From: phister@inbox.com   
      
   On Mon, 17 Apr 2023 17:47:56 -0700 (PDT), Kym Horsell wrote:   
      
   > On Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 4:10:21 AM UTC+10, phister wrote:   
   > ...   
   >> I am very old and have been interested in unexplained phenonema for ~70   
   >> odd years, but not seen either a UFO or a ghost. I have a picture of a   
   >> strange structure on the dark side of the moon, courtesy of Google   
   >> Earth.   
   > ...   
   >   
   > Jacques Vallee is very old -- if you think 80+ is old. :)  He relates a   
   > story of working at an observatory in his youth where he was   
   > "disappointed" when a telescope captured pix of things flying across the   
   > sky and his boss threw them away because they were rubbish. "We see   
   > these all the time" he was told. "We ignore them".   
   >   
   > Pictures can be interesting but are nothing compared with lived   
   > experience. They can also be a let-down. :)   
   >   
   > Two of the recent ones doing the rounds on special interest groups   
   > illustrate the pitfalls. Both were from Mars robots. One showed some   
   > strange shape in the sky near the horizon. The other was a picture of   
   > what looked like a doorway cut into the side of a hill.   
   >   
   > Analysis showed the "thing in the sky" was most likely a spec on the   
   > camera lens because in several images it was in exactly the same   
   > position to the pixel. It was also not visible from other angles   
   > covering the same part of the landscape at the same time.   
   >   
   > The doorway was interesting but hard to say whether it was natural or   
   > not. Some people insisted it was an optical illusion -- like one of   
   > those "installations" created by an artist hanging a bunch of stuff from   
   > strings and forming an image if viewed from one angle. It sure looks   
   > like the kind of thing an earthmoving machine on Earth would make. But   
   > on Mars could it happen naturally over millions of years?   
   >   
   > I've seen many blobs on the moon from various photos. Always a problem   
   > to figure them out. Some are -- unknown to the viewer -- patched   
   > together from images taken at different times and the shadows have moved   
   > and made it look like something is there when it isn't. The shadows   
   > anyway can make it look like a dome is there when it is actually a   
   > crater. If only they had video of the spot and we could see how it   
   > changed over time or run it through a s/w that can extract 3d from   
   > images.   
   >   
   > Nothing really is as good as your own eyes and brain. I've taken pix of   
   > things and been totally disappointed what I caught looked "nothing like"   
   > what I think I saw at the time. Your eyes and brain see one thing from   
   > whatever is dancing around in front of you over seconds or minutes,  but   
   > the camera sees a blob over a fraction of a scond that could be   
   > anything. :)   
   >   
   > If you look up at night it's possible you have seen something unusual   
   > but just not realized it.   
   >   
   > It's gotten to the stage where I go out on a clear eveneing if I do NOT   
   > see something fly across the sky that is not mundane then I get   
   > disappointed. :)   
   >   
   > Some UFO researchers disregard "lights in the sky" (LITS) because they   
   > "could be anything". But, to me, these are the most interesting because   
   > they seem to happen "all the time" but most people just ignore them.   
   >   
   > They have their little tricks tho. A light can appear suddenly anywhere   
   > in the sky and hang motionless. Then disappear. All within a matter of a   
   > few seconds. If you are not looking exactly at that part of the sky at   
   > the right time you see nothing. Or maybe you see something out of the   
   > corner of your eye come and go but by the time you turn in that   
   > direction it is gone and you shake your head, say you're seeing things,   
   > and go back inside.   
   >   
   > Another little trick I have noticed is you turn around from looking one   
   > place and you look at a couple of stars some other place. Nothing seems   
   > unusual. Until you realize you dont remember seeing a pair of relatively   
   > bright stars in that part of the sky earlier in the evenening. Keep   
   > watching. Sometimes one of them moves off after sitting there a few sec.   
   > More than one time I keep watching and the 2nd one moves off as well in   
   > the other direction.   
   >   
   > Otherwise it's pretty much up to you to figure out what a satellite   
   > looks like and whether this thing is behaving 100% like that. Satellites   
   > dont come from the east, for example. The NE or the SE either. And sats   
   > curve toward the equator not away from it. They cant change direction in   
   > the middle of the sky. And they cant move faster than about 5 sec across   
   > your finger, and they can't hang stationary or near-stationary 45 deg N   
   > or S of the equator. When they move N/S or S/N (usu slightly to the W of   
   > N/S if they are polar sats) they have a minimum speed; if they are   
   > slower then they just can't be in orbit.   
   >   
   > But the best LITS events are where aircraft chase after them or in some   
   > way "tangle" with them. It seems some countries have a policy of chasing   
   > them off, esp near airports.   
   >   
   > Sometimes at night I've seen military choppers "shake the clouds" and   
   > little lights come out and run away. It's even gotten to the stage where   
   > this has happened during the day. Just a couple weeks back I was sitting   
   > out with a coffee and I looked up and saw a small aircraft circling   
   > around the area at a good height. Eventualy I noticde there were little   
   > white dots up there moving in and out and around the few fluffy clouds.   
   > And the plane seemed to be trying to harass them into leaving.   
   >   
   > Once you have the knack of seeing these kinds of things you ten to see   
   > them ",all the time".   
   > I'm fretting at the moment becase the last couple times the sky was   
   > clear enough to see lots of stars none of them had been moving or   
   > shining purple lasers in my eyes!   
      
   I dont know what altitude sonic bangs cease to occur, but many people   
   guess the elevation of various UFO sightings to a few thousand feet. They   
   then describe these objects as moving off silently at extremely high   
   speed. Maybe there is a mechanism where a vacuum corridor can be produced   
   in the atmosphere ahead of any object movement, but surely that would also   
   make some noise.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)