White Flying Object Over US Navy base in Japan (July 2021)

I note the way it darts upward as it comes to large buildings that would deflect wind upwrds -- my initial impression is wind blown trash, such as a plastic shopping bag. Big giant storm in bg would be a potential source of strong winds.plastic-bag-gettyimages.jpg
 
The object being blown around by the wind was the first thing that I also thought. A plastic bag is as good a contender as any. The storm is telling, and would explain some of the faster "spurts". And yet the max speeds of the UFO were not particularly astounding.

Sincerely though, why are people impressed by this type of footage?
 
Sincerely though, why are people impressed by this type of footage?
I guess if you assume it is bigger and a couple of miles further away, it might be more impressive. I can't make myself see it as anything other than fairly close and small, as it reacts to the airflow around buildings. And of course we're in something of a global flap, so everything is assumed to be a "real" spaceman-bearing UFO.
 
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I guess if you assume it is bigger and a couple of miles further away, it might be more impressive. I can't make myself see it as anything other than fairly close and small, as it reacts to the airflow around buildings. And of course we're in something of a global flao, so everything is assumed to be a "real" spaceman-bearing UFO.

I was literally expecting a hovering "orb" to appear from some corner at 1:19, only to suddenly speed off into the night. All I saw was a tiny white dot being thrown about by airflow. Hence the pronounced let down. Goes to show how the mind is impacted by sheer choice of words for a video title.
 
Orb is an interesting word, it's been in use in paranormal/UFO culture for a while. It's a bit like 'pyramid' that has started being used a lot for triangle shaped objects ever since Corbel's bokeh video, i.e. the use of the word for a 3d shape to describe a 2d effect or an object where the 3 dimensions are not actually visible, it implies structure where often no structure is visible. Come to think of it 'tic-tac' is similar.
 
I think it is a drone. Lots of folks like to film lightning or thunderclouds with their flying toy.
 
I don't think that it is a plastic bag. If we assume that the video was shot on 10th July, the same date the video was uploaded on YouTube and around the same time ~8 PM (GMT+9) and that the person who shot the video was at the location below, then they must have been facing northwest and the wind was blowing from the northeast towards southwest, therefore the object must have flown against the wind. I am not sure of the direction of the wind as well because multiple websites state that it was blowing from east to west but at different angles. I have left a message to the author of the video to clarify if the video was shot and uploaded on the same date.


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https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2725989,139.6792469,1576a,35y,326.5h,42.5t/data=!3m1!1e3

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I don't think that it is a plastic bag. If we assume that the video was shot on 10th July, the same date the video was uploaded on YouTube and around the same time ~8 PM (GMT+9) and that the person who shot the video was at the location below, then they must have been facing northwest and the wind was blowing from the northeast towards southwest, therefore the object must have flown against the wind. I am not sure of the direction of the wind as well because multiple websites state that it was blowing from east to west but at different angles. I have left a message to the author of the video to clarify if the video was shot and uploaded on the same date.


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Could Sophons elaborate on the point about wind direction? I'm not familiar with this weather tool, but if the arrow in the 6th column shows wind direction, then at 20:30, the nearest time to 8 pm, the arrow seems to show the wind blowing from south-east to north-west. By 21:00 (9 pm) the wind has veered sharply and is blowing from north-east to south-west. I'm assuming that the pointy end of the arrow shows the direction towards which the wind is going, not the direction from which it is coming. (Wind terminology can be confusing, as winds are traditionally often named according to the direction from which they come, e.g. 'easterly' meaning 'from the east'.) Either way, if the wind on that day was so changeable, I don't think one can be sure about the direction of the wind when the video was filmed, even if we disregard local variations and turbulence.
 
I don't think that it is a plastic bag. If we assume that the video was shot on 10th July, the same date the video was uploaded on YouTube and around the same time ~8 PM (GMT+9) and that the person who shot the video was at the location below, then they must have been facing northwest and the wind was blowing from the northeast towards southwest, therefore the object must have flown against the wind. I am not sure of the direction of the wind as well because multiple websites state that it was blowing from east to west but at different angles.
I'd be a bit cautious about assuming overall winds in the area equal the surface winds, especially in an urban environment where wind is being deflected, and turbulence introduced, by ground structures. Similarly, the presence of a large thunderstorm is going to locally override the winds present regionally.
 
Lots going on around a thunderstorm, wind wise.gust-front-Evolution-thunderstorm-column-thundercloud-air.jpg

That said, a drone is certainly not out of the question. But the way the brightness fluctuates loks to me like it is tumbling, which would be more consistent with windblown trash than a drone.
 
For what it's worth, I post what I see trending on UFO social media. I make no claims, I just post them here for identification purposes.

I'll try to use more sensible titles in future.
 
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