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In The Shadow Of A Plane

henry

henry

still speeding
Joined
Oct 23, 2005
Messages
3,794
Not paranormal and probably not even fortean...

I was out this afternoon in south manchester and was stood on a street corner making a phonecall on my mobile (which I never used to find myself doing, now Im always at it) when a shadow moved over me from above.

It seemed circular in shape and indistinct, not clearly defined. I turned around and looked up and I saw a jet plane had just passed in front of the sun.

I felt odd for a second as I realised that this had never happened to me before, although on the face of it, it seemed such a commonplace kind of event. I was talking to my best pal on the phone, we were commiserating over our hangovers. I told him what had happened and asked if hed ever been in the shadow of a plane. He said no.

A couple hours later I was talking with a friend who herself has done a lot of flying, even has a "choppers licence". She also couldnt remember this happening to her.

Theres an airport in south manchester, but probably about 8 or 10 miles away from where I was at. The plane was roughly the same size as the disk of the sun when I saw it.

Is that a long shot?
 
Hm, it's not exactly a freak occurence. I see it fairly often.
 
gncxx said:
Hm, it's not exactly a freak occurence. I see it fairly often.
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Well, you know, I wasnt sure if it was or wasnt. First off, it was so high up and far away, I wouldnt have thought an appreciable shadow would form on the earth.
 
Sometimes I'll be outside and something will block out the sun for a second. I look up and it's a pigeon flying high above me. If a pigeon can do this then I expect a plane can too. Plus the higher up something is the bigger the shadow it casts (I think :? ) so a plane should be able to manage this.
 
mindalai said:
...the higher up something is the bigger the shadow it casts (I think :? ) so a plane should be able to manage this.
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Not really - the sun is far enough away that its rays arrive at the Earth pretty much parallel, so the size of an object's shadow won't depend on the object's altitude. It will change slightly depending on the angle of the sun and the type of terrain onto which the shadow falls. Basically speaking, an aeroplane's shadow will always be aeroplane-sized. Sometimes when you see aerial shots on TV or film, you see the shadow of a plane or helicopter on the ground below.

That said, I can't remember this happening to me more than a couple of times, but it probably depends where you live. If you live a few miles north of the flightpath to a big airport (or south, if you live down under), it probably happens quite often.
 
The higher the 'plane/bird, the smaller the shadow.

The sun is about pinkie-nail-at-arms-length size, aircraft don't have to be very high to appear smaller (and birds less so). So, if they're smaller than the sun, the shadow gets smaller ('cos the sun is bigger) - check it yourself next time you fly. Watch the 'plane's shadow shrink and vanish as you gain altitude...

Alternatively, watch a high-flying 'plane cross the sun - the plane vanishes while within the solar disc.

So, going back to the original question - yes, pretty much a long shot, IMHO. Hope you enjoyed it :)
 
You can cast a shadow with just about anything, if memory serves me right (been a decade or so, so im prob wrong), the calculation is something like: brightness and size of the light source, distance of it to the object causing the shadow, size of that object, then distance to where the shadow appears. its probably a common calculation for game writers now (although probably easier than i said too lol! (google for it). Definatly not fortean, pretty common realy.

im pleased i paid attention during maths and physics :)
 
This take of aeroplanes reminds me of an experiance I have never been able to fully rationalise. Around 1974/75 I was coming back from the Bridgnorth area in Shropshire with my parents in our campervan. We'd been travelling I'd say for about twenty minutes when over to our left we all saw Concorde take off from a field . I say take off as it was in the air at a sharp angle i.e an initial take off climb.

Other info that may or may not be releveant is that I think there was an airshow on somewhere that day.

I have to rule the idea that it had not taken off but merely flown low and then zoomed up as I can't believe Concorde would do this or be allowed to do this.

Any thoughts anyone?
 
In this book:

http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521775043

the authors mention that you should look out for contrail shadows. If such a shadow passes over you - you will see a miles long and thin shadow curtain traversing the landscape. It should be an awesome sight - but it is gone in seconds. They imply that it's reatively rare.

I'm a keen skywatcher, but I see contrail shadows (thrown on lower lying clouds) only 2-3 times a year. And I have never observed the above phenomenon. So being inside an airplane shadow must be even rarer still.

This is the kind of shadow I see 2-3 times a year:
http://www.spacew.com/gallery/image004094.html
 
HenryFort said:
It seemed circular in shape and indistinct, not clearly defined. I turned around and looked up and I saw a jet plane had just passed in front of the sun.

I felt odd for a second as I realised that this had never happened to me before, although on the face of it, it seemed such a commonplace kind of event. I was talking to my best pal on the phone, we were commiserating over our hangovers. I told him what had happened and asked if hed ever been in the shadow of a plane. He said no.
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You wanna try working near RAF Fairford :roll:
 
You could go to "Space" in Ibiza, which is roughly situated at the end of a runway. Incoming planes must pass over the terrace at about 100 feet?
 
We get some strange stuff over the Pennines with planes for Manchester airport. One of the weirdest is when there's a layer of low cloud and the sun projects the image of the plane onto it.
It looks about 100ft up and a half mile long, all very alarming. It's the same phenomenon that's responsible for sightings of giants and ogres in the Scottish hills.
 
I remember myself sitting in my living room watching TV one bright sunny day, and suddenly seeing out of the corner of my eye what looked like a perfect silouette of an aeroplane, about a foot long, move across the carpet in front of me.

I thought at the time I was seeing things, as I was on medication for depression, but having read your post and the others here, I'm pleased to see it's not just me! ;)

James
 
jkwatsonft said:
...I thought at the time I was seeing things, as I was on medication for depression, but having read your post and the others here, I'm pleased to see it's not just me! ;)

James
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Welcome aboard James.
 
There's a hill just outside Bristol where the planes predictably fly over to land at the airport (a few miles away) and the shadows are huge. Guess it depends on the angle of the sun, the height of the plane, the height of the land... and the fact that most people live in cities and don't see such things - where there are so many shadows from buildings that they might not notice when planes go over (and usually planes wouldn't be that low). Tis not that weird I think.
 
this happened again a couple of weeks ago, in the car this time ... on road back from Leek to the A34, felt the shadow go across windscreen and so leaned out, kind of recognising the feeling ... plane had just passed the disc of the sun, roughly same width

maybe every 16 years ...
 
Happens quite often to us here, planes go over every 2 minutes, and sometimes the huge shadows go directly over us.
It's an odd feeling.
 
Unusual things seem odd to us at the time.
I remember as a child that a plane passed overhead very low and my Mother said later that it was a plane carrying wool that was on fire and looking for the airport which was on the other side of town.
 
DerekH16 said:
The higher the 'plane/bird, the smaller the shadow.

The sun is about pinkie-nail-at-arms-length size, aircraft don't have to be very high to appear smaller (and birds less so). So, if they're smaller than the sun, the shadow gets smaller ('cos the sun is bigger) - check it yourself next time you fly. Watch the 'plane's shadow shrink and vanish as you gain altitude...

Alternatively, watch a high-flying 'plane cross the sun - the plane vanishes while within the solar disc.

So, going back to the original question - yes, pretty much a long shot, IMHO. Hope you enjoyed it :)
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Hmm...

It doesn't look like anyone refuted this in the last 16 years, so I will. :)

As Peripart said, the Sun's rays are essentially parallel, so the shadow of a plane will always be more or less plane sized. A plane high in the sky will look small because it's... far away. But this will not perceptibly change the size of its shadow.

The shadow of the plane you're on will appear to shrink as you gain altitude, but this is for the same reason: it's getting farther away.

I experience the shadow occasionally, as I'm not too far from the New York area's two busiest airports. But just think - it's not that common, since a plane has to pass through that tiny part of the sky where the sun is.
 
a plane at a higher altitude will appear to take longer to cross the sun from a given point on the ground, versus a plane just taken off for instance ... wont this influence the perceived size of shadow

also what about the poster who saw the model aircraft sized shadow on his carpet ... was it then thrown by a model plane ..?
 
henry said:
a plane at a higher altitude will appear to take longer to cross the sun from a given point on the ground, versus a plane just taken off for instance ... wont this influence the perceived size of shadow
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Well, kind of yes and kind of no. It has more to do with the apparent size of the plane, not the apparent speed. And it depends on how you define "shadow".

Imagine making shadow puppets on the wall. If your hands are close to the wall, the shadows are hard-edged and distinct. If you move closer to the light bulb, two things happen: The shadows get larger due to the fact that the light rays, both those being blocked and those hitting the wall, spread apart as they radiate from the bulb. But the shadows also get blurrier around the edges. The umbra, the dark area in the middle, gets smaller relative to the whole shadow. If you were an observer at the wall within the umbra, the hands would be blocking the entire bulb. But there is also the penumbra, the somewhat brighter edge of the shadow. Within the penumbra some direct light from the bulb is hitting the wall. If the bulb is big enough (or your hands are small enough) you'll eventually get close enough so the bulb can't be totally blocked to any point on the wall, and the umbra is gone, leaving only a penumbra.

The Sun is 93 million miles away. Because of this, the light rays that hit the Earth are almost parallel. Moving "closer" to the Sun will not make your shadow larger. But to an observer on the surface, your size relative to the Sun does diminish. Your umbra gets smaller and eventually disappears, and your penumbra gets brighter and less distinct. The whole shadow (including the penumbra) doesn't get smaller, it just gets diffused.

So, yes, a plane at a very high altitude, just a speck in the sky, will not cast a significant shadow. But planes within the takeoff and landing zones of airports - and I think for some miles around that area - definitely will.

Some might argue that when they say "shadow" they mean only the umbra, but I think anyone who sees a plane block out even a quarter of the Sun's light will say they were in that plane's shadow.
 
kamalktk said:
A high enough plane will have a shadow bright enough (or not dim enough, depending on point of view), you probably wouldnt even notice it, and even if you did would likely just chalk it up to a cloud passing by.
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A low enough plane will scare the shit out of you ...

I think it was in the 1970s when I was driving alone northward on Interstate 81 (southwestern Virginia). There were mountain ridges to the east and west, and I was traveling through the central rolling landscape of the wide intervening valley. It was a nice sunny day, and there was very little traffic.

All of a sudden my vehicle and I were enveloped in a dark shadow that seemed to drop from nowhere and slide off to my left (westward). The sudden flash of enveloping darkness was accompanied by a "whoosh" that I perhaps felt more than heard. I was so surprised I almost lost control of my car. Once I realized I wasn't about to wreck ...

I glanced to my left to check if I could see WTF had caused this shadow ...

I saw a big-ass BUFF (B-52 bomber), gliding away no more than 200 - 300 feet off the ground. That mountainous area was often the scene of military training and testing flights, so I presume the BUFF was practicing very low level below-radar maneuvers.
 
Slightly off topic, but...

Some 20-odd years ago, I knew a small group of professors who would have lunch together two or three times a week. One day the conversation turned to the Second World War. One of the professors said "I remember, as a youth in Japan, looking up at the bombers casting shadows on my homeland, hating the Americans in them."

One of the other men had a moment of realization and said "Wait a minute. Where did you say you grew up? I think I was in one of those planes!"
 
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