UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation • Hacker News Board

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#231

Post by PuffinBlue » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

I saw one not too long ago. Two white lights in the sky spaced close enough and moving so as to be obviously 'connected' to each other.

It was perfectly still night in the UK. I outstretched my hand and finger and, I forget the details exactly, but the finger just about blocked out the pair of lights I think.

A quick call to my father in law (pilot) and some info on joining the landing pattern at Boscombe Down, added to the lack of red/green lights so not normally a craft expecting to interact with other traffic, and a little investigative intuition seeing as the lights were moving so slow as to almost be gliding - and I find the Zephyr high altitude long endurance surveillance aircraft.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-buys-third-record-bre...

A bit of trigonometry showed with a wingspan of 35m (I think that was it) and the angle of my finger outstretched, put the craft at about the height it should be for following the standard approach path into Boscombe Down.

So with a little knowledge it was possibly to determine with a high degree of likelihood what this 'UFO' was.

I suspect that virtually all reports can be attributed to similar terrestrial origins with experimental aircraft and using the 'extra-terrestrial' card is just a convenient way of covering that up.

EDIT - I should add I saw it because it was I think the night SpaceX launched and landed a reusable rocket maybe for first time? Or perhaps it was reused rocket with reused dragon cargo capsule to ISS. The path I think was going to take it over the UK anyway, so I was out to see if it would be visible, having watched the launch a little earlier in the evening.

Note to Royal Air Force - don't land the slightly secret plane when many people is likely to be looking up!

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#232

Post by ghthor » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 1:31 PM UTC

lloeki wrote: post #195

ghthor wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life on earth survived the KT boundary asteroid impact. Life on earth isn't going to end from our activity, it will only end from our inactivity in protecting the earth and the sun from major cosmic impacts. We need to get out shit together and stop feeling guilty about burning all the oil. We need to do whatever it takes to get established in space and the moon, ready to deflect and close call objects. We are nature…

> Life on earth isn't going to end from our activity Although unlikely, I can envision a plausible pessimistic runaway scenario where we turn Earth into a Venus-like world due to sheer collective stupidity over a sufficiently large timescale. Maybe not completely sterile but having only some hardened bacteria survive is hardly a hopeful outcome for "life".

While I agree about a run away scenario, o do not think were anywhere close to that. The more we look, the more redundant systems we find on the earth for maintaining balance. Nature is very resiliant, more so then we think, and it isn't going to go down without a fight. We think our pollution is bad... natures recovered from worse. We think nuclear war would end life... natures recovered from worse.

Fear is the mindkiller, and the powers that are instilling fear into our civilization have another agenda. Eyes open, no fear. Nature needs us to come together and protect the earth and sun from cosmic impacts, we need to act now. Nature can handle the co2, we need to handle the comets and asteroids that are the true threat to life on the planet and in this solar system.

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#233

Post by PuffinBlue » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 1:46 PM UTC

darkhorn wrote: post #207

sriku wrote: post #168

Ball lightning? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning

https://youtu.be/hxiDA3tVjRA https://youtu.be/hF-kuB9pBT0 https://youtu.be/6ioN-3UWYrY https://youtu.be/7n79gnbab_o https://youtu.be/WlX-cEsnILc

Two of those were obviously insects, probably fireflies. One even goes in front of the tree in the parking lot. The others were just a blurred mess.

This one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlX-cEsnILc&feature=youtu.be

...isn't ball lightning, it's that weird ice crystal thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ0laC2FksA

I'd love to see an actual ball lightning example if anyone has one though, it would be amazing to see!

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#234

Post by m_mueller » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

cmroanirgo wrote: post #222

credit_guy wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call me not convinced. https://xkcd.com/1235/

Fair enough, but you can't really trust what's posted as video/photo evidence these days: https://youtu.be/Fm8FJ8la2VU I'd go for sworn affidavits with independently verifiable credentials for things like this. Dr Greer has collected thousands of data points on this topic, however. (Perhaps you haven't watched the 3rd link posted above, which is >1.5hr interview with a Richard Doty from OSI whose job it was to discre…

This stuff is very hard to wade through, especially Greer's documentary. I just picked out something to follow up on on Google scholar, the Atacama skeleton, and it immediately falls apart. I'm not saying all of this is necessarily false, it just seems to have a pro-extraterrestrial bias that he's trying to gather evidence for, rather than just analysing evidence without foregone conclusions. I've never seen material on extraterestrials that didn't fall into that trap.

And for all these characters being interviewed, how do you know they aren't just payed actors? Has anyone followed their references? The way it looks to me it's all just a bunch of people with trumped up or vague relationships to US government, including Greer himself having "briefed" intelligence officials (which he later corrects as a talk during a dinner party, who knows whether that's true). Just a personal note as someone who's done a PhD: I've come to the conclusion that if someone introduces himself with "Dr. XYZ", it's probably a person trying to trump up their importance. I've come to get skeptical immediately when someone is doing that.

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#235

Post by ahje » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

ensiferum wrote: post #186

ken wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

3. Human cruise ships (and airplanes) have bright lights too. What if it's just an "alien" cruiseship entertaining a bunch of interterrestial holiday makers?

Jack McDewitt's 'ECHO' comes to mind. Let's hope it's not a bunch of ill-behaved interstellar tourists. :)

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#236

Post by PuffinBlue » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

ronnier wrote: post #8

adetrest wrote: post #3

Audio: http://archive-server.liveatc.net/einn/EINN-High-Nov-09-2018... (skip to 17min40s)

Would love a transcript if anyone happens to find one. I have a very difficult time making out what is said, I'm not sure how they understand each other.

VASaviation YouTube channel just released a video on the event. Starts about half way through:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv7x4dRye3U

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#237

Post by gnulinux » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 2:33 PM UTC

Gustomaximus wrote: post #211

eof wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I want to know is, do they tend to "bank and climb away"

Do meteors ever dip into the atmosphere, light up, and skip away? Like a skipping stone?

It's very unlikely but definitely possible. If the meteor is fast enough and targets outer earth atmosphere, it an enter outer atmosphere, slow down, light up due to friction, then escape earth atmosphere vertically. The only problem with this scenario is that meteor has to be much faster than Mach 2, unlike what pilots reported. But it's easily possible they saw a Mach 12 meteor and thought it's Mach 2.

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#238

Post by grkvlt » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #77

evilturnip wrote: post #23

I'll also put my tinfoil hat on, since I've had a long fascination with anamolous phenomenon. I still think the jury's out on what exactly is going on, but one thing that's consistent worldwide is that balls of light are associated with UFOs, bigfoot, poltergeists, etc. My rational mind doesn't really believe in all of this, but if it did, I think I'd take Jacques Vallee's theory seriously. Jacques Vallee is an astro…

I like the Zoo hypothesis. We do that to North Sentinel Island[1]. It is populated by 50-400 stone age tribes people. India does not prosecute them for murdering anyone who happens to land on their island. Previous contacts with these people led to them rapidly dying of diseases they didn't have immunity to, so staying uncontacted is literally a life or death issue for them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Se…

Looking at the wiki page, it seems the population on the island is decreasing. Hopefully they will either all die, thus relieving us of the ethical dilemma, or India will come to its senses and stop the abuse of these poor people and actually help them. Its criminal that they are allowed to carry on without access to any of the modern world's technology or services. And of course the islanders that killed those fishermen should also be forcibly removed and punished - murder is murder, and the fact that someone is pretending they are still in the stone age has never been a recognised defense...

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#239

Post by madeuptempacct » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #106

madeuptempacct wrote: post #105

I am guessing most people browsing this are suddenly intrigued by the topic. This is the most interesting incident ever, by far: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Tehran_UFO_incident

What makes it so interesting?

> Military sighting

> Multiple points of observation from reliable sources. Visual AND radar observation

> "Natural" sources ruled out

> Military equipment going out on three occasions

> American military investigators

> US military satellite saw an IR anomaly at the same time on its own

Re: UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigation

#240

Post by alan_wade » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 2:46 PM UTC

BattyMilk wrote: post #206

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…

Since we're all giving our UFO encounters I'll chip in with mine. About 25yrs ago as a teenager and utterly obsessed with the supernatural and the unexplained, my family were on a fly drive holiday on the west coast of the US. One night in a roadside motel in the Nevada desert, I was woken up by a strange, loud, rythmic, droning sound outside. Absolutely convinced that it was a UFO landing and terrified that if I mov…

Similar story here. As a kid I was laying in bed staring at a bright disk floating in the sky at night. Totally sure it was a UFO. Turned out to be a reflection of a street light in the window.