UFO
Thursday, 12th May 2005 by Alex Turnbull
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.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
Look at this shot with a plane in it…
View Placemark
The imager is doing two exposures in different spectral bands hence the moving aircraft can be seen with a blue ghost (and its shadow shows an absence of the blue ghost as you would expect)
This suggests to me where the blue coloration comes from, but I can’t work out how a perfect circle is formed by overlapping the two exposures.
The source of the mystery dot is definately not Google. This image data comes from the USGS, and can also be downloaded via http://seamless.usgs.gov (along with other imagery for the area that does not depict these dots).
(FWIW – You’ll also notice that the White House, Executive Branch building, Justice Department Building and US Captial are also altered in the source data)
Perhaps lower orbit satellites caught in snapshots as they move across the earth?
An example is the above post of a plane taking off from the Atlanta airport here as the satellite snaps consecutive pictures.
I’ve just submitted this story to Slashdot and blogging the best factual expert comments here.
it’s a ping-pong ball
When they told us they had spent millions of dollars constructing and sending into orbit a super telescope (Hubble) and that it had a flaw in the lenses, we beleived them? Not that we should beleive that in fact what it was was they saw hundreds of planetary systems around near every star they could point it at. So here it is years later and they’re slowly aclimating the sheeple to the truth.
When the un-encrypted video feed from the space shuttle showed the weird activity of nearby objects, we just forgot about it, meanwhile all of a sudden NASA needed to encrypt the video downfeeds “for privacy reasons”.
Everyday people publish new images and film of odd disc shaped or triangular or cigar shaped craft flying at impossible speeds around our atmosphere yet somehow we still don’t beleive.
But the damning evidence is the cattle mutilations. On and on they go, hundreds of thousands of mutilated cattle. Why, there have even been a few documented cases of mutilated humans. One in Puerto Rico near a large public water reservior.
I even wrote a song about it , wanna hear it here it goes: We got these people living under the ground they get more free beef than anyone around Mutilated cattle! (somewhat Zappa-esque music this is to).
I think this is what it comes down. We all want to see a live alien in a zoo cage with a caption on it ‘Zeta Reticuli ‘Grey’ Sapien Sapien’ ‘Homo Unterrapublicus’
And we want to see him do something cool like Juggle three running chainsaws while reciting Robert Frost.
One night I was out in Coral Springs smoking a cigarette outside my friends house when I looked up and saw 4 stars in the sky. And then oddly enough these 4 stars started moving to the south together in a formation and then they turned south-westerly and seemed to become three stars as they headed too far away to see. They appeared to be very high up in the sky and did look exactly like the other stars in the sky. It appeared that they kept formation as they moved although it kind of looked like they where held together with elastic bands..they might have moved closer and further away as they moved slightly. I couldn’t really tell. But I did think they where headed for that airforce base on the south west tip of florida. I’ve decided on two possible explanations: One is that they where four birds. Might be. Could be. Possibility. Maybe. Except I’ve never seen birds look like stars. Ever. And the other possibility is that it was some kind of Alien craft, or maybe even ‘our own’ TR3 or whatever they call that huge triangle shaped craft with lights on each corner all these conspiracy pages say we have. I’ve heard it sometimes seems to have 4 corners and sometimes seems to have 3 as if some kind of other weirdly geometric distortion is involved.
I just want to be able to say I’ve seen at least one UFO. Everyone else seems to have seen one.
It is obviously one of the the new Republican vote stealing satelites. That is why you find them over Florida but not other states. I think you would find them over Ohio too. Efficient but expensive, they are only positioned where the margin is close enough that an election can be swung with a few thousand votes.
Thanks Derek!!!! I was able to track down the original source of the image! It comes from AerialsExpress.com. That’s right folks- AERIALS.
According to them the images were shot from an altitude of 17,500.
More info after I get out of work…
Dang, I can’t believe missed that in the meta data – Aerials is listed as the source. I can’t wait to hear their explaination.
Interestingly, if you go through Aerials Express’s web interface, they also seem to be the source for all the Washington DC data. None of the building data (White House et. al.) in seems to be redacted, leading me to believe this was done at the USGS.
Maybe this is another hiring scheme of Google? They are famous for having those billboards with puzzles or equations on them. If someone is able to solve them, and they notify Google, they can get hired. It’s Google’s way of finding intelligent individuals to work for them.
Is this possibly another one of those schemes? Maybe…
Wow way too cool!
Is that ET?
If you look, this “Grid” is centered around an airfield, common launch points for weather balloons. What I think is more interesting, however; is this thing i found just north of these balloons: View Placemark
Racetrack, or secret supercollider research facility? Zoom levels are limited to distant blurry old photos.
My guess is one of the Surveillance Blimps deployed after 9/11 that were used around the Super Bowl and Baltimore/DC area.
The second guess would be one of those surveillance BLIMPS used by INS/Customs to monitor the borders between the US and Mexico, Cuba et al.
I figure they have to be somewhere’s up there around the Weather Balloon altitudes and are probably bigger with a longer duration of flight.
For one thing, that is not satellite imagery. Some stuff is satellite (low rez) and some stuff is shot with an airplane (that’s the high-rez clear stuff over major cities and certain areas). That image is from the airplane data so you guys gotta think closer to the ground.
Looks like a cloud to me, but more likely is something on the lens. A small whisp of cloud in between the plane and the ground would be totally out of focus as this is.
It’s a water spot on the lens of the camera
I believe that it is a message from the Penguins. As you may know, Penguins are a benevolent race of trans-dimensional being who are here on earth to gently guide mankind towards a better future.
Gruntie
It was touched on upstream but let’s repeat it:
1) weather balloons are small on the ground, but they are huge in the upper atmosphere. If anything these objects may be too small.
2) IIRC they go up to 100k ft or so. (It’s been a long time since I worked at NOAA). That’s about 20 miles, vs. maybe 150 miles for a photo satellite. That may be high enough for them to be out of the focal plane. We need to know how large a single swatch is – this may be a relatively modest blurring that’s notable because of high magnification.
3) the Google watermarks are added later as an “alpha” layer to an image. They stand out here because the objects are so uniform in color and intensity. (I’m not sure where the “distortion” somebody mentioned is.)
On the flip side, why are they so regularly spaced?
BTW there are light clouds over Mt. Rushmore.
BTW2 look at National Parks. I can see hiding Washington landmarks on the street maps, but Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore? Disney World? The images aren’t blurred, but you have to “fly” to them.
It could be lenticular cloud or the top of a thermal.
99% of weather balloon is just hot air
This is obviously not a case of two random points in space forming a line as was suggested above. Chart the points in Excel (or ooCalc 🙂 or see the text graph below for a poor representation.
Sorted by lat, the points occur at:
26.748651 -80.074550 26.748651 -80.189370 26.901956 -80.074550 26.901956 -80.245299 26.901956 -80.302420 26.901956 -80.357441 27.002249 -80.245299
Two points at exactly 26.748651, and four points at 26.901956. In the Longitude column we have two points at -80.245299 and also at -80.07455. These are pretty exact locations for “random” points in space. Furthermore, I wonder what balloons can fly with this kind of precision (i.e. none). It is interesting that these points do not occur in other locations (i.e. washington state) for them to be some software/mapping artifact.
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ 27.05 -+-+-+--+-+-+-+ 27.0 -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ 26.95 -+- *-–-+-+-+ *+ 26.9 -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ 26.85 -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ 26.8 -+-+-+-+-++-+*+ 26.75 -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ 26.7 -80.4 -80.05
Stupid font messes up the spacing. Sorry that the lon’s are in reverse order.
The board deleted my asterick where
asterick == “UFO” location
Since this object appears in a grid (well spotted! excuse the pun) I assume it is moving with the camera, as these photos are methodically taken in grid fashion. Probably the best photos are used from several different shoots, mentioned earlier, so not all photos in that area have it as it’s a composite of the best shots. Its probably dust or water condensation up to a foot away from the lens of the camera on a sheet of glass. Also, if it’s water it may have eventually evaporated and therefore not appear after a certain time. If it is a satellite photo, not just an aerial shot, maybe these satellites have small particles floating around in space a short distance away from the lens.
Has Art Bell been notified? I’m sure he can explain everything.
this is no weather balloon!, i have studied weather conditions with balloons for many years now and i can see this is a very large object that appears to be closer to earth than the satilite that supports the camara.
i think we should enjoy these pics now before NSA takes them away.
Can’t we approximate size of the object by calculating relative size of light reflection? I think bigger the object is smaller the relative size of light reflection….
or may be we can approximate distance between the object and camera using its fuzzyness and then we can calucate approximate size.
No, not a weather balloon, just one of those metal mylar things you can buy at the grocery store. It’s probably tied to the plane and getting dragged along.
My first idea was lenticular cloud. Google “lenticular cloud” and you will see many alleged “UFOs” of the right size, shape and positioning, plus a few discoid clouds that look more like clouds–often they will appear in the same photograph unless a hoaxer crops them out to strengthen the UFO case. Lenticular clouds can be UFO-shaped but also show strata, like layer cakes and seem to be fairly common in Florida. You can think of them as flattened storm clouds–you know the fireworks that were featured in an episode of SOUTH PARK–snakes. These clouds look like the before shot of a snake, while a thundercloud, hurricane, cyclone, tornado, what have you, is an after shot.
However, for these to be clouds, the camera artifact hypothesis would have to be drawn upon to explain their curiously non-random distribution, although I have noticed that clouds seem to form along fairly regularly spaced lines when cloud cover is about 50% and there is a good wind at cloud altitude (about a mile).
I have listed the FORTEAN TIMES Magazine website under Website (I found your discussion posted under Breaking News). You can find all sorts of phenomena such as UFOs discussed there in an open minded but often skeptical and tongue-in-cheek manner. Charles Hoy Fort (1874-1932) was a collector of stories which science would not or could not explain. He loved to mock the rational but unsatisfactory answers that scientists gave when pressed by journalists or the public to explain nine-day-wonders such as UFO flaps. Unfortunately, science catches up as old dogmatisms die and new theories get a fair hearing. Scientists err, and err, and err again, but less, and less, and less, as Piet Hien put it in one of his shorter epigrams.
Still, kudos to whoever spotted these. I can’t wait until Google maps the rest of the world down to the two or three metre resolution that allows us to count cars on the Golden Gate Bridge. Crop circles, we’ve got your crop circles right here!
And I forget who suggested that they were crop circles without the crops but hey, you’re hitting mighty close to the Vortex theory of crop circles–who knows? although you were joking, they MIGHT be crop circles caught before they hit the ground! Although they don’t stand much of a chance in the suburbs–houses and pools and pavement run their symettry. If they are crop circles, they are rather primative examples. Most crop circles nowadays qualify as landscape art or mathematical puzzles or both. Cristo, eat your heart out!
Horrible afterthought: product placement for the new WAR OF THE WORLDS movie!
Drat those web entrepreneurs! Drat them to Heck’s Canteena!
‘Tis the lighted beacon over the Castle Anthrax!
I find a new one near LA
View Placemark
Real alien UFO often use a 60 GHz beam of milimeter radiation to heat the surrounding air and ionize it. Thus they can ‘pry’ it apart with a magnetic field and fly through it at high speeds. For example, military jets seldom go anywhere near the speed of sound at low altitude or near houses as the sonic boom can break windows. Alien UFOs have been measured to go 3000 mph at low altitude (few thousand feet) without a sonic boom. The 60 GHz radiationi show they do this. For more details, see:
http://www.barry.warmkessel.com/barry/SAUCERS6.html SLICK SAUCERS
This is a patented technique.
Patents #5,791,599 and #5,797,563.
Forgot to say that at night this GHzradiation makes them glow bluish at high altitudes at high altitudes at night, and reds, oranges, blues, greens at low altitudes where salts are present in the air. In day time, they have a whitish fog around them. That ‘fof’ appears in this image. People have been burned when they are near these UFOs when they take off with the radiation from this device active.
Distillation of facts leaves us with at least at list of facts stripped of accompanying hype and superstition.
Lets rule out ufos with this fact: All points in question are the same size, shape and rendering. This would assume the ufos in question were all captured flying at the same altitude or distance from earth. Also their spherical shape precludes having captured them ‘in motion’ as they are perfectly spherical–impossible shape for an object in motion, think about it. Next the blur factor. Given 17,000+ feet for a satellite in orbit and 5000+ feet for clouds also orbiting in their own way, see that the clouds are not blurred in the slightest…this gives us a “focal distance” of at least 5000+ feet, almost a full 1/3 the distance of the satellite to the earth. This is big as far as cameras are concerned, but not when talking satellite “focal distance”. The blur around the edges of the point suggest to a reasonably logical mind that the altitude of an “object” filmed in this manner be severely LESS than halfway between 17000ft and 5000ft due to the degree of “out of focus-ness”–at the very least well above 11000 ft with a probable range due to blur extent of 14800-16250ft–common sense and any photographer will tell you this. Given that the satellite that filmed these images (perhaps in sequence, perhaps not) with a ‘spread pattern’ that show ‘standard unit distances’ between identical objects over a vast ‘grid system’ would require some pretty punctuality on the part of the “spots” in question, or ufos with spot-on timing to the satellite. Recurring dust motes on the lens is foolish at best as regards the timing of the appearances again. Even the most well-behaved dust particles and condensation spots have an ‘appearance schedule’ that do not in any way in this universe conform to equidistant-spacing along a grid pattern. Also of note are the facts that at such a close proximity to the actual camera, dust motes do not have sufficient reflected light from the camera to be illuminated in this manner, they rather appear as negative spots more so than brightly lit fuzzy spheres, as well as the fact that given the distance to the object being filmed and the relatively small area covered by the “fuzzy points”, we would have to understand the object(s) to exhibit astronomical depth not to be rendered invisible. Simple calculation would demonstrate that these “points” or “objects” would have to have a ‘depth’ of just over 1/4 mile in order to even appear (given the distances involved). This would amount to the objects being a slender “pole” standing perfectly on end, with a diameter of approximately 300ft and a length of just under 1/4 mile! To allign these poles in a the symettrical grid we see proposes, with my limited math abilities, a chance that is 1 in 10 with 18 zeroes behind the 10. If you figure several weather balloons instead of one ‘ufo’ the chances are slightly reduced anywhere on the order of 750-2500 times. Still a lot of zeros… The fact that ufos are seen frequently and more so as more people look for them and film them provides real credence and hard evidence of the fact that they are there. I don’t believe in ufos, I KNOW they are real. This is no ‘wishful thinking’ on my part. As regards google’s spots of infamy, I cannot say what they may be, but I can state what they are not. I would embrace some evidence that would give a real explanation as to the origin of these ‘spots’, so I will wait…Bonkus
perhaps it’s the top of dick cheny’s bald head 😉
barry, people who proclaim to know things like yoruself bore me. THe fact is you can make a theroy on that, but the truth is you do not know anything, and never will until the show themselves and talk about their crafts. For all you know it could very well be an airforce craft, and before you proclaim it is not any known airforce craft, that’s just it, the airforce has craft far more advanced than you wet dreams will show you
Now no one how do YOU know that airforce has craft far more advanced than our wet dreams will show us. Ain’t it your theory on that, but the truth is you do not know anything, and never will until the show themselves and talk about their crafts. Huh?
After 182 responses on that topic we’ve got more hints on what we think it is, than on your point of view.
BTW Yoshino has done some great work finding that thing in LA. Incredible man.
Same pattern in LA. Scroll due west of Yoshino’s link and you’ll find one more:
View Placemark
This one has an answer to the puzzle. Now we know it’s Google’s stuff 🙂
I’m amazed how many people don’t believe in spacecraft and extraterrestrial life, yet they have probably never travelled past their city boundaries.
its definetly something in close proximity to the lens of the camera. Moisture droplet ect…
I suspect that the use of weather balloons is exaggerated. They are not used as commonly as in the 60’s. Weather balloons were used to carry instruments to very high altitudes so metrics could be transmitted to various devices and subsequently, readings evaluated. Even if it were a balloon, the coloring is wrong and reflective qualities are off. It is, however, clearly in the atmosphere as the focus is not terribly off. Not a space object.
We do not know whether it’s an error in the lens or whether it’s a real object yet but since some of you mentioned UFO’s, then you might want to take a look at this… Here is an image which the satellite Geos-8 took in 1992. http://www.ufoevidence.org/Photographs/Photo166.htm Notice the part in the main article where it says “similar photo’s were taken by GEOS image servers around the world and erased very quickly in the U.S.A.”. Perhaps not many of you know but on October 30th, 1938, H.G. Wells’ book, “War of the Worlds” was being read on the radio and millions of radio listeners were shocked to hear of the arrival of Martians. Many took to the streets and others gathered in churches to pray. This happened because they thought what they heard on the radio was a news broadcast and that we were being invaded by aliens! So it’s understandable that if we are being visited by some beings from elsewhere and the Government knows, they can’t just tell us like that. It has to come out gradually, over a period of years. Although since Roswell (1947), almost 60 years have gone by and we still get the “weather balloon” story. The media will hardly cover this subject for fear of ridicule and yet this phenomenon has existed for thousands of years. (See http://www.ufoartwork.com for cave drawings to Renaissance paintings depicting saucer-like crafts and non-human entities.) There is evidence that we have been visited by beings from elsewhere but the average person does not believe anything until it comes from the mouth of a higher authority, i.e. the Government. But how can the Government inform the public if there is a risk of global panic, like what happened in 1938? Do you get the picture now?
I believe Welles was forced to make a public apology on national television for that play the following day!
Clearly it is a mushroom cloud from a micro nuclear weapon.
Hate your neighbours? Deploy one of these babies! 🙂
First of all, all you folks who are adamant that the anomoly is a weather balloon, sorry, never been a silver or grey weather balloon. All currently used radoisonde devices are latex, yellowish beige to transluscent. Also, one has to take into account the actual height of the satellite when it took the photo. Weather balloons cannot ascend into space and the relative size in relation to the satellite shows that if it is small it’s very close to the camera and of course, if it is large, it is futher away and closer to the ground . In this case, the object is way too big, relatively, for any type of balloon. So, all you can call it is a classic “ufo”. No, this does not mean it is a spacecraft of alien design, it is as the acronym implies, an unidentified and most likely, unidentifiable.Sorry to let the hot air out of the balloon theorists but, no way, it’s impossible!!!.. Klem
This looks like an “orb”… the micro particles that when out of focus appear like spheres. No ufo, no ghost… just a dot out of focus.
Any chance there is a ball field near by? Definately a homer, and maybe even a grand slam (no, I don’t work for Dennys).
Thanks to Yoshino and Shi Ju, I have located 12 new points in L.A. Still looking around for more.
One – Two – Three – Four – Five – Six – Seven – Eight – Nine – Ten – Eleven – Twelve
Found a 13th point
View Placemark
Well OBVIOUSLY it is a UFO. You can see the gravity-bending force field around it even!
It’s ALIVE !!!
I’m guesing it’s a bug in the software that google uses to put the satellite images together into a map.
It appears slightly tilted thus supporting a type of disk shape. The slght signature of the pixals doesn’t support that of orbs. Can’t say if it’s faked or not until I get a copy of the original uncropped version to try and create a fake then compare the pixal signatures. Interesting image though. I’m keeping inmind the indigo shade as a clue to the answer.