Traffic you cant explain

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sullecpt
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Traffic you cant explain

Post by sullecpt »

About 7 years ago I was flying VFR into CYHZ on a nice SKC day. The pilot I was flying with noticed traffic at our 12 o'clock probably 1000-2000 feet above us. It was a very difficult to make out what is was exactly. It was kind of light coloured but also bright. It was pretty stationary initially, but then it literally started bouncing around. I would compare it to what a laser pointer could look like when you point it at a wall and just mess around. We did a call on 126.7, then called TWR and asked if they knew about the traffic. TWR said no and recommenced we contact Centre. We contacted Centre and they also didnt have it on radar. We were both confused, we didnt say much to each other and continued our flight and stopped watching this thing. When we landed we both agreed that what we saw was real, and that we are going to sound unreliable telling people about this. We tried to come up with any theory we could to justify what we saw. Balloons, drone, satelittes, meteors, visible planet, another plane, illusion?. Nothing really fit the bill and we were both reluctant to call it the U word. I was a little pissed off we couldn't get an answer. We filed a SMS with our company and life went on.

A few years ago I read Porter had a near miss that didnt make sense. Now the past week I've been reading about all these US fighter pilots having unexplainable traffic nearby, and near misses. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/p ... ilots.html

I don't even want to entertain conspiracy crap, I know that will only end up in ancient aliens memes and laughter. I am curious though if anyone has seen anything they couldn't logically explain while flying. Anyone willing to share without shitposting?
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MrWings
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by MrWings »

sullecpt wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 8:53 am Nothing really fit the bill and we were both reluctant to call it the U word. I was a little pissed off we couldn't get an answer.
By definition, it was a UFO. Don't be scared of it. UFO does not equate to alien flying saucer.

One winter evening I saw some bright objects in the sky. They looked liked very bright stars or planets but I knew they shouldn't be there. Then they started to move unlike the way an aircraft would. I really had no explanation and it freaked me out.

The next day I found out they were Chinese sky lanterns. I had no idea they even existed.
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Mach1
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by Mach1 »

Traffic you cant explain

Toronto.

There is just no explaining that traffic.
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I'm going to knock this up a notch with my spice weasle. Bam!
Tuza
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by Tuza »

sullecpt wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 8:53 am About 7 years ago I was flying VFR into CYHZ on a nice SKC day. The pilot I was flying with noticed traffic at our 12 o'clock probably 1000-2000 feet above us. It was a very difficult to make out what is was exactly. It was kind of light coloured but also bright. It was pretty stationary initially, but then it literally started bouncing around. I would compare it to what a laser pointer could look like when you point it at a wall and just mess around. We did a call on 126.7, then called TWR and asked if they knew about the traffic. TWR said no and recommenced we contact Centre. We contacted Centre and they also didnt have it on radar. We were both confused, we didnt say much to each other and continued our flight and stopped watching this thing. When we landed we both agreed that what we saw was real, and that we are going to sound unreliable telling people about this. We tried to come up with any theory we could to justify what we saw. Balloons, drone, satelittes, meteors, visible planet, another plane, illusion?. Nothing really fit the bill and we were both reluctant to call it the U word. I was a little pissed off we couldn't get an answer. We filed a SMS with our company and life went on.

A few years ago I read Porter had a near miss that didnt make sense. Now the past week I've been reading about all these US fighter pilots having unexplainable traffic nearby, and near misses. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/p ... ilots.html

I don't even want to entertain conspiracy crap, I know that will only end up in ancient aliens memes and laughter. I am curious though if anyone has seen anything they couldn't logically explain while flying. Anyone willing to share without shitposting?

Hahaha! I’ve seen two. Orb like. Once when I was flying from cyql-Cyxh. It just hovered in the sky for what seemed like minutes and I thought it must be a helicopter as that’s what the light looked like but then it just disappeared. There was a bit of cloud so I assumed it must be behind it. But when looking for it to come out as a helicopter would - there was nothing. Initially it looked like it had just blinked out but of course I couldn’t accept that. Needless to say, it had NO configurations of how a heli or even aeroplane would act. Nothing! And you would have seen something as it’s in the friggin’ prairies. Not many places to hide. The other odd thing was how I felt. Normally you’d be radioing immediately because it was super close but I never did. I never felt anything to even address it except stare at it. But then came a point that something seemed off and then suddenly I felt weird and it “blinked off.” I never spoke about it to anyone for yrs. and there was nothing noted at FSS at Cyxh.

Years later I saw in the paper the same type of orb and it tipped me off somehow and then I couldn’t get enough researching it.

The second one was about 2 yrs ago just coming back from MN at the MB border. I was driving then but there it was up to my left. As soon as I looked at it, it blinked off. And it was DEFINITELY a completely sky clear night.

Anyway I did find it immensely interesting about the Navy’s accounts. They’re not the first and there are a lot of ex-military, police, scientists - ppl with something to lose - coming out of the woodwork.

Cool for you! Love seeing that s$&@!
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Flyboy19803
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by Flyboy19803 »

There's a new series called "Unidentified" on History channel. It really gets into the "aerial phenomena" and the close calls with aircraft mostly military. Highly recommend it.
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lownslow
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by lownslow »

sullecpt wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 8:53 am I don't even want to entertain conspiracy crap, I know that will only end up in ancient aliens memes and laughter. I am curious though if anyone has seen anything they couldn't logically explain while flying. Anyone willing to share without shitposting?
Sounds to me like you found a Mylar party balloon. They level off at a couple thousand feet, kind of flop on their sides and can tilt erratically which makes the reflection of the sun on them do some interesting things.
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co-joe
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by co-joe »

I think I almost got hit by a meteor once. It's the only logical thing to explain what I saw. Middle of the night Inuvik to Edmonton City Centre, captain was asleep as were the medic, and the patient. I saw a super bright light start stationary at 11 o'clock high, come straight at us, and pass off our left wing as an extremely bright and long tracer. The FIC, and the ACC had said they had no traffic in the area except us. Depending on it's size it could have been small and 10' off our wing, or huge and 10 miles off our wing, I had no frame of reference to compare it to. Some of the recent dashcam video of meteors in Russia lead me to believe that's what I saw that night.
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C-GGGQ
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by C-GGGQ »

co-joe wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 7:48 am I think I almost got hit by a meteor once. It's the only logical thing to explain what I saw. Middle of the night Inuvik to Edmonton City Centre, captain was asleep as were the medic, and the patient. I saw a super bright light start stationary at 11 o'clock high, come straight at us, and pass off our left wing as an extremely bright and long tracer. The FIC, and the ACC had said they had no traffic in the area except us. Depending on it's size it could have been small and 10' off our wing, or huge and 10 miles off our wing, I had no frame of reference to compare it to. Some of the recent dashcam video of meteors in Russia lead me to believe that's what I saw that night.
That's actually pretty cool, must happen more often than we think too as meteors are realistically fairly common.
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iflyforpie
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by iflyforpie »

The way humans perceive things plays an interesting part in how illusions can take place.

What we start with is how humans perceive distance. The first way is parallax... which is next to absolutely useless in an airplane—just look at how many wingtips get hit while taxiing.

Second is relative size. We know what the object is or can compare it to other objects we know the size of that it’s close to. Unfortunately this often fails in aviation as well unless we are close to the ground... we only know size of something high in altitude if it’s something we are familiar with like a 737 or an eagle, etc. Sometimes it fails even when we are close to the ground, like wide vs narrow runways.

Third way we judge distance is relative motion. What the angular traverse is of something that we know the speed of. When we are headed towards something like a mountain or the runway, we know we are getting very close when the relative motion increases closer and closer to the stationary point (where we will impact if nothing changes)

Next is how we judge the speed of something.

Humans judge speed of an object they see by “lengths/time”. It’s weird... but how many times have you heard or you thought that a 747 doing a takeoff or landing looked “slow” in comparison to even something like a Cessna 172 doing circuits? They judge the speed of an object they are in by the angular rate of motion of their surroundings. That is why a 747 going Mach 0.8 at FL410 seems painfully slow compared to a gentle grade downhill on a narrow trail by mountain bike at 30km/h.

These kind of “Kalman filters” humans have play a huge part in illusions when we come up with objects that fit none of the familiarity criteria as we see them in the sky.

I was at 8,000 feet one time above Nelson flying the Skymaster doing some mapping work when one of my mappers asked about a strange object coming up fast on the left side of the plane. I couldn’t see it at first but there is was, and it was moving! I got ready for evasive action and it whizzed by looking like it was going Mach 3. A discussion ensued as to what it was and whether it was a UFO or something.

I thought to myself it wasn’t going fast.... we were going fast. I whipped the plane around on a reciprocal bearing and sure enough we soon had the object in sight and were “gaining” on it. I put it right on the nose and unconsciously put in a bit of cross-control... ready to break away if it got too close. It went sailing by again but with a closer and prepared look it was a collection of helium balloons strung together that had floated up from Nelson.

In addition to our perceptions as described above making me think it was a strange fast moving object was also the power of suggestion from someone else that put it as an unknown object or one that was a lot bigger than it actually is. The only things we typically see fly by us that fast are birds which we can identify as birds. Other aircraft going much faster seem to pass by slower because we are either under controlled separation or self separated by radio... or spot them and turn away long before they could ever get close enough to produce the kind of relative motion we see with smaller objects.
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Geez did I say that....? Or just think it....?
YBW-Kid
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by YBW-Kid »

Many years back while driving in the city of Calgary on 16th Ave westbound in the community of Montgomery heading out of the city just before the Bow River. It was winter and the sun was setting below the hills to my left and the sky was clear with unlimited visibility. The sun was below the hills to the west but had not set below the horizon and was illuminating a departing westbound B737 above me which had just departed Calgary. The sun was reflecting off the fuselage & wings of the aircraft and an object less than 50ft behind the B737. It was clearly a silver metallic round orb about 6-10 feet in diameter tucked in below and behind the B737. I observed it for about 45 seconds before the aircraft & object proceeded too far west for me to observe from my truck while moving any longer.

No question there was a 2nd object flying formation with that B737.
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iflyforpie
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by iflyforpie »

Lens flare/ghost?

Quite common with a very bright object seen through multiple lenses or panes of glass. The curved glass of the truck windshield might have refracted the reflection of the 737 to a smaller point and the partial double reflection off the interior of the panes might have transposed it behind the aircraft.
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Geez did I say that....? Or just think it....?
co-joe
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by co-joe »

iflyforpie wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 9:34 am Lens flare/ghost?

Quite common with a very bright object seen through multiple lenses or panes of glass. The curved glass of the truck windshield might have refracted the reflection of the 737 to a smaller point and the partial double reflection off the interior of the panes might have transposed it behind the aircraft.
...or somebody's luggage dangling from the door to the pit?
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SoaringHigh
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by SoaringHigh »

YBW-Kid wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:27 am Many years back while driving in the city of Calgary on 16th Ave westbound in the community of Montgomery heading out of the city just before the Bow River. It was winter and the sun was setting below the hills to my left and the sky was clear with unlimited visibility. The sun was below the hills to the west but had not set below the horizon and was illuminating a departing westbound B737 above me which had just departed Calgary. The sun was reflecting off the fuselage & wings of the aircraft and an object less than 50ft behind the B737. It was clearly a silver metallic round orb about 6-10 feet in diameter tucked in below and behind the B737. I observed it for about 45 seconds before the aircraft & object proceeded too far west for me to observe from my truck while moving any longer.

No question there was a 2nd object flying formation with that B737.
You've been buying too much product from street vendors in Forest Lawn.
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YBW-Kid
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by YBW-Kid »

SoaringHigh wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 4:18 pm
YBW-Kid wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:27 am
You've been buying too much product from street vendors in Forest Lawn.
No man- better shit in Bowness- much safer near the river. Forest Lawn is for those with the word "High" in their handle.
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Bede
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by Bede »

The US navy thing was likely a software glitch. It was only ever seen through the helmet and never visually and started shortly after a software update. If you look at a couple of the NY Times videos, it actually appears stationary while the tracking moves very fast because of the motion of the airplane.

Most other UFO’s are Mylar balloons or meteorites. Then there are a few left that are truly unexplained.

Fun fact of the day: more Americans believe that there is a government conspiracy covering up UFO’s than believe in UFO’s.
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Flyboy19803
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by Flyboy19803 »

I highly recommend watching "The Nimitz Encounters" its on the YouTube and its about 30 mins. Unbelievable evidence of an encounter with something unexplainable of the coast of California. Also Bede if you could show me the evidence that there was a software glitch on those two NY Times videos I'd love to read up on that report.
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Blue42
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by Blue42 »

YVR Centre.....

“Fly heading 070 for “traffic”....
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C208
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by C208 »

Satellite/Iridium Flares too. Sure would love to get me some real UFO siting though!
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Kejidog
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by Kejidog »

The OP mentioned Halifax. I am a Halifax native and I know of a promotion company that uses these large searchlights in a group of three that rotate independently from a trailer. Mostly at car dealerships for sales. Some evenings when there is a thin high haze they reflect what looks like orbs in the sky. I saw it from the air once as a passenger flying into CYHZ. Maybe this is it?
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Rooster69
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Re: Traffic you cant explain

Post by Rooster69 »

5th May, 2019. 22:30ish. Sitting in hut tub watching the night sky, because it is supposed to be the tail end of a meteor shower herein Barrie. I notice my teenage son’s head moving like he his tracking something in the sky. I turn to look and see, a chevron passing overhead. No bright lights, no noise, just 5 very dim almost glowing lights. Only see it for a second or two. Just enough te to register that there is something flying by. My on turns to me and I say “did you see that?” He replies “what was that triangle that just flew over us?”

Just like poster above. Could have been small flying low, or something big but high up. It was moving fast though.
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