UFO
Please note that some or all of the objects mentioned in this post are no longer visible on Google Earth or Google Maps.
Tensuns says:
I have no idea what this is. I can’t find anything similar on any google map referenced sites. It doesn’t show up on terraserver and I live nearby so I know there are no towers in that area. It has the same shadow as ground objects and when you zoom out it appears to be too small to be something really close to the satellite.
Well we’re completely stumped. Any clues anyone?
Update: See the UFO Update entry.
I’m a professional photographer (photojournalist to be specific), have been for 10 years, and in my opinion that anomoly is, without question, a drop of water.
Condensation inside some sort of housing would be my guess. If the drop were directly on the lens it would be effectivly invisible. Put it a few inches/feet away and have the camera shooting with a very deep depth of field (as you would with a small aperture) and it would look just like that anomoly.
I’d say it is not a weather balloon as, in the shots where it’s not a sphere, it looks even more like a drop of water would under the above described circumstances. Could be evaporating, being pushed by air, any number of things.
Since there isn’t water in space that means this was not shot in space. Simple as that.
Seriousness aside, seeing that the images are taken over the West Palm Beach area, it could also be the giant, inflated ego of some overly rich person.
“FAKE”
“PHOTOSHOP”
FYAD sucks.
Ill bet it’s just a teaser
I believe the object is a helicopter, and all you are seeing is the blur of the rotating blades. The fact that the circular pattern is less opaque at the edges supports this. Note that the velocity of the rotor blades will vary extremely, in flight, and so, images of helicopters, from above, may vary, depending on this, exposure, lighting, etc.
There is nothing to see here. Move on. These are not the answers you are looking for.
“They’re not flying objects or they wouldn’t be in such perfect alignment.”
I don’t know . . . every UFO attack movie begins with a scientist saying something exactly like that . . .
Someone with a gps unit, go to the coordinates and look up.
“In this one you can see part of the normal Google copyright notice in the blur”
UFOs were the really the next logical step for Google, when you think about it. Creative Commons would have been cooler, though.
I bet the FBI has posted here.
And where are the co-ord’s for Area 51…
It’s an algorithmic anomaly produced by the software used to “stitch” together multiple high altitude images.
Y’all can stop guessing now….
My guess is that they’re the giant, pan-dimensional thumbtacks that our overlords set up to hold the earth’s surface in place. They use advanced rectothermoflatulentum technology to render them invisible from underneath.
Either that or it’s a weather balloon. Hard to be sure.
couldnt they just be fires of some type ? now yeah that doenst explain how they dont move but the fact THEY didnt move should be noted too.
It might be a very large satalite dish, the reflection of the sun is hitting it just right, since one of the orbs is shinning half way under some trees
Kudos to all the alert people. You will know real soon what those buoyance machines are doing back here in 2001
A cloud? A jet flying as the sattelite scans the ground? maybe a weather baloon. Maybe just messed up film?
That was a joke, David, right?
Alright, time for a recap:
Even though the images bear strong resemblance to certain weather balloon photos (google “akin noaa balloon”), the fact that the relative positions of the “spheres” form a cartesian grid(see James’ link to my flikr image above), in that the longer distances between spheres are multiples of the distance between closer spheres, seems to eliminate the possibilty that these images are of balloons unless we assume the balloons are stationary. (A google search for stationary weather ballons comes up empty.)
Those theories suggesting that the images are remnants of internal map alignment points cannot explain the shadows on the spheres (By the way, Jeff was just kidding.)
Now, I know next to nothing about aerial photography, but it seems increasingly likely that the anomoly lies within the camera apperatus itself.
Anyody want to bump this thread up to Slashdot?
You have to give creds to google if they did put those there on purpose. just think of the publicity they’re getting….like they need more
Looks clearly like a water tower to me, regardless of what the poster claims.
20 bucks says its a hot air balloon…we allwayyys have thoes flying overhead..thats what my bet is
First, I do believe that humans may have built flying saucers seeing how they can build atomic bombs and space shuttles. However, I don’t think that this is one of them. It seems to be either a place marker (I.e. program data point for stitching the photos togther) or it may be, this is a long shot, a lens flare or whatever they call it from the sun, moon, or the earth itself.
As for the reason I think it’s not a UFO…First, the size of it. Given the level of detail that the sattelite gives, a UFO that is that blurry either is extremely huge or is very high in the sky. The problem with the size issue is obvious. (Who wouldn’t report a UFO that is the size of two or three houses…) As for the height issue, a UFO that is that close to the sattelite that it would overlap more than one house completely would be too blurry to leave the solid line that you can clearly see at the southmost edge of the sphere. (I assume is spherical because of the arc in the black in the gradient) I’ve used a few telescopes in my life, as short as it has been, and I’ve always noticed that things either are in focus or they aren’t. There aren’t definative lines in the blur. (Maybe it’s just me.) Not to mention, what are the odds that the object would stay at the perfect distance for the sattelite to capture roughly the same image several times over presumably several miles distance in all directions.
All in all, I think that this graphic is simply a “push-pin” used for coordinates or something and the blurring is nothing more than grand ole’ Microsoft’s edge smoothing technique. (The same one they use in photoshop for text.) That would also explain the gradient coloring. (The satelite people would use something obvious that wouldn’t look like a house or tree or whatnot, like a sphere shape.)
On a slightly different note: Have you seen crop circles? Well, take a look around the scenery of Washington D.C. . . . If you don’t see it, there are several paths that lead to buildings (I think Military or at least government) that look an aweful lot like the crop circles. NO! I’m not saying it’s a government conspiracy, but I am saying that crop circles seem to fit the general human artistic nature. A little too much.
You will also see bizare glyphs at the area 51 locations. That is to say, they are bizare until you watch a few documentaries on atomic bomb testing and see that these shapes are for the tests…(They mark kill zones and such. Some are simply used as targets for planes to do bombing runs on.)
“Nanu Nanu” - Robin Williams
send it in to george noory and coast to coast. tell ‘em you were in an airplane and snapped this picture of a UFO; they believe anything
Condensation on the lens doesn’t very well explain Placemark: this / Google Earth.
It has to be something added after the picture was taken, that is obvious since one of the google copyright logos is blurred. Even if there wasn’t that evidence I think it would be safe to say that anything thats not either really close to the ground or really close to the lense would be completely out of focus (just like putting your hand between your computer screen and your face, your hand becomes transparent). With this said, it must be something used by the person that processed the information for google or just a glitch or other anomoly.
Check out streetadresses and find out who lives there.
Definitely they’re NOT marks for picture stitching. In most stitching software (like for making panoramas) the algoriythm comes down to finding sharp and contrasting details and aligning those spots with each other. THAT blurry thing wont just work.
It is something floating in the air as it doesn’t interfere with any ground objects. And if some consider it to be a weather baloon why we don’t see other ones in TX, or NY or anywhere else?
My guess… UFO. Here it comes.
Ground fires.
it is golf ball lolz !
When shooting with a ultra-wide angle lens, condensation will form at the apex of the curve of the lens (a drip if you will), especially when shooting in the down position. Because of the field of view, it will look like it is “floating” between the camera and the object being shot. It is not an uncommon phenomenon.
Look at the way they hang there in the sky - in exactly the same way that bricks don’t. And since they look like flying saucers, and if 1950s sci-fi taught me anything it’s that flying saucers are the ideal shape for traversing the universe, they must be flying saucers. Preparing to attack. All this talk of weather balloons and lens effects is just Pollyanna wishful thinking. ET has arrived in 1950s styled UFOs, because they are the perfect configuration for interstellar travel, and this time he’s out for blood.
Honestly, does anyone actually believe that aliens, if they exist, travel in saucer shaped ships? Why would they? What possible benefit would a saucer shape be in traversing the galaxy? Just because some addle-brained 1950s era idiot portrayed space ships as being saucer shaped we automatically assume that every saucer-shaped thing in the sky is an alien craft?!? I don’t know what the images are, but they aren’t alien craft from another planet, star, galaxy or universe.
Sheesh!
Couldn’t this thing simply be some kind of water-mark for the maps due to any copyright purposes of google ?
I notice numbers in or through the sphere located west of the one in mention.indicating reference to location. It would appear to be a photo referencing mark.
“It is something floating in the air as it doesn’t interfere with any ground objects. And if some consider it to be a weather baloon why we don’t see other ones in TX, or NY or anywhere else?”
If it’s a weather balloon, it’s bigger than a house. Much bigger. If those _are_ houses below it, it must be about 100 feet in diameter. Most weather balloons that not that that large, although Skyhook balloons are approximately that size:
http://www.cufon.org/cufon/taf_1.htm
I’m not sure that they fly those things anymore, though.