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UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#51

Post by codezero »

minota wrote: post #33

Transcribing the interesting bits from 18:15 Man A (ATC?): There's nothing showing on either primary or secondary Woman A: Ok, it was moving so fast. [Inaudible] Man A: Alongside you? Woman A: Yes, it was rapidly [inaudible] bright light and then it just disappeared at a very high speed. I am still wondering. Didn't think it was likely collision course. Wondering what sort it could be. Man B: Meteor or another object…

would be interesting to know the relative trajectory – would help determine if it was a known satellite reentry or on a typical orbit of debris (lots of periodic comets have well known debris trails, they form most of the "meteor showers" that happen yearly.)

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#52

Post by codezero »

matthewwiese wrote: post #10

Since we don't usually get UFO threads on Hacker News, I may as well brush the dust off my tinfoil hat... What's always puzzled me about UFO sightings is the preponderance of "bright lights" being what people report seeing. If some extraterrestrial being came to visit, why make itself known? And in such an obviously unnatural way, too? One immediate counterargument I can think of is that it's good camouflage. Who nee…

at least two common things fall into this bucket

1. Reflections and other visual phenomenon 2. Space debris burning up on reentry (natural or unnatural)

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#53

Post by KirinDave »

Uh, so... I don't have precise enough times to do this, but my first question is, "Is this an Iridium Flare event?" If you have never seen "Iridium Flares", grab your phone and download an Iridium Flare app. They're confusing, spectacular, and they actually happen pretty often.

Because this sounds an awful lot like an iridium flare. And they're a kind of persistent source of "inexplicable aircraft" reports because they're SO bright you assume they have to be close by.

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#54

Post by Ptyx »

AngryData wrote: post #36
matthewwiese wrote: post #10

Since we don't usually get UFO threads on Hacker News, I may as well brush the dust off my tinfoil hat... What's always puzzled me about UFO sightings is the preponderance of "bright lights" being what people report seeing. If some extraterrestrial being came to visit, why make itself known? And in such an obviously unnatural way, too? One immediate counterargument I can think of is that it's good camouflage. Who nee…

I could also imagine aliens that might see in different light spectrums and our visible light spectrum is 'dark' to them, like how we would perceive infrared, microwaves, or radio waves without giving a second thought as to whether or not something unknown might be able to sense that random spectrum emissions. Maybe they see in microwave range, maybe they use the light spectrum much like we use our radio spectrum and…

NASA-engineer Paul R. Hill has written about "UFO-illumination":

http://orbwatch.com/paulrhill.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Hill

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#55

Post by Casseres »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #11
snek wrote: post #7

Are the archives just really low quality or do ATCs and pilots possess superhuman abilities to understand super low quality audio

As someone who operated marine VHF ("bridge-to-bridge") professionally for years, I'll say that these recordings sound perfectly intelligible. I imagine ATCs and pilots have a similar culture of "get the point across as fast as possible, but not so fast that it is no longer unambiguous." Especially airband, where everyone in each area tends to guard and use a single frequency.

US Air Traffic Controller here. We have what we call "phraseology". The FAA Order 7110.65 prescribes how to say what we say.

It makes for safe and efficient transmissions. If there's a set way of saying something, then pilots don't have to guess what we mean if every controller says it in a different way.

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#56

Post by thekingofh »

Apocryphon wrote: post #42

Perhaps it'd be more interesting for both casual observers and conspiracy theorists alike to assume modern UFOs are not extraterrestrial spacecraft, but clandestine earthly government aircraft. Maybe they turn on the bright lights to pretend to be aliens, to throw off the scent.

Popular ideas in UFO circles are that there was a crash, the govs have the tech, and the craft we usually see are replication vehicles attempting to test out what we gathered from the real one that crashed years ago.

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#57

Post by mrleinad »

sockgrant wrote: post #47
pubby wrote: post #30

A few months ago I was walking alone in the park when I saw a bright light moving in strange patterns in the sky. It scared the pants off of me. For about a day my mind was nothing but paranoid thoughts. I had fear that I had seen something that I shouldn't have. That not only extraterrestrial life was real, but that they knew of my existence and would be coming for me. Or perhaps they were coming for all of us. I wa…

Had that same feeling years ago. Went out to a dark place to see the stars. Ended up seeing a light jumping around on the horizon. Then there was a bright white flash that lit up the whole field and forest, but not like lightning. No shadows, no source of light. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, no thunder. It wasn't lightning. Pretty scared, I kept watching the jumping light on the horizon. A few minutes later the wh…

Saw a similar light when I was a child, my brothers saw it too. But this one was right above our heads in the sky, and there was no flash when it disappeared. Bounced from one place to another, and it was really far away, so we are talking hundreds of kilometers in a second. Never forgot about it.

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#58

Post by atombender »

KirinDave wrote: post #53

Uh, so... I don't have precise enough times to do this, but my first question is, "Is this an Iridium Flare event?" If you have never seen "Iridium Flares", grab your phone and download an Iridium Flare app. They're confusing, spectacular, and they actually happen pretty often. Because this sounds an awful lot like an iridium flare. And they're a kind of persistent source of "inexplicable aircraft" reports because th…

Iridium flares are extremely brief — they last just a couple of seconds. The pilot said "the object had come up along the left side of the aircraft". No pilot is going to describe an Iridium flare like that.

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#59

Post by matthewwiese »

ken wrote: post #22
matthewwiese wrote: post #10

Since we don't usually get UFO threads on Hacker News, I may as well brush the dust off my tinfoil hat... What's always puzzled me about UFO sightings is the preponderance of "bright lights" being what people report seeing. If some extraterrestrial being came to visit, why make itself known? And in such an obviously unnatural way, too? One immediate counterargument I can think of is that it's good camouflage. Who nee…

Even if we assume that "UFO" means "space alien", it doesn't seem puzzling to me. Answer 1: selection bias. Obviously the only ones that people see at night are those which have lights. We aren't going to hear about the ones that people don't see because they're dark. Answer 2: alien apathy. You've flown a million light years to spy on some great apes who aren't even sure you exist. Who cares if a few of them get fla…

From a rational standpoint, I generally subscribe to the selection bias you (and Scriptor in a separate reply) raise as #1. However, for the sake of discussion, let's operate under the assumption these sightings are legitimate/noteworthy.

Personally, I grew out of bothering ant hills when I was about twelve. Nowadays, I pleasantly observe from high above. So why wouldn't aliens do the same?

In this case, your second theory fills in the gaps. But, one would assume some species capable of this technology would also have cultural norms about not interfering with less developed groups. Much the same way we (generally) try not to interfere with primitive tribes around the world.

I suppose, then, that the comparison could be made to the Sentinelese firing arrows at aircraft out of fear and suspicion. The aliens (in my opinion rightly) assume we would do the same to them because they are so foreign to us.

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#60

Post by mrob »

scoot wrote: post #37
snek wrote: post #7

Are the archives just really low quality or do ATCs and pilots possess superhuman abilities to understand super low quality audio

Did we listen to the same recording? It was perfectly clear for me...

It's a 16kbps MP3 file, and MP3 doesn't work well at such a low bitrate. I found it very difficult to make out the speech over the compression artifacts. I frequently watch videos at 2x speed, so I don't think I have unusually bad audio comprehension skill.
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