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UK UFO Sightings Declassified, Still No Intergalactic Relations
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Oct 20, 2008 02:27 PM
from the stupidity-is-universal dept.
from the stupidity-is-universal dept.
schwit1 is just one of the massive flood of readers (and publications) writing to tell us about the recently declassified UK Ministry of Defense account of a supposed UFO sighting. Included are nineteen sightings between 1986 and 1992, with the most notable being a sighting in 1991 with a US Air Force pilot's first-hand account. Not that this lends an air of credibility to anything, just more papers with more words. "Almost 200 such files will be made available by the MoD over the next four years. [...] UFO expert and journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, Dr David Clarke, said the documents would shed new light on relatively little-known sightings. He said some conspiracy theorists would already have decided that the release of the papers was a 'whitewash.' He added: 'Because the subject is bedevilled by charlatans and lunatics, it is career suicide to have your name associated with UFOs, which is a real pity. The National Archives are doing a fantastic job here. Everyone brings their own interpretation. Now you can look at the actual primary material — the stuff coming into the MoD every day — and make your own mind up.'"
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And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. government weren't trying to cover up aliens at places like Roswell, they were covering up their secret spy aircraft. Why do you think most of these "UFO cover-ups" involved strange craft spotted near isolated air force bases at the height of the Cold War? Project Blue Book wasn't about little green men, it was about making sure no one had gotten a good look at their latest prototype stealth planes and also checking to see if any hillbillies might have actually spotted any Soviet spy planes in the area.
No alien civilization is expending the mammoth amount of resources needed to traverse the vast distances of interstellar space just to stick a probe up your ass. Deal with it.
Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:4, Funny)
Get ready for the staged alien invasion [google.com] slated for 2012, of course.
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Funny)
No alien civilization is expending the mammoth amount of resources needed to traverse the vast distances of interstellar space just to stick a probe up your ass. Deal with it.
yeah, but, it's more PC to say, "Aliens stuck a probe up my ass!" than saying "I stuck a probe up my ass because I LIKE IT!"
I'll still blame the aliens thank you very much!
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Funny)
No alien civilization is expending the mammoth amount of resources needed to traverse the vast distances of interstellar space just to stick a probe up your ass. Deal with it.
I think you underestimate the driving power of finding inlets of pornography.
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Funny)
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Actually it makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Rectal thermometers are standard in hospitals and rectal probes would be safer for the patient and the alien scientist than oral ones.
Second if youre doing scientific experiments on a primitive population your not going to raid the population center youll grab somone on an outlying settlement. Plus you would figure the rednecks would have interesting diseases to study.
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Re:Actually it makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
That is if you assume all life evolves the same way and undergoes the same probable events to come to a common endresult.
Imagine a square world, the entire conceptualization ability of creatures living on a square world would differ so greatly they might be unable to grasp our sphere shaped one and the implications with al the results.
Their biology, mathematics and all that would differ: they wouldn't have radiants, they wouldn't use degrees but will have a more firm understanding and derrived knowledge about squares. They won't really know Pi as they might have a hard time conceptualizing circles or spheres.
Events creating our culture, would have a entire different timeline as well; they might not have the same symbols, ideals, social constructs, "moralities", art or any of that.
Now, imagine then, to come to a planet, and observe a society, which takes its own references and mental constructs for granted, but for the onlooker, its alien. It's horribly abstract to grasp, and quasi impossible to trace back all those habits and structures which have evolved over the years.
The same way you find a "redneck" a "lower form of human", they might consider it otherwise.
Take this thought-experiment; in a place where space is scarce, he who lives in the open might be considered elite. In the same way, you might end up with a preconcept of creatures who are codependant and the ones being independant are considered king. What you find "disgusting" or "lower value" about a redneck is just cultural and is based on your frame of reference, conditioning and what you consider "wealth" or "health". To a species, alien to our, these nuances might be completely lost. Maybe they greet kings by anal probing them, as they can afford to be gay and do not require to fornicate to maintain their reproduction as they can afford some alternative means which might be considered more fashionable or they communicate through anal glands and feel frustrated humans are retartedly hysterical and fart (=screaming) uncontrollably when they try to engage into conversation.
I think it's an impossible task to conceptualize the unknown with all its probabilities.
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:4, Insightful)
Joyriding teenagers at faster than light travel certainly might think it worth their while.
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:4, Funny)
Rule 34. Even aliens have it.
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I beg to disagree (Score:5, Funny)
To counter your wildly irresponsible statements, I offer proof [youtube.com].
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Informative)
Well then, you will have to explain why you can see flying saucers on medieval paintings, or exactly what the belgian F-16 were chasing above their territory, and which went through the sound barrier over urban areas without producing any supersonic bang.
I have seen on television the videos of the F-16's radar when in pursuit of those. The commentary didn't mention any numbers, but as I recognized a familiar layout from my FALCON (ATARI ST) days, I did check the illuminated target speed indicator. It went from 400K to 700K in a matter of seconds.
It is publicly known the intruder lost the F-16 in pursuit behind like leaves in the wind.
Belgium is a small country and is maybe one of the few to have a fighter air force but no official, government-run public relation service in charge of explaining that everything people see is either a meteor or a piece of rocket burning on reentry.
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Funny)
... are you seriously citing your knowledge of radar screens based on an Atari game?
Laugh now, but when the revolution comes, I am the one who will fly the TIE fighters to save humanity. I have countless hours of simulation time to prove it. :-)
Similar training has also taught me the best way to win a firefight (like let's say, Iraq or Vietnam or WW2 Germany) is to bunny hop diagonally, then make a rocket-jump to higher ground! Seriously, the guvmint needs to apply this to our armed forces training now!
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Funny)
It went from 400K to 700K in a matter of seconds.
700K isn't really that warm for a jet engine (~425 C), what's impressive is that it had been running so cool - 400K is only ~25 degrees above boiling! It is impressive that the Belgians incorporate that kind of data into their radar systems, though.
They probably just kicked on the afterburner.
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:4, Interesting)
flying saucers on medieval paintings
You mean circles?
F-16 were chasing above their territory, and which went through the sound barrier over urban areas without producing any supersonic bang.
A mirage, a light anomaly, a meteor, another aircraft seen at a skewed distance, a hoax by the pilots, a falling satellite---and about 1,000 other possible explanations that are all much more reasonable than intergalactic alien visitors traveling almost incomprehensibility vast intergalactic distances only to buzz our aircrafts and probe our hillbillies.
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Funny)
There are also dragons in medieval paintings. "You will have to explain why" they don't exist or else, obviously, we must accept that dragons are real. It's well known that the fire of a dragon's breath goes "from 400K to 700K in a matter of seconds," so we can safely say this is confirmed by ironclad modern empirical evidence!
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Funny)
There are also dragons in medieval paintings. "You will have to explain why" they don't exist
They evolved from fish. Their swim bladders gained an electrolysis gland which separated water they drank in to hydrogen and oxygen. They exhaled the oxygen, which caused spontaneous combustion on anything they breathed it on, and kept the hydrogen in their flight bladder to provide lift. Obviously, when they died, the hydrogen would combust, igniting the rest of the body and leaving no remnants in the fossil record.
Next conspiracy please.
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Re:A Moderation Haiku (Score:5, Funny)
When writing haiku
Use seventeen syllables
I counted eighteen
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well then, you will have to explain why you can see flying saucers on medieval paintings,
Of course, you can also see the earth opening up and demons dragging people down to hell in medieval paintings.
Hell, in ancient Egyptian art, there are humans with falcon heads. If that doesn't smash theories of evolution all to hell...
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Informative)
Regarding medieval paintings, I think this [sprezzatura.it] is the kind of idiocy being referred to.
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an unidentified object. Just because you don't know what it is doesn't mean it's an alien spacecraft.
Just because it can't be explained, doesn't mean it's an alien spacecraft.
When someone produces some real evidence instead of 'I don't know what this is, so it must be an alien spacecraft', I'll pay more attention.
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is the possibility of of earth being observed by alien xenobiologists and xenoanthropologists always immediately dismissed? It certainly falls within the realm of possible when compared against our current understanding of physics.
Astronomers are regularly finding extrasolar planets and are, in some cases, able to determine the atmospheric composition.
Biology is slowly moving toward transgenic creatures, cloning, and cyborgs.
Physics and nanotechnology continually revealing new information about how the universe works. Some of this information is finding practical uses in controlling information and energy.
In the past 100 years, computers have gone from laughably simple to being capable of modeling the climate of an entire planet. It's still innacurate and slow but it's getting faster and better.
If it were possible right now, we'd have all kinds of people exploring the galaxy. Within the next 1,000 years, it will be possible to find planets that have a high chance of sustaining higher life forms and deliver some kind of observers to those planets for further study.
What would prevent there from being one or more alien races from undertaking a similar mission of exploration? Why would Earth automatically be disqualified as a target of such a mission?
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not impossible that we're being secretly monitored by aliens that don't want to be seen, yet are seen by drunks and paranoidians anyways. It's just that rational thinking people are skeptical. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, and all that.
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Why is the possibility of of earth being observed by alien xenobiologists and xenoanthropologists always immediately dismissed? It certainly falls within the realm of possible when compared against our current understanding of physics."
I am perfectly willing to believe in alien observers - just give me proof that isn't easily explained by something else that is far more simple. Look up Occam's Razor.
Of course, if William of Ockham was actually an alien planted to mislead the human community for generations, that would be a different story.
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Insightful)
I present as evidence ... Meat [atheistalliance.org]
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think the parent is insightful read this ...
During the 1942 Battle of Los Angeles the military instituted a mandatory black out of the entire city of LA & fired 1400+ Anti-Aircraft rounds at a single, quoting the military, "unidentified aircraft." This lasted for more than an hour. Despite numerous confirmed hits the craft remained airborne and eventually flew off without ever being identified. (Read the 1942 LA times article [rense.com]).
In 1948 green fireballs were seen over the south-western skies of the US near nuclear weapons research sites. Famous meteoriticist Dr. Lincoln La Paz declared they weren't normal meteors. In 1949 the USAF started Project Twinkle [wikipedia.org] under the direction of Dr. Anythony Mirachi.
The study concluded in a now declassified report that cinetheodolites had tracked 4 objects traveling at an "altitude of ~150K ft" (~28.5 miles!), were "30 ft. in diameter", & traveling at an "undeterminable, yet high speed." Mirachi went on to later criticize a Time magazine article that claimed there was no proof to support the existence of UFOs.
Mirachi wrote, "There was too much evidence in favor of saucers to say they could have all been balloons. 'I was conducting the main investigation. The government had to depend on me or my branch for information.' He said he didn't see how the Navy could say there had been no concrete evidence of the phenomena." (see here [8k.com] for more details)
Also in 1948 Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a self-proclaimed skeptic, joined Project Blue Book as a scientific adviser. By 1969 when Blue Book was shutdown Hynek did an about face. He wrote several books, particularly, "The Hynek UFO Report" which repeatedly stated that the attitude of Blue Book was, "it can't be therefore it isn't."
He also gave an interview, available on YouTube [youtube.com], where he said, "I was there at Blue Book and I know the job they had. They were told not to excite the public, don't rock the boat, & I saw it [with] my own eyes. ... The cases that were very difficult to explain they would jump handsprings to keep the media away from that." He later went on to found the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS).
July 13 - 29th of 1952, over the skies of Washington DC, numerous UFOs were seen by observers on the ground, in the air, & tracked on radar. The situation escalated & General Samford, the Director of Intelligence of the USAF, held an emergency press conference. When asked by a reporters what people were seeing he suggested the lights on the ground may have looked like they were in the air because inversions act like an "air lens" & bend light rays. He added that something similar could have "tricked" radar in to thinking it was tracking aerial targets. (http://ufologie.net/htm/usa1952.htm)
In 1969 an Air Force scientific report titled "Quantitative Aspects of Mirages [cohenufo.org]" (Menkello, F.G. Report No. 6112, USAF, Environmental Technical Applications Center) made it clear inversion strong enough to create the visual effect described during the 1952 press-conference could not exist in earth's atmosphere.
1956 at Bentwater/Lakenheath an object was sighted by several military officers on the ground while simultaneously tracked on radar at 2 different stations. The object moved at ~4000 mph and was monitored for several hours during which two planes were scrambled.
When the 1st DeHavilland Venom locked on to the object the UFO shot to the rear of the plane. The pilot tried evasive maneuvers, couldn't break free & eventually had to return to base to refuel.
The 2nd plane encountered mechanical difficulties as it flew within range of the object. The US sponsored Condon Report had this to say, "
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Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:4, Insightful)
The U.S. Air Force in 1947 (at that time still party of the Army) had just begun the first two of many programs (Project Mogul [wikipedia.org] and Project Moby Dick [wikipedia.org]) that would involve floating high altitude balloons over the Soviet Union to listen to and photograph military and industrial facilities (remember, this was before satellites and high altitude reconnaissance aircraft like the U-2), mostly to keep an eye on Soviet atomic aspirations. If the Soviets caught wind of this, so soon after WWII, it would have caused a major international incident and ratcheted up Cold war tensions (which were already high enough in the face of the establishment of the iron curtain). So when one of these things went down in Roswell, you bet your ass they wanted to shut people up about it.
Little did they realize that their efforts to shut people up about what they saw would ultimately provide the perfect cover (leading people to assume they were covering up aliens rather than the secret spy programs they were REALLY covering up).
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Don't be silly. (Score:5, Funny)
Do you really think the MoD (or the CIA, NSA, etc.) are going to provide us with the real deal? Of course it's a whitewa.....NO, NO NOT THE ANAL PROBE AGAIN!!!
Re:Don't be silly. (Score:5, Funny)
Dammit! Another brownout!
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Cause & Effect (Score:5, Insightful)
it is career suicide to have your name associated with UFOs
Not career suicide, just a hilariously pointless hobby like squirrel eating ... or Warcraft.
Something that's always bothered me about Alien sightings and 'abductions' is that the sightings really didn't kick off until 1897 [wikipedia.org] which coincides closely with the release of the War of the Worlds [wikipedia.org]. And, interestingly enough, alien abductions didn't really take off until the 1960s [wikipedia.org] when movies about abductions had been in circulation [thetriangle.org] since the 50s (as any devout MST3K fan knows).
Aside from a few odd reportings [ufoevidence.org] (and maybe a few religions) the above holds true.
We are human beings, we have awesome imaginations and a multitude of chemicals that effect them. I don't know what it's like to be coked out in an opium den or suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning [wikipedia.org] but I think a lot of UFO stuff is pretty much a direct result of the human psyche, not extraterrestrials.
Re:Cause & Effect (Score:5, Interesting)
Not career suicide, just a hilariously pointless hobby like squirrel eating ... or Warcraft.
A career suicide indeed it is. We have had a good example here, in Canada. A scientist for the Defence Research and Development Canada, a DND department responsible for military research projects in Canada, lost his job a few years back.
During his free time, that scientist worked on the active SETI project [active-seti.org]. He was always meticulous about keeping is work separate from his hobby, but Radio-Canada was not. During a prime time interview, they captioned his name with the title "scientist for the Canadian defense" or something like that.
From what I heard, his career as a military scientist was promptly ended following that media "incident".
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Re:Cause & Effect (Score:5, Insightful)
That's wrong. They were happening before 1897, but instead of "aliens" they were blamed on "angels" "demons" or simply "the gods".
There are highly detailed accounts of "otherworldly" abductions going back to the Sumerians, who sort of invented language. That's a pretty long time ago.
I'm not saying that there have ever been real "otherworldly" abductions alien or otherwise, but to say that they started in 1897 is just plain wrong.
It's amazing that it's taken as obvious that there's no such thing as UFOs (which as many as 80% of Americans believe in) but you'll get modded as flamebait if you suggest that there's no such thing as God (in which about the same number of Americans believe).
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Re:Cause & Effect (Score:5, Insightful)
I really recommend Carl Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World. A decent amount of the book is focused on this phenomenon, with several scientific explanations for why people have abduction dreams. There are the obvious ones (a traumatic event that damages your mind, unconsciously covering up abuse, plain old lying) but the mind is capable of some crazy things.
What many abduction believers are conscious of, but don't really take into account, is that normal people hallucinate all the time. Most people do it every day, although not very vividly. It can be triggered by anything, but it is especially common when you are waking or doing something monotonous and repetitive (such as driving while tired). Everything from tiny daydreams to full out trips are possible if your brain is in a certain state.
Some people can have vivid hallucinations quite regularly without drugs or anything unusual in their body. When that happens their mind goes to extraordinary things (no one hallucinates about doing their laundry). Little kids see monsters. If you watch sci-fi movies, maybe you'll see aliens. If you spend your time at a hellfire and brimstone church maybe you'll see demons. How many times have you woken up from a dream and it took you a long time to realize that you were awake?
The scientific method is the only way to examine these things in a neutral way. There's nothing wrong with believing that there might be UFO's. But until there is proof you can't claim that anything extraordinary like that exists. Right now there isn't even crappy evidence, let alone enough to prove something that incredible.
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Re:Cause & Effect (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes... and what's more, there is a documented psychological disorder in which people cannot tell the difference between past imaginings versus past events. I forget the name of the disorder now, but it is serious business and common enough to be responsible for all of the abduction stories and a great many criminal accusations. Let this be yet another compelling reason to never ever convict a person based on the testimony of a single witness.
Treatment for the disorder is palliative, at least for now. People who have the disorder are taught to frame their mental picture with a colored border so that later on, when they recall the memory, they'll see the border and know it wasn't real.
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Re:Cause & Effect (Score:5, Interesting)
The older you get, the more you realize just how fallible human perception and memory truly are, and how amazingly easy it is to fall prey to self-delusion. That pretty much describes every UFO believer I've ever met.
What is actually very fascinating is to learn about (and sometime experience!) the psychological manifestations that have been attributed to alien visitation. True story: several years ago, my mother called me on the phone to tell me that she had experienced an episode of sleep paralysis. She had the classic symptoms: an inability to move coupled with hallucinations of someone (or something) being in the bedroom with her. She didn't know what had happened to her until I told her about the phenomenon, and how throughout history people had attributed sleep paralysis episodes to supernatural or extraterrestrial visitation.
What was truly bizarre is that I experienced my own episode of sleep paralysis just a few nights later. I awoke in a panic, unable to move and absolutely certain that something was in the room with me. After about 30 seconds I broke out of it and jumped out of bed. Even though I intellectually knew what had happened to me, I didn't go back to sleep until I had checked the house for intruders. The feeling of another presence in the room with me was that strong.
I knew what had happened to me by the next morning: my mother's description of her experience, coupled with the power of suggestion, had induced a similar experience in my own mind. Since then, neither my mother or I have suffered a second episode. It was a very sobering reminder to me that even rigorous education and scientific training are not always proof against the psychological tricks of one's own brain.
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Re:Cause & Effect (Score:4, Funny)
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UFO != alien apacecraft (Score:5, Informative)
The US has a good UFO detection system (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly, the US has had, for several decades, a system which can detect UFOs - GEODSS [fas.org], the Ground Based-Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance System. Each GEODSS site (there are three currently active, plus a mobile unit) has a pair of 40-inch telescopes. These were the first fully computerized telescopes, working since the 1980s. The telescopes scan the sky every night. They can detect moving bright objects as streaks, but there's more capability than that. They have a star atlas, and know what should be in each image, so anything that shouldn't be there is detected. If a known star is missing, that's interesting too; it may indicate a dark object. There are two telescopes, so for low-orbit objects, they can get parallax. Multiple sites can be coupled together to get parallax on more distant objects. They can even use one telescope with a laser to illuminate satellites while taking a picture with the other. This is how the USAF finds new satellites, near-earth asteroids, and nonmetallic space junk. The system was recnelty upgraded [mitre.org] to use CCD imagers (it used to be tube camera based) and to use better alignment algorithms, so it's now both more sensitive and more accurate.
This is all tied to NORAD in Colorado Springs. GEODSS knows what an incoming ICBM trajectory looks like, and if it ever sees one, NORAD gets notified, without any action from the GEODSS site operators.
GEODSS is a real, live, functional UFO detection system that's been running for decades. If anything big enough to be interesting was anywhere near the planet for more than a few hours, it would be noticed. Even the target didn't reflect radar or light, it could be detected because it would occasionally occult a star.
UFO sightings in Scotland... (Score:5, Informative)
... seem to be centred around Bonnybridge. Now, without wanting to sound like a UFO skeptic (I'm not) I do find myself wondering if "strange lights in the east" might have something to do with the flare stacks at the oil refinery in Grangemouth, the very bright strobes on a nearby pair of *immense* electricity pylons (couple of hundred metres tall) and a very tall power station chimney with strobes. Couple all that up with a bit of low cloud and you get some very odd effects. I used to drive through this area every day - at night in the winter you got some really odd glare off the clouds.
Being British,what are flying American acronyms... (Score:5, Funny)
If anything, Her Majesty's extraterrestrials, keen to avoid any interference with the Royal Air Force (or, heaven forfend, the Home Secretary's wrath), stay orderly well grounded, and are kept busy making corn circles to lure Japanese tourists or those from insubordinate colonies to the fields of Devon!
Why don't we have more pictures of UFOs? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a consequence we have many more pictures of police misconduct and celebrity's privates than we ever have in the past, but we have no noticeable increases in the numbers of good UFO pictures (or good sasquatch pics for that matter).
If the number of UFOs are constant, and there are many more cameras, why aren't we seeing many more pictures flooding the intertubes?
Re:What UFO conspiracy theorists REALLY want (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:What UFO conspiracy theorists REALLY want (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Why not (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh please... "The Egyptian papyrus described a fleet of flying saucers darting through the sky?"
Seriously....
The Egyptians said NO SUCH THING, that is by way of being utter nonsense.
There have been lots of fascinating reports of strange events and objects in the sky in ancient time, most notably by the chinese. These are interesting because they reveal that early civilizations felt such things were worth recording, but most of the time information is scant, sufficient only to allow us to speculate as to causes, such as meteors or ball lightening.
They are not, in any way at all, indicating that there were people sitting around pondering alien spaceships in the ancient world. Ever...
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Re:Why not (Score:5, Interesting)
They are not, in any way at all, indicating that there were people sitting around pondering alien spaceships in the ancient world. Ever...
It would be hard to expect an ancient people to say, "we saw an aerodynamic craft of strange configuration approach at mach 12, capable of extreme delta-V acceleration, flying in formation with a mothership and several smaller ships, each with thrust powered by some sort of engine producing multi-spectral visible radiation," but we might hear things like:
Ezekiel:
2 Kings 2:
Isaiah 66:
Jeremiah 4:
Zechariah 6:
One might consider something like this [engadget.com] a modern re-imagining of Ezekiel's wheels.
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Party balloons (Score:5, Informative)
I once saw something exactly like you describe and your pictures show. I got my telescope and saw an aluminum foil balloon. It was much smaller and nearer than it seemed before I recognized it. It's really funny, how something that seemed like a huge metallic spacecraft flying extremely fast miles away was suddenly diminished to a small child's toy floating at a hundred yards distance.
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