A UFO I saw from my back garden

[Smersh]

Ok, I just noticed I've reached "In Search of Reality" status here, so I'm now in search of some reality on this one.
I've posted this sighting of mine on one or two other boards in the past, including the sadly now defunct Space.com forum but to date nobody has been able to explain it.

Back in the early 1990s I was playing football (soccer) with my (then) seven year old son in our back garden. I happened to glance across to my neighbours' garden and saw a silvery-blue ball shaped object, approximately 20 ft away and 10 ft up, hovering above their garden. (I would say it was about the same size as the soccer ball we were playing with or maybe a little bigger.)

This object moved to my right towards the house, gradually gaining speed, then suddenly shot straight up in the air at tremendous speed and disappeared completely from view . I estimate, that from the moment I first saw it to the moment it disappeared from view was about 3 seconds and its speed when it shot up in the air must have been in the region of several hundred mph.

I shouted to my son about it to look up but he didn't see it as by then it had gone. I've never seen anything like it before or since and it took me completely by surprise. It spooked me out quite a bit at the time as well.

FYI: It was a summer's day and the weather was sunny with no thunderstorms around, which I would have thought would rule out ball lighting or some other weather phenomenon. I live in West London about two miles from Heathrow Airport.

Also, back in 2008 a video was posted on Youtube showing a sighting in Wales of an object that looks to me very similar to the one I saw, although this one is considerably further away from the observer than in my case. The object hovers just above the treeline on the far side of a road, and moves around slightly up and down and side to side for a while, then at about 0.33 (shortly after a yellow bus passes by) it too suddenly shoots upwards at great speed.




There is also a half-speed version of the above video:



I'd just like to add that the video was filmed through a car windscreen and when I posted the above videos at Space.com along with the description of my own sighting, somebody suggested it might be an insect or speck or dirt on the windscreen. However, specks of dirt don't shoot up in the air and out of sight suddenly.

[RICH-ENGLAND]

if you look at the trees its very windy. my thoughts is that its a seagull "hovering" against the wind then flying of in a slightly different direction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVS9ZVUrCB4&NR=1

thats just my opinion on the video btw and im not doubting your own sighting.

thanks

rich

[Access Denied]

This object moved to my right towards the house, gradually gaining speed, then suddenly shot straight up in the air at tremendous speed and disappeared completely from view .

Interesting, a ("silvery-blue ball shaped ") balloon popped by a bee or something?

[LCARS24]

Surveillance drone lowered by high-altitude Russian helicopter then yanked back up by explosive retrieval winch
Flying pufferfish
Hummingbird bloated by swamp gas (so-called feather balloon)
Water tower viewed through temperature inversion
The planet Venus magnified by soap bubble in witness's line of sight
Casper
Balloon with nitric acid in spitball (for timed pop) stuffed into nozzle, dangling leaky capsule of amyl nitrate
Time-traveling RC toy from the future
Eyeball (or contact) lens flares
Nose of aircraft protruding through cloud, followed by pilot ejection

[Smersh]

@RICH-ENGLAND
The object in the video does hover a bit like that seagull for a while I agree Rich, but it's round like the one I saw and with the speed it shoots up in the air looks like it has a rocket up its ... sorry, attached to it.

@Access Denied
Well, it was shaped like a round balloon I agree ...

@LCARS24
I think I like your suggestions best so far because all are equally possible (or unlikely) and you can take your pick!

[RICH-ENGLAND]

@smersh.

the object in the video may appear round due to it being out of focus, distant and or video compression or a mix of all.

as for the speed, its pretty hard to discern as watching a 3d environment on a small 2d plane can cause allsorts of illusions, i dont have the capacity to look into the speed as im just awaiting parts for my p.c but hopefully someone can have a look and try to see if its out of the ordinary.

thanks

rich

[ryguy]

Balloon with nitric acid in spitball (for timed pop) stuffed into nozzle, dangling leaky capsule of amyl nitrate

haha! I was thinking a bit more mundane, like a balloon caught in a strange airstream, sort of like you'd expect it to behave in the eye of the mini-twister until it hits the wall and shoots off. I've seen some really odd objects "floating" when I was a kid, whenever there were those 10 to 20 foot dust twisters - most of which were invisible on the grass because there was no "dust"!

Interesting sighting either way.

-Ryan

[LCARS24]

I knew a guy years ago who was very good at diagnosing and correcting mechanical or electrical problems and heard him mention UFOs only twice: the first time saying they were bunk, case closed, and the second a year or two later saying that he and his wife and kids had had a personal sighiing while on vacation, verdict overturned, case closed.

[nablator]

I'd just like to add that the video was filmed through a car windscreen and when I posted the above videos at Space.com along with the description of my own sighting, somebody suggested it might be an insect or speck or dirt on the windscreen. However, specks of dirt don't shoot up in the air and out of sight suddenly.

They do, when you move the camera a bit while pointing it in the same direction. There is a smudge that moves exactly at the same time on the bottom-left.

The uploader noticed it in the comments on Youtube:

@argodell. Yep. That's why when I saw it I looked at my cameraphone instead of at the sky. And I just noticed recently, others pointed it out before but I couldn't see what they were talking about... there's another object on the left of the screen just before the original object moves for the first time. Actually, it moves at about the same time. What do you think about it? Thanks, James (",)
JaymieWaymie 11 months ago

Your sighting was something else, I have no idea.

[LCARS24]

About the video, they look to me like tensioners for the wires, in which case the photographer can make a video like that any day he chooses as long as the weather and camera are such that the wires don't get resolved. I see them in my neighborhood, and in some weather conditions/times of day it's hard to see the wires. The giveaway is the one on the right at the beginning. Notice how that and the main one can be envisioned to be connected to the same wiring system. And it disappears because the camera moves to hide it behind a tree.

About your sighting, of course, that's up to your judgment. I could probably come up with more jokes about it, but I wasn't there. You and whatever it was own that sighting lock, stock, and movie rights. If it was sn ET drone, they should send you a DVD. But it does bring to mind the famous Gorman dogfight case of the late '40s, where the pilot chasing it, two people in a Piper, and two on the ground got quite a show. Lt. Gorman thought it was 6 to 8 inches in diameter, not that he ever got within spitting distance in his North Dakota Air National Guard F-51. But it sounds like a high-tech spy drone, remote controlled or with pretty good on-board AI, and able to play tag with a jet fighter with impunity.

[chrLz]

I'd just like to add that the video was filmed through a car windscreen and when I posted the above videos at Space.com along with the description of my own sighting, somebody suggested it might be an insect or speck or dirt on the windscreen. However, specks of dirt don't shoot up in the air and out of sight suddenly.

They do, when you move the camera a bit while pointing it in the same direction. There is a smudge that moves exactly at the same time on the bottom-left.

Nablator has it (as usual!). I'll lay odds of 50 to 1 that the 'thing' is on the windscreen. The movement you see is what happens when the phone/camera is moved *laterally* while still pointing in the same direction. This causes the close object to move rapidly out of frame, but the background stays relatively still. There are several clues - if I get a bit more time later I'll show you how it can be reproduced pretty easily. Whether it was deliberate or accidental, who knows, but I'd bet my favorite camera on it..


But as for Smersh's sighting, I have no idea and in the absence of any other evidence, I'm not sure where we go next.. Interesting anyways!

[RICH-ENGLAND]

yeah i think you guys got it right after taking another look.

@chrlz. its like those marvellous ufo over australia pics from that great fun thread we were in on ats last year, camera movement ! lol

thanks

rich

[chrLz]

yeah i think you guys got it right after taking another look.
@chrlz. its like those marvellous ufo over australia pics from that great fun thread we were in on ats last year...

Ahh, yes, the old UFO in Sydney Australia case! I remember it well - I hope poor Fiona has found some refuge now from her fifteen minutes of fame over a windscreen smudge.

Hey, perhaps we should invite the malefactor over here - he'd know what to do...

[mosfet]

While the video under slow motion and magnification shows what appears to be a blurry dot such as a pencil point under magnification, a lightened aura is visible in both the untouched and resampled video. This lighted area suggests some type of video manipulation. My guess would be that the video is man-made or fabricated. However that does not detract from the fact that it may represent an actual event as suggested by the op.

[Smersh]

I'd just like to add that the video was filmed through a car windscreen and when I posted the above videos at Space.com along with the description of my own sighting, somebody suggested it might be an insect or speck or dirt on the windscreen. However, specks of dirt don't shoot up in the air and out of sight suddenly.

They do, when you move the camera a bit while pointing it in the same direction. There is a smudge that moves exactly at the same time on the bottom-left.

The uploader noticed it in the comments on Youtube:

@argodell. Yep. That's why when I saw it I looked at my cameraphone instead of at the sky. And I just noticed recently, others pointed it out before but I couldn't see what they were talking about... there's another object on the left of the screen just before the original object moves for the first time. Actually, it moves at about the same time. What do you think about it? Thanks, James (",)
JaymieWaymie 11 months ago

One problem with Youtube is that comments get all muddled up and don't follow in sequence. Unfortunately I can't find a comment from argodell on either that video or the slow-motion version, on any of the pages of comments that the uploader (JamieWaymie) might have been answering, other than "Wait invisible to the naked eye?" In fact that's the only comment from argodell I can find, unless I'm missing something. So I'm not sure exactly which smudge or object JamieWaymie is taking about, other than a smudge on the left which I agree might well be something on the windscreen.

However I have to disagree with the theory that it's a smudge on the windscreen that moves when the camera does, because the object moves around in relation to the treeline and the clouds behind it. A smudge on the windscreen also doesn't shoot up in the air suddenly at tremendous speed as the object does in the video. Having said that though, I'll admit I'm probably a little biased because I know I myself saw something very similar, and at very close range myself. (Which of course I can't prove and I wish I could!) However, I still don't understand how a smudge could behave in that way, so my thinking is still that its an object that's hovering above the trees, then shoots up in the air and out of sight as it appears to in the video.

While the video under slow motion and magnification shows what appears to be a blurry dot such as a pencil point under magnification, a lightened aura is visible in both the untouched and resampled video. This lighted area suggests some type of video manipulation. My guess would be that the video is man-made or fabricated. However that does not detract from the fact that it may represent an actual event as suggested by the op.

Yes I've noticed that as well, even very slightly on the normal speed version viewed in the normal size screen. Looking at the ten other videos on the uploader's channel though the only UFO video he has on there is this one (although he did also make a "director's cut version.") so he doesn't seem to be in the habit of faking UFO videos using CGI or whatever. I'm also no expert on CGI so wouldn't really know, but as far as I know nobody else has yet suggested it might be an intentional CGI fake.

Of course, smudges on windscreens and CGI don't explain the object I myself saw that day with my own eyes!