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I was a skeptic of a lot of things until I saw some flying orbs around Mount Shasta, California last October. I saw similar moving orbs again in upstate NY this

by rblion 7y ago

I was a skeptic of a lot of things until I saw some flying orbs around Mount Shasta, California last October. I saw similar moving orbs again in upstate NY this year on two occasions. I don't know what I saw but they were not weather balloons, satellites, planes, planets, stars, or meteors. Anyone here ever see something similar?

reilly3000 7y ago
I just heard a recent Joe Rogan episode with Dan Aykroyd - this topic was the majority of their discussion for at least 45 mins.
- reilly3000 7y ago
  link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LIsLD3j0oQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LIsLD3j0oQ
- rblion 7y ago
  thanks! going to listen now with a cup of tea, great way to end the day.
  - reilly3000 7y ago
    I’m not personally convinced about the veracity of all of that, but I’m amazed at the scope and specificity of what they discuss. The reality I see is several hundred thousand people can believe virtually anything, and all agree with each other. Look at the anti-vax movement, which today compared itself with the civil rights movement. Also, flat-earth and creation science come to mind. I can’t say if any of these are right or wrong about their respective claims, but their tactics and communications styles are largely similar. The group’s metaphorical center of gravity becomes so dense it manufactures its own credibility from within.
    - rblion 7y ago
      I couldn't listen all the way through, it was interesting at times but just a lot of the same circular arguments and assumptions. I'm pretty much done with the UFO topic unless something revolutionary or unprecedented happens. It's a diversion, a distraction.
prestonh 7y ago
Was there anyone there with you that also saw?
- rblion 7y ago
  Yes, 15 eyewitnesses at encounter #2 and 7 for encounter #3. The first one was just me alone backpacking. I doubted it until I realized this was not an uncommon thing to see based on other accounts I soon learned about.
  - starpilot 7y ago
    Day or night? Quite a few of these turn out to be commercial airplanes at night.
    - rblion 7y ago
      Planes have blinking lights, right? These had none of those. They moved around in a non-linear fashion at will, they were intelligently operated. One of them disappeared in a flash... All the people there with me ruled out all the logical possibilities too, most of them were skeptics (including myself) before we saw them. We still joke about the ordeal when we see each other.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        > Planes have blinking lights, right? Not necessarily - they can be turned off, non-functional, or drowned out by a brighter light like the landing lights from a distance. > One of them disappeared in a flash... Or someone flipped the landing lights switch. I saw a C-17 at night while staying near Fort Drum that I was completely baffled by until it got close enough to properly make out. Had it stayed away, I'd have had one of those "inexplicable" encounters people talk about too.
        rblion 7y ago
        There were two of them next to each other. Is that common at all? Does 'formation flying' involve craft flying around in random non-linear fashion? There was a bunch of us and we discussed it for awhile, aircraft is the first thing we jumped to...
egfx 7y ago
Yes I have. I posted about it in an unrelated article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18367198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18367198 I’d make a correction though. It was not as fast as a super fast bird but more akin to a lightning fast game of laser tag or air hokey. The weirdest thing is that for some reason it immediately impressed on me that this was technology.
- rblion 7y ago
  It's interesting for sure. It's a mystery. Could be intentional misdirection by the government, could be beings from another planet or dimension, could be something I can't even wrap my brain around.
  - egfx 7y ago
    It could be silicon based life reassembling itself into a super computer. And maybe it has evolved to a point where it’s capable of exploring the outside world just as we have as humans. At least that’s my leading hypothesis. After all silicon is one of the most abundant material inside the crust. It worked on the surface for carbon based life. And I can’t imagine anything being able to travel here from interstellar space. https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/bringing-silicon-life-53049 https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/bringing-silicon-life-530...
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    It's arguable that beings from another world actually exist although we now know that absent almost surely impossible ftl getting here would be a tremendous effort rendering the supposition that explorers are just popping in quite silly. Far from improving the situation positing other dimensions which we have no proof exist, and beings that we have no proof even can exist seems to make the theory much weaker not stronger.
    - rblion 7y ago
      Our understanding of physics is still primitive compared to Type I, Type II, and Type III civilizations. Be humble.
driverdan 7y ago
> I don't know what I saw but they were not weather balloons, satellites, planes, planets, stars, or meteors. If you don't know what they were then you can't rule out these other things.
- rblion 7y ago
  I used an astronomy app on my phone to verify the satellites, planets, stars, meteors part. They moved around in a non-linear fashion at will, they were intelligently operated. One of them disappeared in a flash...
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    How do you know they were intelligently operated?
    - rblion 7y ago
      What organic phenomenon moves around like that? is what we asked ourselves. One of the people with me was from Columbia University and he is as 'rational' as they come, even he was baffled...
      - Pyxl101 7y ago
        Next time you see it, break out your phone or camera and capture a video. Then we can discuss the actual video!
  - Retric 7y ago
    Things disappear at night when they turn their lights off. It’s common to confuse it with extreme speeds, but I am not sure why. PS: One of the strangest things I saw in the nights sky tuned out to be one of these: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5J52MLXXUy4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5J52MLXXUy4 My perspective of how large and fast it was ended up being completely wrong.
  - driverdan 7y ago
cr0sh 7y ago
I (and my brother-in-law) saw something a long while back that, while I have a rational explanation for what it might have been - I still don't honestly know for certain. It was late at night and we were in the back of a pickup getting some shuteye, heading east on the 8 outside of San Diego - if I had to make a guess we were somewhere between SD and El Centro; I can't narrow it down more. So we're going down the freeway, and above the mountains to the south we see this bright "dot" - yellowish. It sits there, hovering above the mountains. Then it moves slowly to the west, staying above the mountain line - and instantly stops. Stays still for a bit, then at a steep angle (or what appeared to be) it instantly accelerated (like in the blink of the eye) "up" and was gone. My best guess after the fact? Somebody aiming or messing around with an artificial star (sodium laser): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_guide_star https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_guide_star At least - that's what I tell myself, because I have no other rational idea as to what could move like that...
- rblion 7y ago
  This sounds similar to what we saw. I want to know as well but I don't think it was a laser in our case. I could be wrong though, I'm okay with it being a mystery for now. They moved around in a non-linear fashion at will, they were intelligently operated. One of them disappeared in a flash... Strange thing was during encounter #2, they appeared in the spot in the sky 2 nights in a row. It's easy to dismiss these encounters as nothing and it's also easy to just jump to wild conclusions. I asked here to see if others have seen something like this and I got my answer, I'm not the only one. It's good that both of our encounters were in California too, where some of these leaked videos are from as well.
briankelly 7y ago
Maybe considered ball lightning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ummonk 7y ago
Could you provide a little more detail as to what they looked like, how they moved, etc.?
- rblion 7y ago
  White-colored, orb-shaped. They moved around in a non-linear fashion at will, they were intelligently operated. One of them disappeared in a flash... Strange thing was during encounter #2, they appeared in the spot in the sky 2 nights in a row.
  - ummonk 7y ago
    And too big to be laser pointers?
    - rblion 7y ago
      Yes, I'd say so. I'm gonna accept it as a mystery and leave it at that. It's not of critical importance for me to find out what I saw to be honest, I'm just curious about it.
  - heartbreak 7y ago
    Sounds like ball lightning.
russdill 7y ago
We live in an age where nearly everyone has a smartphone capable of recording video, satellites record the earth, and ground cameras record the sky. You either have to believe there is some massive conspiracy to cover the truth, or you are seeing some mundane phenomenon for which you just don't have the explanation available to you.
- rblion 7y ago
  It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, people will see what they want to see. I just asked out of curiosity. I don't care to be validated as an experiencer or as a skeptic. I happen to live on this planet and saw something strange that my knowledge of nature or astronomy could not explain. I don't know what I saw, I'm gonna leave it at that. My original question has been answered, other people in this community have seen 'odd moving orbs' and no one knows what they are.
  - russdill 7y ago
    Also don't forget in these accounts that every time a memory is recalled, especially when it is retold, it is malleable.
- geggam 7y ago
  Ever take a picture of the beautiful moon with that snazzy phone ? Turns out like crap. I doubt even the best camera phone could catch meaningful video of an object at 20k ft
  - russdill 7y ago
    Actually turns out pretty good: https://i.imgur.com/0tyR6W0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/0tyR6W0.jpg
neom 7y ago
I grew up in the middle of no where in rural Scotland, one night from my bedroom window I watched a glowing orb do crazy acrobatics in the air for about an hour, my sister and mum saw it as well. I'll have to ask her how she found him, but my mum contacted some guy who catalogued UFO reports in Scotland. Part of his investigation was contacting the police, my mum kept the letter they sent back: http://john.je/235ca4350b78 http://john.je/235ca4350b78 Still gives me chills remembering watching it.
- rblion 7y ago
  Interesting! I know it's 'cool' to just dismiss things like this but I like to believe there are still many mysteries in the world and that human beings are still pretty primitive in grand scheme of things. Especially when you consider the Kardashev scale.
- pintxo 7y ago
  Lights in the night sky on January 1st? Seriously?
iamnotacrook 7y ago
"Anyone here ever see something similar? " Nobody who wasn't off their face on drugs or mentally ill probably, no. "they were not weather balloons, satellites, planes, planets, stars, or meteors." Other than little aliens in magic flying machines what do you think they could have been?
- ozzmotik 7y ago
  i think the whole bit implying that one has to be mentally ill or on drugs to see such a thing is kind of made in bad faith. for what it's worth, i certainly suffer from mental illness and i have been "out of this dimension" in terms of drug abuse in the past so to speak and i certainly have never witnessed such a thing in my life. so i find it hard to believe either of those things would make one more likely to perceive such things and view them in such a manner. if anything id be more willing to say that it would more likely be someone who has an overactive sense of confirmation bias, but of course I have no idea.
nowandlater 7y ago
Only once: While on an Army training exercise at Fort Irwin California, through the IR scope of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, at night (~ 9:45 PM) in the summer of 2009. I was gazing at the exhaust of a hovering black hawk when a perfectly spherical, very hot, object moved into my field of view. It was behind the helicopter, and as I followed it I realized It was rotating 360 degrees -- at an unknown distance -- around our position. I attempted to range the object with my gun, but once I did, it immediately froze in its position, went from white hot to cold black and back again, and then shot up (very quickly) and out of my view where I lost sight of it. I shared this with the rest of my platoon afterwords, after which we all took to our scopes, ... and it came back, but six spheres this time and in a diamond shaped formation. After one full rotation, the objects slowly broke formation and disappeared into the sky. I never knew what to make of it, but like Mulder, I want to believe.
- rblion 7y ago
  Were you able to get any footage? Yeah, we are both in the same place. I want to be a rational as possible but I also want to believe we are not alone in the universe. This is as human of a feeling as I know, right?
  - nowandlater 7y ago
    Unfortunately not. I share your sentiment; that "something bigger than us" feeling seems to nag at us.
  - mrhappyunhappy 7y ago
    It's likely we are not alone but it's highly unlikely any sophisticated life forms would ever cross paths due to the sheer scale of the universe.
  - api 7y ago
    It's unlikely that we are alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potentially_habitable_exoplanets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potentially_habitable_... Is anyone visiting? That's more far-fetched given the distances and such.
twiceaday 7y ago
I'd like for you to spell out exactly what you mean by "I was a skeptic of a lot of things until..." You saw something you couldn't explain. How is this connected to skepticism? Haven't you ever seen a magic trick you couldn't explain? Conversely, haven't you ever been lied to and were convinced you knew the explanation but later found out it was wrong? The absence of evidence that something terrestrial happened is not the evidence of absence of something terrestrial happening. You saw something you are uncertain of, why does it seem like you are flirting with being certain it was aliens? Your experience was legitimate, please explain the legitimacy in linking your experience to other accounts of completely different phenomena and the alien narrative overall? I think if your skepticism was shaken you were doing it wrong.
- rblion 7y ago
  I think all -isms are an ego trap. I'd like to stop there. I don't care to be validated as an experiencer or as a skeptic, both are extreme points of view if you ask me. Some people jump straight to aliens, others jump straight to bullshit. I would give this more time but I need to go to bed, I've spent more time in this thread than I thought I would.
  - twiceaday 7y ago
    You said very little, I asked you to clarify, this is a cop-out. You have a faulty definition of skepticism, it is an easy-for-you-to-attack caricature. Plus, you've made no claims that require skepticism. You only implied them. I asked you to make them explicit but you got cold feet or something. This, combined with your comments in the other thread about wanting to believe there is something greater and that we are not alone, is enough for me to stop engaging.
    - rblion 7y ago
      No, it's more a way to save time. People either dismiss things like with 'ball lightning' 'dogfighting' 'laserpointers' or they jump to 'aliens' 'secret machines'. I'm good on this discussion, it's not mission critical to what I am doing and I don't see the value of continuing it. Nobody knows what they are, they just have theories. I am okay with it being a mystery, I'm sure I'll see them again and I'll get video next time.
Gene_Parmesan 7y ago
Yeah, and I don't think they were aliens. I just don't know what they were. We were driving through very rural Illinois at about 10 pm. I was just staring out of the window up at the sky. Suddenly, I noticed a rather bright orb (not perfectly circular or anything, I just don't know how else to describe it) hovering in the air. I would guess maybe a quarter mile laterally, and only a couple hundred of feet up. I didn't think much of it at first; I thought it was a plane to be honest. But then it faded out -- more like shimmered out. When it shimmered back in, there were now several of them, 3 or so. They moved in very quick, defined spurts -- thirty feet left then stop, ten feet up then stop. Then these faded out, and faded back in again, but now there were 6-8 of them. More weirdly precise movements, moving separately but staying close as a group. Then they all went absolutely tearing off, directly up, in unison. Lost sight of them almost immediately. I can't emphasize enough how close they seemed. These weren't far-off objects I had to squint to see. For those who have driven through rural farmland in USA, think about your typical interstate with a planted field off to your left. A big planted field, but still only field sized, with a line of trees marking the property boundary on the far edge. That's what these were by, and they were well within the boundaries of the field. I was in the car with my parents, both of whom saw them. (I was getting ready to enter college, so I was probably 18.) They seemed very freaked out and refused to discuss it; I was just captivated and curious. To this day they won't discuss it and sometimes even pretend they don't know what I"m talking about. Again, I'm not at all saying they were ETs, I firmly believe the properties of the Universe make it an infinitesimally small chance that a crossing-of-the-paths will ever occur for two intelligences, if multiple inhabited planets even exist. But I just don't know what these were. They were very close, very bright, very concrete (if that makes sense at all), and their movements were unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Very unnatural-seeming motions. I've never seen anything like it since, either. It's not like I've suddenly started seeing lights everywhere I look.
- nomel 7y ago
  It would be interesting to set up a crowd sourced, and maybe crowd hosted, reporting system for sightings like this. It could help track larger movements, (puts on tinfoil) with their accuracy verified by how quickly the service is taken down/flooded/infiltrated.
sudosteph 7y ago
I wouldn't describe the weird thing I've seen in the exact same way, but I understand the feeling of seeing something you can't explain as a skeptic and being shaken by it. I'd have happily just doubted my sanity altogether and left it at that if my husband hadn't been right there seeing the same thing and reacting the same way.
- ChrisGranger 7y ago
  Mind telling us about the weird thing you and your husband saw?
  - sudosteph 7y ago
    I'm hesitant to post it because I know how people judge this stuff, but I'll share anyhow since the other commenter did. My husband was driving on a remote part of i-10 in Mississippi very late at night, and were the only ones on the road for a long time and it was pitch black - no overhead lights at all, no cars in either direction. We were traveling in the right lane when we both saw a car's tail lights ahead of us, starting to merge into our lane (it appeared to be driving forward, but slower than we were). I'm kinda a side seat driver subconsciously, so I did a little lean away from it, and my husband put his blinker on and got left to avoid an accident. We figured it had been stopped on the side for some reason, and was just merging back in. But as we drove past it, we realized we couldn't see the rest of the car. There was no reflection of our head lights against the body, no headlights or any light at all in our rear view mirror. There was no sound as we passed it. It just wasn't there. We even slowed down in the left lane for a bit, thinking it could catch up, but we didn't see any other cars until we exited to Biloxi. And besides, there was no way anyone could drive on that road with no headlights on a night like that. I made note of the mile marker from where it happened (near Vancleave fwiw) and looked it up on google maps later. There wasn't a good margin or side road or something that would have made sense for someone to stop at. We've driven across the country 4 times now, but nothing like that had happened before or since. I don't know whether to call it a ghost car, a multi-verse artifact, a shared delusion or what. But whatever it was, it was hard to reckon with.
    - 7y ago
nullc 7y ago
> until I saw some flying orbs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning perhaps?
api 7y ago
This is totally hypothetical, but if these orbs and weird multicolored lights were actual physical craft I can in fact think of a physically plausible propulsion system that might look like that. We know how to build two kinds of rockets: high thrust rockets with low specific impulse (Merlin, Raptor, SSME, F-1, etc.) and low thrust rockets with high specific impulse (ion thrusters). Excluding crazy stuff like thermonuclear pulse propulsion, we do not know how to build a rocket that is both high specific impulse and high thrust. There is no physical reason to believe that such a thing is impossible though. We just don't (at least in the declassified world?) know how to build one. A rocket that's both high thrust and high specific impulse would have a thrust whose particles are traveling at probably near relativistic speeds. Think of it as using a high efficiency high throughput particle accelerator as a rocket. The performance of such a thing would be simply awesome, especially in terms of "delta-V budget" as per the rocket equation. In physics terms it's a plain old reaction engine but to someone ignorant of the tech it would look almost like anti-gravity or some other kind of magic. Now here's where it gets kind of neat. What would such a thing look like visually if it were operating in the atmosphere? Those crazy high energy exhaust particles would immediately collide with the atmosphere and emit light. The light would be a mix of the emission spectra of whatever the exhaust is made of and atmospheric gases. If the exhaust contained heavier stuff like metal ions the colors could be vivid and bright. Brightness and possibly color could change based on thrust and thrust vectoring. It would look like a flying orb or a neon light show. It would also be dangerous if you were anywhere close to it since it would kick off quite a lot of heat and probably X-rays or worse. If it were truly near-relativistic it would probably ignite small amounts of nuclear fusion in the atmosphere and emit neutrons and gamma rays too. I imagine that might give it a little more power too, like an afterburner from hell. I imagine there would be RF emissions as well. The craft itself would be hot as hell too since the power requirements would be at least in the hundreds of megawatts. Even if the power source and thrusters had really high efficiency, the second law of thermodynamics would require the craft to dump at least tens of megawatts of heat overboard somehow. It would light up brightly in the infrared and be really obvious to FLIR. Small craft using a thruster like that might look like flying orbs or multicolored light shows. A much larger more powerful one could probably attain velocities that would allow interstellar travel in "reasonable" time frames... for something with a really long life span or non-biological that is. Again just speculation, but AFAIK does not violate any known physics and would match quite a lot of UFO reports.

by rblion 7y ago

reilly3000 7y ago

I just heard a recent Joe Rogan episode with Dan Aykroyd - this topic was the majority of their discussion for at least 45 mins.

reilly3000 7y ago
link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LIsLD3j0oQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LIsLD3j0oQ
rblion 7y ago
thanks! going to listen now with a cup of tea, great way to end the day.
- reilly3000 7y ago
  I’m not personally convinced about the veracity of all of that, but I’m amazed at the scope and specificity of what they discuss. The reality I see is several hundred thousand people can believe virtually anything, and all agree with each other. Look at the anti-vax movement, which today compared itself with the civil rights movement. Also, flat-earth and creation science come to mind. I can’t say if any of these are right or wrong about their respective claims, but their tactics and communications styles are largely similar. The group’s metaphorical center of gravity becomes so dense it manufactures its own credibility from within.
  - rblion 7y ago
    I couldn't listen all the way through, it was interesting at times but just a lot of the same circular arguments and assumptions. I'm pretty much done with the UFO topic unless something revolutionary or unprecedented happens. It's a diversion, a distraction.

prestonh 7y ago

Was there anyone there with you that also saw?

rblion 7y ago
Yes, 15 eyewitnesses at encounter #2 and 7 for encounter #3. The first one was just me alone backpacking. I doubted it until I realized this was not an uncommon thing to see based on other accounts I soon learned about.
- starpilot 7y ago
  Day or night? Quite a few of these turn out to be commercial airplanes at night.
  - rblion 7y ago
    Planes have blinking lights, right? These had none of those. They moved around in a non-linear fashion at will, they were intelligently operated. One of them disappeared in a flash... All the people there with me ruled out all the logical possibilities too, most of them were skeptics (including myself) before we saw them. We still joke about the ordeal when we see each other.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      > Planes have blinking lights, right? Not necessarily - they can be turned off, non-functional, or drowned out by a brighter light like the landing lights from a distance. > One of them disappeared in a flash... Or someone flipped the landing lights switch. I saw a C-17 at night while staying near Fort Drum that I was completely baffled by until it got close enough to properly make out. Had it stayed away, I'd have had one of those "inexplicable" encounters people talk about too.
      - rblion 7y ago
        There were two of them next to each other. Is that common at all? Does 'formation flying' involve craft flying around in random non-linear fashion? There was a bunch of us and we discussed it for awhile, aircraft is the first thing we jumped to...

egfx 7y ago

Yes I have. I posted about it in an unrelated article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18367198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18367198 I’d make a correction though. It was not as fast as a super fast bird but more akin to a lightning fast game of laser tag or air hokey. The weirdest thing is that for some reason it immediately impressed on me that this was technology.

rblion 7y ago
It's interesting for sure. It's a mystery. Could be intentional misdirection by the government, could be beings from another planet or dimension, could be something I can't even wrap my brain around.
- egfx 7y ago
  It could be silicon based life reassembling itself into a super computer. And maybe it has evolved to a point where it’s capable of exploring the outside world just as we have as humans. At least that’s my leading hypothesis. After all silicon is one of the most abundant material inside the crust. It worked on the surface for carbon based life. And I can’t imagine anything being able to travel here from interstellar space. https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/bringing-silicon-life-53049 https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/bringing-silicon-life-530...
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  It's arguable that beings from another world actually exist although we now know that absent almost surely impossible ftl getting here would be a tremendous effort rendering the supposition that explorers are just popping in quite silly. Far from improving the situation positing other dimensions which we have no proof exist, and beings that we have no proof even can exist seems to make the theory much weaker not stronger.
  - rblion 7y ago
    Our understanding of physics is still primitive compared to Type I, Type II, and Type III civilizations. Be humble.

driverdan 7y ago

> I don't know what I saw but they were not weather balloons, satellites, planes, planets, stars, or meteors. If you don't know what they were then you can't rule out these other things.

rblion 7y ago
I used an astronomy app on my phone to verify the satellites, planets, stars, meteors part. They moved around in a non-linear fashion at will, they were intelligently operated. One of them disappeared in a flash...
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  How do you know they were intelligently operated?
  - rblion 7y ago
    What organic phenomenon moves around like that? is what we asked ourselves. One of the people with me was from Columbia University and he is as 'rational' as they come, even he was baffled...
    - Pyxl101 7y ago
      Next time you see it, break out your phone or camera and capture a video. Then we can discuss the actual video!
- Retric 7y ago
  Things disappear at night when they turn their lights off. It’s common to confuse it with extreme speeds, but I am not sure why. PS: One of the strangest things I saw in the nights sky tuned out to be one of these: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5J52MLXXUy4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5J52MLXXUy4 My perspective of how large and fast it was ended up being completely wrong.
- driverdan 7y ago

cr0sh 7y ago

I (and my brother-in-law) saw something a long while back that, while I have a rational explanation for what it might have been - I still don't honestly know for certain. It was late at night and we were in the back of a pickup getting some shuteye, heading east on the 8 outside of San Diego - if I had to make a guess we were somewhere between SD and El Centro; I can't narrow it down more. So we're going down the freeway, and above the mountains to the south we see this bright "dot" - yellowish. It sits there, hovering above the mountains. Then it moves slowly to the west, staying above the mountain line - and instantly stops. Stays still for a bit, then at a steep angle (or what appeared to be) it instantly accelerated (like in the blink of the eye) "up" and was gone. My best guess after the fact? Somebody aiming or messing around with an artificial star (sodium laser): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_guide_star https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_guide_star At least - that's what I tell myself, because I have no other rational idea as to what could move like that...

rblion 7y ago
This sounds similar to what we saw. I want to know as well but I don't think it was a laser in our case. I could be wrong though, I'm okay with it being a mystery for now. They moved around in a non-linear fashion at will, they were intelligently operated. One of them disappeared in a flash... Strange thing was during encounter #2, they appeared in the spot in the sky 2 nights in a row. It's easy to dismiss these encounters as nothing and it's also easy to just jump to wild conclusions. I asked here to see if others have seen something like this and I got my answer, I'm not the only one. It's good that both of our encounters were in California too, where some of these leaked videos are from as well.

briankelly 7y ago

Maybe considered ball lightning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

ummonk 7y ago

Could you provide a little more detail as to what they looked like, how they moved, etc.?

rblion 7y ago
White-colored, orb-shaped. They moved around in a non-linear fashion at will, they were intelligently operated. One of them disappeared in a flash... Strange thing was during encounter #2, they appeared in the spot in the sky 2 nights in a row.
- ummonk 7y ago
  And too big to be laser pointers?
  - rblion 7y ago
    Yes, I'd say so. I'm gonna accept it as a mystery and leave it at that. It's not of critical importance for me to find out what I saw to be honest, I'm just curious about it.
- heartbreak 7y ago
  Sounds like ball lightning.

russdill 7y ago

We live in an age where nearly everyone has a smartphone capable of recording video, satellites record the earth, and ground cameras record the sky. You either have to believe there is some massive conspiracy to cover the truth, or you are seeing some mundane phenomenon for which you just don't have the explanation available to you.

rblion 7y ago
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, people will see what they want to see. I just asked out of curiosity. I don't care to be validated as an experiencer or as a skeptic. I happen to live on this planet and saw something strange that my knowledge of nature or astronomy could not explain. I don't know what I saw, I'm gonna leave it at that. My original question has been answered, other people in this community have seen 'odd moving orbs' and no one knows what they are.
- russdill 7y ago
  Also don't forget in these accounts that every time a memory is recalled, especially when it is retold, it is malleable.
geggam 7y ago
Ever take a picture of the beautiful moon with that snazzy phone ? Turns out like crap. I doubt even the best camera phone could catch meaningful video of an object at 20k ft
- russdill 7y ago
  Actually turns out pretty good: https://i.imgur.com/0tyR6W0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/0tyR6W0.jpg

neom 7y ago

I grew up in the middle of no where in rural Scotland, one night from my bedroom window I watched a glowing orb do crazy acrobatics in the air for about an hour, my sister and mum saw it as well. I'll have to ask her how she found him, but my mum contacted some guy who catalogued UFO reports in Scotland. Part of his investigation was contacting the police, my mum kept the letter they sent back: http://john.je/235ca4350b78 http://john.je/235ca4350b78 Still gives me chills remembering watching it.

rblion 7y ago
Interesting! I know it's 'cool' to just dismiss things like this but I like to believe there are still many mysteries in the world and that human beings are still pretty primitive in grand scheme of things. Especially when you consider the Kardashev scale.
pintxo 7y ago
Lights in the night sky on January 1st? Seriously?

iamnotacrook 7y ago

"Anyone here ever see something similar? " Nobody who wasn't off their face on drugs or mentally ill probably, no. "they were not weather balloons, satellites, planes, planets, stars, or meteors." Other than little aliens in magic flying machines what do you think they could have been?

ozzmotik 7y ago
i think the whole bit implying that one has to be mentally ill or on drugs to see such a thing is kind of made in bad faith. for what it's worth, i certainly suffer from mental illness and i have been "out of this dimension" in terms of drug abuse in the past so to speak and i certainly have never witnessed such a thing in my life. so i find it hard to believe either of those things would make one more likely to perceive such things and view them in such a manner. if anything id be more willing to say that it would more likely be someone who has an overactive sense of confirmation bias, but of course I have no idea.

nowandlater 7y ago

Only once: While on an Army training exercise at Fort Irwin California, through the IR scope of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, at night (~ 9:45 PM) in the summer of 2009. I was gazing at the exhaust of a hovering black hawk when a perfectly spherical, very hot, object moved into my field of view. It was behind the helicopter, and as I followed it I realized It was rotating 360 degrees -- at an unknown distance -- around our position. I attempted to range the object with my gun, but once I did, it immediately froze in its position, went from white hot to cold black and back again, and then shot up (very quickly) and out of my view where I lost sight of it. I shared this with the rest of my platoon afterwords, after which we all took to our scopes, ... and it came back, but six spheres this time and in a diamond shaped formation. After one full rotation, the objects slowly broke formation and disappeared into the sky. I never knew what to make of it, but like Mulder, I want to believe.

rblion 7y ago
Were you able to get any footage? Yeah, we are both in the same place. I want to be a rational as possible but I also want to believe we are not alone in the universe. This is as human of a feeling as I know, right?
- nowandlater 7y ago
  Unfortunately not. I share your sentiment; that "something bigger than us" feeling seems to nag at us.
- mrhappyunhappy 7y ago
  It's likely we are not alone but it's highly unlikely any sophisticated life forms would ever cross paths due to the sheer scale of the universe.
- api 7y ago
  It's unlikely that we are alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potentially_habitable_exoplanets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potentially_habitable_... Is anyone visiting? That's more far-fetched given the distances and such.

twiceaday 7y ago

I'd like for you to spell out exactly what you mean by "I was a skeptic of a lot of things until..." You saw something you couldn't explain. How is this connected to skepticism? Haven't you ever seen a magic trick you couldn't explain? Conversely, haven't you ever been lied to and were convinced you knew the explanation but later found out it was wrong? The absence of evidence that something terrestrial happened is not the evidence of absence of something terrestrial happening. You saw something you are uncertain of, why does it seem like you are flirting with being certain it was aliens? Your experience was legitimate, please explain the legitimacy in linking your experience to other accounts of completely different phenomena and the alien narrative overall? I think if your skepticism was shaken you were doing it wrong.

rblion 7y ago
I think all -isms are an ego trap. I'd like to stop there. I don't care to be validated as an experiencer or as a skeptic, both are extreme points of view if you ask me. Some people jump straight to aliens, others jump straight to bullshit. I would give this more time but I need to go to bed, I've spent more time in this thread than I thought I would.
- twiceaday 7y ago
  You said very little, I asked you to clarify, this is a cop-out. You have a faulty definition of skepticism, it is an easy-for-you-to-attack caricature. Plus, you've made no claims that require skepticism. You only implied them. I asked you to make them explicit but you got cold feet or something. This, combined with your comments in the other thread about wanting to believe there is something greater and that we are not alone, is enough for me to stop engaging.
  - rblion 7y ago
    No, it's more a way to save time. People either dismiss things like with 'ball lightning' 'dogfighting' 'laserpointers' or they jump to 'aliens' 'secret machines'. I'm good on this discussion, it's not mission critical to what I am doing and I don't see the value of continuing it. Nobody knows what they are, they just have theories. I am okay with it being a mystery, I'm sure I'll see them again and I'll get video next time.

Gene_Parmesan 7y ago

Yeah, and I don't think they were aliens. I just don't know what they were. We were driving through very rural Illinois at about 10 pm. I was just staring out of the window up at the sky. Suddenly, I noticed a rather bright orb (not perfectly circular or anything, I just don't know how else to describe it) hovering in the air. I would guess maybe a quarter mile laterally, and only a couple hundred of feet up. I didn't think much of it at first; I thought it was a plane to be honest. But then it faded out -- more like shimmered out. When it shimmered back in, there were now several of them, 3 or so. They moved in very quick, defined spurts -- thirty feet left then stop, ten feet up then stop. Then these faded out, and faded back in again, but now there were 6-8 of them. More weirdly precise movements, moving separately but staying close as a group. Then they all went absolutely tearing off, directly up, in unison. Lost sight of them almost immediately. I can't emphasize enough how close they seemed. These weren't far-off objects I had to squint to see. For those who have driven through rural farmland in USA, think about your typical interstate with a planted field off to your left. A big planted field, but still only field sized, with a line of trees marking the property boundary on the far edge. That's what these were by, and they were well within the boundaries of the field. I was in the car with my parents, both of whom saw them. (I was getting ready to enter college, so I was probably 18.) They seemed very freaked out and refused to discuss it; I was just captivated and curious. To this day they won't discuss it and sometimes even pretend they don't know what I"m talking about. Again, I'm not at all saying they were ETs, I firmly believe the properties of the Universe make it an infinitesimally small chance that a crossing-of-the-paths will ever occur for two intelligences, if multiple inhabited planets even exist. But I just don't know what these were. They were very close, very bright, very concrete (if that makes sense at all), and their movements were unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Very unnatural-seeming motions. I've never seen anything like it since, either. It's not like I've suddenly started seeing lights everywhere I look.

nomel 7y ago
It would be interesting to set up a crowd sourced, and maybe crowd hosted, reporting system for sightings like this. It could help track larger movements, (puts on tinfoil) with their accuracy verified by how quickly the service is taken down/flooded/infiltrated.

sudosteph 7y ago

I wouldn't describe the weird thing I've seen in the exact same way, but I understand the feeling of seeing something you can't explain as a skeptic and being shaken by it. I'd have happily just doubted my sanity altogether and left it at that if my husband hadn't been right there seeing the same thing and reacting the same way.

ChrisGranger 7y ago
Mind telling us about the weird thing you and your husband saw?
- sudosteph 7y ago
  I'm hesitant to post it because I know how people judge this stuff, but I'll share anyhow since the other commenter did. My husband was driving on a remote part of i-10 in Mississippi very late at night, and were the only ones on the road for a long time and it was pitch black - no overhead lights at all, no cars in either direction. We were traveling in the right lane when we both saw a car's tail lights ahead of us, starting to merge into our lane (it appeared to be driving forward, but slower than we were). I'm kinda a side seat driver subconsciously, so I did a little lean away from it, and my husband put his blinker on and got left to avoid an accident. We figured it had been stopped on the side for some reason, and was just merging back in. But as we drove past it, we realized we couldn't see the rest of the car. There was no reflection of our head lights against the body, no headlights or any light at all in our rear view mirror. There was no sound as we passed it. It just wasn't there. We even slowed down in the left lane for a bit, thinking it could catch up, but we didn't see any other cars until we exited to Biloxi. And besides, there was no way anyone could drive on that road with no headlights on a night like that. I made note of the mile marker from where it happened (near Vancleave fwiw) and looked it up on google maps later. There wasn't a good margin or side road or something that would have made sense for someone to stop at. We've driven across the country 4 times now, but nothing like that had happened before or since. I don't know whether to call it a ghost car, a multi-verse artifact, a shared delusion or what. But whatever it was, it was hard to reckon with.
  - 7y ago

nullc 7y ago

> until I saw some flying orbs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning perhaps?

api 7y ago

This is totally hypothetical, but if these orbs and weird multicolored lights were actual physical craft I can in fact think of a physically plausible propulsion system that might look like that. We know how to build two kinds of rockets: high thrust rockets with low specific impulse (Merlin, Raptor, SSME, F-1, etc.) and low thrust rockets with high specific impulse (ion thrusters). Excluding crazy stuff like thermonuclear pulse propulsion, we do not know how to build a rocket that is both high specific impulse and high thrust. There is no physical reason to believe that such a thing is impossible though. We just don't (at least in the declassified world?) know how to build one. A rocket that's both high thrust and high specific impulse would have a thrust whose particles are traveling at probably near relativistic speeds. Think of it as using a high efficiency high throughput particle accelerator as a rocket. The performance of such a thing would be simply awesome, especially in terms of "delta-V budget" as per the rocket equation. In physics terms it's a plain old reaction engine but to someone ignorant of the tech it would look almost like anti-gravity or some other kind of magic. Now here's where it gets kind of neat. What would such a thing look like visually if it were operating in the atmosphere? Those crazy high energy exhaust particles would immediately collide with the atmosphere and emit light. The light would be a mix of the emission spectra of whatever the exhaust is made of and atmospheric gases. If the exhaust contained heavier stuff like metal ions the colors could be vivid and bright. Brightness and possibly color could change based on thrust and thrust vectoring. It would look like a flying orb or a neon light show. It would also be dangerous if you were anywhere close to it since it would kick off quite a lot of heat and probably X-rays or worse. If it were truly near-relativistic it would probably ignite small amounts of nuclear fusion in the atmosphere and emit neutrons and gamma rays too. I imagine that might give it a little more power too, like an afterburner from hell. I imagine there would be RF emissions as well. The craft itself would be hot as hell too since the power requirements would be at least in the hundreds of megawatts. Even if the power source and thrusters had really high efficiency, the second law of thermodynamics would require the craft to dump at least tens of megawatts of heat overboard somehow. It would light up brightly in the infrared and be really obvious to FLIR. Small craft using a thruster like that might look like flying orbs or multicolored light shows. A much larger more powerful one could probably attain velocities that would allow interstellar travel in "reasonable" time frames... for something with a really long life span or non-biological that is. Again just speculation, but AFAIK does not violate any known physics and would match quite a lot of UFO reports.