpeg


C) What would you make of this if someone reported that, during a flight over Brazil, the following celestial image suddenly appeared?
It almost appears Christ-like, while also bearing some resemblance to da Vinci's Virtuvian Man. Can that be purely coincidence? What if Chris Bledsoe had shared this image himself while claiming to have simultaneously received a telepathic passage to go along with it? How might that masses react to that? (It could actually make for a nice image for Bledsoe's next book cover. Who knows?)

night view from plane.jpeg
celestial sighting.jpeg
celestial closeup.jpeg
Vitruvian Man2.jpeg
Celestial sighting Vitruvian man.jpeg


D) Imagine if this video was shared with the following description: "Secretly-recorded video emerges from the Nevada desert!" Just over a mountain range you can see what appears to be some type of HAARP-like structure that appears to generate a plasma-like orb that works its way up through the outer-ring before being launched skyward. The orb seems to track within the channels of the structure, then once it leaves the colored portion it appears to be jettisoned from darker, unlit area at the top of the circle.

But notice a couple of things about the orb once it's underway. It does something that I've seen in many UFO videos. It almost appears to change color, or "blink" instantaneously, as if someone had flipped a switch on a lightbulb. While maintaining its round shape, the center of the object switches to a fluorescent white light, like a glowing dome. In then blinks again a few moments later, with a smaller display of that same white fluorescence. Again, I've seen almost the identical effect in more than one UFO video, so that's of particular interest to me.



Okay, that's a lot of formatting for now. I hope everything renders correctly. I'll offer the explanations for each in another post below.
Looking forward to your feedback.

Edit: I'm not exactly sure why two of the images seem to be repeated at the bottom of this post, but now I'm afraid to delete them out of fear of messing up the above formatting. I'll gladly leave that to one of the mods, if I may.
 

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Here are the answers to the above images, but I hope you'll give the OP some consideration before spoiling all the fun for yourself. :cool:

All images and video were captured on an iPhone 14 Pro by me, personally, during a trip to Orlando, FL in December 2023. I didn't try in any way, shape or from to deliberately create the manner in which these images rendered. They were all simply curious and slightly amusing results of taking very normal pictures of very normal things. Lens flare and reflection pretty much did all the rest.

These circular lights in the sky were simply the product of search-lights at Disney sweeping the clouds above during one of the many visual celebrations that seem take place nearly hourly at the main park.

Also in Orlando during that same trip, this was literally just a picture of the moon from a random parking lot on the night of December 18th at 10:52 pm. Why it appears to have a clear dome on top is anyone's guess. And those two smaller objects below? Just lens artifact and nothing more, really.

Regardless of anything else, I still think this is a super-cool image on its own. All these pics were taking from my seat on the plane on my journey home. They were taken shortly after leaving Orlando airport on December 19, 2023. Phone data says: Winter Springs (which is just north of Orlando). The first pic of city lights below was at 9:05 pm, while the "celestial sighting" is time-stamped at 10:40 pm. While it would be easy to say that this was simply an in-coming aircraft heading to Orlando airport, I seem to remember that this, too, was simply a picture of the moon. Someone may have the inclination to dig into the weeds on this one, and I'm terribly sorry for not remembering more accurately, but I can assure you that it was nothing extraordinary at the time, and did not in any appear to the naked eye in any way similar to what's captured in these pictures. The impressive radiance, the surrounding aura, and those tiny orbs in the center of the pic were all the product of lens artifacts and the unpredictable reflections from the double-paned window of the plane.

This video was, quite simply, a SpaceX launch filmed from a distance at 11:00 pm on the night of December 18, 2023. That "mountain range" in the foreground is simply the top of a nearby building. The "HAARP-like plasma machine" (sorry, I couldn't help myself with some Twitter-inspired creative license on that one) was merely a well-known Ferris Wheel from one of the many amusement parks scattered around Orlando (I can look into it and provide the specifics if anyone is interested). The manner in which the rocket appears to track within the large wheel itself is purely coincidental due to the angle of observation. In reality, the two were nowhere near each other. Notably: the "blinking" light effect that almost appears like a fluorescent light being turned on is simply various stages of the boosters doing their thing. Having seen nearly that identical effect in other UFO videos (and I'm pretty sure that was the case with some footage out of Australia not too long ago), I no longer find it to be a mystery. It's simply the way rockets look during launch. Especially when captured by a smartphone camera. Perhaps in a few day's time, once this thread has circulated for a bit, I can include some more zoomed-out footage of that same SpaceX launch that will more clearly display the surrounding structures and foreground. Until then, thanks for playing along, and I hope this thread proves to be useful. Cheers.
 
A) the lights are fuzzy, as if out of focus, or glaring from the fog. I'd expect a reflection if taken through a window, but my first thought was a formation of helicopters with anti-collision lights on due to the fog.

B) the "smaller drone objects" as well as the bright dot in the tree on the left are lens reflections of the street lights, mirrored about the center of the frame. The larger light is not that (it has its own lens reflection superimposed on the street surface); no telling what it is due to lack of detail. If the lighting conditions were dark and this was a long exposure, it may be the moon.

C) the "appendages" are diffraction spikes, and they were invisible to the naked eye, as they're camera artefacts. For the object itself, see A).

D) the camera algorithm is struggling with the focus and white balance, which explains the strange visual effects. Other than that, it looks like a rocket launch, and a quick web search identifies the ferris wheel as the "Orlando eye".

Now to see how well I did...
 
Now to see how well I did...
A) missed the boat, though obvious in hindsight
B) nailed it
C) partially correct, in that window reflections did play a role, but I didn't realize it was just one light. Given the information that this was filmed by an aircraft passenger, I might have guessed that.
D) almost correct; I did not account for some changes being caused by the rocket itself

Generally speaking, these are all LIZ phenomena, with the strange light lacking sufficient detail to be identified. For that reason, I'd dismiss the idea that these pictures could prove anything.
 
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Maybe the exercise worked better if I read the description first and then tried to make sense of the image/video, but I decided to just ignore the description and see what my gut feeling would be.

A) I instantly recognized them as spotlights

B) It took me a while to identify the moon, but the two yellow dots were pretty clearly just glares from the lamps.

C) My initial guess was that it was another phone's flashlight/flash reflected on the plane's window (maybe I just have a blindspot for the Moon)

D) I honestly thought the purpose of the video was to focus on the small dot moving around (which I assume was a glare). When the rocket came up, I thought it was a flare of some sort, but since it kept going up it being a rocket became the most reasonable guess. It shocked me that the description had some story about the ferris wheel launching the red orb.
 
I decided to just ignore the description and see what my gut feeling would be.
I think at this point we've all been conditioned to just trawl the narrative for usable facts, and otherwise ignore it. @Jack Mallory didn't actually give any of that, no time/date/place, no equipment, no circumstances of where the camera was located, etc.
It's almost as if these pictures were handed out by Elizondo.

Good job on the guesses!
 
I think at this point we've all been conditioned to just trawl the narrative for usable facts, and otherwise ignore it. @Jack Mallory didn't actually give any of that, no time/date/place, no equipment, no circumstances of where the camera was located, etc.
some people here reflexively plug the location/time data into stellarium, which immediately reveals the moon shots

A) and D) would also be fairly obvious from a sight line on a map, I think. Similar to what we've done with airports recently.

that's why determining these simple items (time/date/place) often goes a long way toward the debunk.
 
Except for C, I was pretty much on the money for the source of all of them.

A) When I looked at it, my immediate thought was it was spotlights pointed into the sky as as promotion of an some kind of event, or a retail outlet. I used to live a few blocks from a store that used a single spotlight at Christmas and Easter and this the splodge in the sky had a similar look to that, if more than just one them. I concidered that it might be a reflection in a window of interior lighting, but discounted that in favour of spotlights, as their positions were less regular than I'd expect for interior lighting.

B) My first thought was that this might be reflections in the inside of the door of an apartment building or hotel, when looking out into the parking area, but then shifted to the object being the moon, as the framing didn't look quite right for a photo taken from indoors, as the parking area looked too close to my eye (assuming the image wasn't cropped).

The two small dots I had no explanation of for a while and even wondered if they were extremely tall street lighting (e.g. for road construction) but then noticed they were the vertical flip of two bright street lights near the center of the image, so could see that they were coming from those.

C) I thought that was almost certainly a reflection of lighting inside the cabin and didn't even think about the light source being something outside the aircraft. So no points for me on that one.

D) I surprised myself with this one, as my immediate reactions were correct. As soon as I saw the partial circle object, I thought "ferris wheel", although I had a moment of doubt, as the hillside silhouette impllied it was enormous. However, after a few seconds I noticed the two symmetrical thick lines coming from the center, in the bottom half, which looked just right for the supports for a ferris wheel. That conculsion was confirmed when the camera zoomed in enough to see the gondola's around the edge of it.

As soon as the orange/red ball had cleared the ferris wheel for a few seconds, I assumed it was a rocket launch. No particualar reason for that, other than the general movement of it seeming right. I did consider that it might be the landing lights of an approaching aircraft, but rocket launch seemed a better fit.
 
It shocked me that the description had some story about the ferris wheel launching the red orb.
Just to be clear:
That was purely a fictitious narrative created by me, meant only to mimic (mock, if you will) some of the crazier narratives that I see get passed around on social media. I found it be a interesting coincidence how, at first, it somewhat appears that the glowing object is within the structure itself. Near the beginning of the video clip, it actually looks like the light is on the near side of the structure as if it's blocking out part of the green light on the wheel itself. But that's simply an illusion caused by perspective.
 
D) I surprised myself with this one, as my immediate reactions were correct. As soon as I saw the partial circle object, I thought "ferris wheel", although I had a moment of doubt, as the hillside silhouette impllied it was enormous.
It's an interesting deception, isn't it?
When zoomed out, you can clearly see that the "hillside" was nothing more than the rooftop of a building in the foreground.

Image:
reveal.jpeg
 
It's an interesting deception, isn't it?
When zoomed out, you can clearly see that the "hillside" was nothing more than the rooftop of a building in the foreground.

Image:
Having looked at the full image un-zoomed image, I can't look at the video and see a hillside anymore, as it clearly looks like a building, just as clearly as it looked like a hillside before I'd seen that image.

Expectations are a powerful thing, however, even though when I viewed the video the first time I was convinced the silhouette was a hillside (meaning the ferris wheel would have been enormous) I essentially ignored it (I didn't have rationale for that, just didn't think about it), once it was clear to me the circluar object was a ferris wheel.
 
Here's another that may be of interest. (This was also captured on an iPhone 14 Pro.)
You can see one large glowing object on the far left, and one very small glowing object, with a seemingly-erratic motion, on the far right (near the top, descending downward). Any thoughts on what is depicted here?(Spoiler to follow)

Exhibit: E

 
Interesting side-note on the above video:
That "flashing" or blinking of the small object on that right side of the screen is purely an artifact of video compression. When viewed at full-screen the glow is consistent and steady (as it was IRL).

This was a video I took of the ISS passing overhead on Feb 1, 2023 in central Connecticut. That's the moon on the left side of the screen. It is obviously a crude video but it was the best I could do on short notice. When I read that it was expected to cross our skies, I went outside at the appointed time. I did my best to frame it against the moon for perspective, but it was difficult to hold the phone steady at that angle. That occasional "erratic movement" of the space station is simply an illusion caused by my unsteady hand on the iPhone. In reality, its trajectory was quite steady and predictable. The ISS disappears towards the end of this short clip as its reflection of the sun naturally dissipated as it continued on its course.
 
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I am late to the party, I have avoided this thread over the past weekend and through election day as I wanted to look at the videos carefully and respond to Jack Mallory's original questions. I have not yet read the rest of the thread, only the original post. Once I do this, I'll read the thread and be amazed at what everybody saw that I missed! ^_^

Image A: Appears to me to be advertising/event searchlights on clouds, as we've seen before. Especially with that bright patch of orange-ish light in the distance, suggesting a nearby shopping mall parking lot or stadium or something. That would also account for them "bouncing" around the sky, though anonymous anecdotes don't carry much weight. My only bit of concern about making that my official "first guess" is something that feels slightly off about the lights, they feel almost like they're created in Photoshop or something. But that's just based on something subconscious, I'll stick with searchlights if for no other reason than if I were Photoshopping UFOs I might make them look less like searchlights! Other possibilities would include a formation of drones or a cropped image removing a line of streetlights below that are creating reflection in the camera.

Image B: I would say that this shows the over-exposed moon, with reflections of two of the streetlights making the smaller orb. "Earth shine" on the unlit portion of the moon may make up the "dome and occupant, If we had the date, we could check and see if, say, Venus and Jupiter were in position to be the smaller lights. If we had the date, time and location, those who are good at such things could check for planes approaching, say, an airport behind the camera position. But given the THIRD bright light lurking in the trees, and how it matches the symmetry between the two "small orbs" and the street lights, I'd say the odds are very high that they are all three reflections.
single occupant craft.jpg

Edit: Forgot to include this image... so here it is...
Edit again -- before reading the thread, as I posted this image, it occurred to me, a bit late, to wonder why the moon did not create a reflection. I now see that it did, exactly where you'd expect it to be, on the street just below the palm trees.

Image C: While it seems unlikely that you'd include two moon UFOs in your little game, I think this is the moon again reflected multiple times in the multi-pane airplane window. The "objects" above the central point of the rays look enough like not-quite-half moons to me for this to seem logical. This also seems to match the illumination off of the water below. What is causing all the crazy rays I'd leave to the folks here who know cameras, but I'd suspect it has to do with condition of the glass or plastic material in the window.

As to what the reaction on Twitter, I don't do Twitter so if there a nuances there, I couldn't know them -- but the general effect of any new UFO picture out there seems to be credulity from most who comment, and a few folks finding plausible explanations, I'd expect that to be true for these.

Now I am going to see how I did by reading the thread...

(Late edit to fix non-content-changing typos, and I promise not to edit this one again!)
 
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And somehow I missed the video -- still have not read the thread, but You'll have to take my word for that.

My initial reaction is a rocket launch, but I'd expect to see an exhaust tail on most rockets, so maybe not a Big Honking Space Rocket, maybe a firework rocket or sounding rocket or something? A plane taking off and coming towards us as it climbs would be my second reaction. Color change might be due to intervening layers of smog/cloud haze, but that is just unsupported speculation. It seems too bright to be a wedding balloon or the like. Given the Ferris Wheel which hints at a beach setting (Yeah, I know, they have non-beach ferris wheels) I was really tempted to think it might be an LED kite being launched, but I'd expect more color changes if that were the case. I don't feel confident about this one, I'd probably want to identify the Ferris Wheel and then see what was nearby in terms of airports or launch facillities (or drone clubs or wedding venues or kite stores...)

And now I am finally going to read this ^&$#$& thread!
 
Here's another that may be of interest. (This was also captured on an iPhone 14 Pro.)
You can see one large glowing object on the far left, and one very small glowing object, with a seemingly-erratic motion, on the far right (near the top, descending downward). Any thoughts on what is depicted here?(Spoiler to follow)

Exhibit: E

My guess is a satellite of some kind, (I'm not sure if it's the ISS since I feel it's moving too slow, but I also can't think of any satellite that is that bright) any erratic movement is attributed to the camera moving (the fact that the erratic movement happens when the object on the left is not visible is a dead giveaway), the object on the left is the moon.

Looking at the answer, seems I got it pretty spot on, except I figured the ISS would be moving faster
 
I am glad I resisted the urge to talk myself into thinking D) was a kite. Feeling a bit smug today. This was fun, I hope we can play again sometimes -- it is useful, maybe, to test our impressions and skills against "UFOs" with a known cause, just to see how we do.

Sadly, I read discussion of E before seeing the video. So I get no chance to try and score a point for that one. The impression of position relative tot eh moon tracing a curve is really strong -- did you change zoom during shooting?
 
What is causing all the crazy rays I'd leave to the folks here who know cameras, but I'd suspect it has to do with condition of the glass or plastic material in the window.
It's caused by edges inside the cameras.
For example, pictures from the James Webb telescope have diffraction spikes because some support struts are in the path of the light.
 
I get you, but I do have a sense of seeing more of this sort of over-the-top rays and spikes on photos taken out plane windows, which I have always assumed was helped along by the windows getting micro-scratches and such over time or something plane window related...
Capture.JPG
Capture.JPG
 
D) Imagine if this video was shared with the following description: "Secretly-recorded video emerges from the Nevada desert!" Just over a mountain range you can see what appears to be some type of HAARP-like structure that appears to generate a plasma-like orb that works its way up through the outer-ring before being launched skyward. The orb seems to track within the channels of the structure, then once it leaves the colored portion it appears to be jettisoned from darker, unlit area at the top of the circle.

Looks like a giant ferris wheel. Hmm....I came across plans for this in Las Vegas...not sure if they have built it yet. Note the similarity...

80c18877561e83560290fdc2c2445cd4.jpg
 
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