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My UFO Experiences Affected / Changed My Life

One reason that these unidentified phenomena can sometimes appear to move very rapidly without making a sound is that they are (in reality) much more distant than they appear, therefore the sound is too diffuse or arrives much later than expected. Among successfully explained phenomena are such events as meteors, reentry events and bolides, which generally happen tens of kilometres away from the observer, and so the sound would arrive many minutes later if at all; and various rocket launches, fuel dumps and satellite passes, which occur above the edge of the atmosphere so make no sound we can hear.

In other cases the explanation is that the observed phenomenon is caused by a relatively distant plane or helicopter, much further away than the observer believes, but visible because of reflected light, brilliant landing lights or searchlights, or because of a large and obvious fuel or water dump. Note as well that chinese lanterns and balloons are silent, and drones are rarely loud enough to be easily heard.
Finally there are sightings caused by stars, planets, parhelia or other celestial objects, which are always silent.

It is relatively rare for any sound to be heard in association with the sighting of an unknown object, for these reasons; yet another reason to suspect that there are no alien spacecraft in our skies. And the 'interdimensional hypothesis' is impossible to falsify, so I won't bother with that.
 
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One reason that these unidentified phenomena can sometimes appear to move very rapidly without making a sound is that they are (in reality) much more distant than they appear, therefore the sound is too diffuse or arrives much later than expected. Among successfully explained phenomena are such events as meteors, reentry events and bolides, which generally happen tens of kilometres away from the observer, and so the sound would arrive many minutes later if at all; and various rocket launches, fuel dumps and satellite passes, which occur above the edge of the atmosphere so make no sound we can hear.

In other cases the explanation is that the observed phenomenon is caused by a relatively distant plane or helicopter, much further away than the observer believes, but visible because of reflected light, brilliant landing lights or searchlights, or because of a large and obvious fuel or water dump. Note as well that chinese lanterns and balloons are silent, and drones are rarely loud enough to be easily heard.
Finally there are sightings caused by stars, planets, parhelia or other celestial objects, which are always silent.

It is relatively rare for any sound to be heard in association with the sighting of an unknown object, for these reasons; yet another reason to suspect that there are no alien spacecraft in our skies. And the 'interdimensional hypothesis' is impossible to falsify, so I won't bother with that.
Perhaps - yet the vehicle we saw in 1997 was hovering very closely above us, and I know that because it blocked out the stars. I also kept stepping back to get a good look at this thing. Also the flashing lights gave some clarity.
 
Perhaps - yet the vehicle we saw in 1997 was hovering very closely above us, and I know that because it blocked out the stars. I also kept stepping back to get a good look at this thing. Also the flashing lights gave some clarity.
Yeah, I class objects that are so distant they wouldn't be heard or felt (and which could be any number of things) as different from objects that are very close but don't seem to interact in any way other than being visible.
 
@Ronnie Jersey To focus more on the title of the thread, how did your sighting change you? Has it made you more spiritual? How do you think the person you were before your sighting would have dealt with life differently?
 
@Ronnie Jersey To focus more on the title of the thread, how did your sighting change you? Has it made you more spiritual? How do you think the person you were before your sighting would have dealt with life differently?
I think that sighting lead me here to this site, because I have questions that I hope to have answered one day.
Spiritual? I'm not very religious, but it has opened my mind to the fact that life is not just about our little planet, and that we need to understand the laws of the universe.
I think Nikola Tesla had a major understanding of all that, and it is a shame his paperwork was confiscated upon his death, by the government. His work was so important to our world.
The person I was before might have been more skeptical of the experiences of others. And isn't it amazing that governments are finally starting to recognize that something is going on in our skies?
 
I have never seen a UFO, so have no thoughtful opinion about the phenomenon.

However, I have had a few experiences, poltergeists and precognition, which defy conventional explanations. Some of these experiences had more than just me, a single observer, witness them, so the hypothesis that I was mistaken or lying is somewhat rejected. Only somewhat because maybe we all were mistaken or lying, even if that becomes increasingly unlikely with multiple independent reports of the same phenomenon over time or in different places.

I regularly read here in the Fortean forum that if a hypothesis is not disprovable or falsifiable, then it is rejected. Also, if it is rejected, then the phenomenon itself is rejected. Therefore, the conclusion is that the observer is mistaken or lying. Several problems with this logic exist. A phenomenon may be observed by a witness who is not drunk or insane and that phenomenon may actually have an existence independent from the observer. An acceptance of this phenomenon can credibly exist without a provisional hypothesis to explain it. Two examples from conventional science are meteorites and gorillas.

A personal experience my husband and I had years ago was the loud hissing noise we both experienced while watching a Persied meteor shower. Conventional science at that time stated that it was impossible and therefore we were mistaken. Especially annoying were our snooty scientific (or scientifical, as our Fortean friend @Sharon Hill would write) colleagues who told us that we were wrong! Years later, conventional science changed its collective mind and stated that the “noise” was actually caused by a photoacoustic or electrophonic effect and was quite real and independent from the observer.

The scientific process starts with observation and/or conjecture. An observation does not need to have a falsifiable hypothesis attached to the report to still be an observation.

Another explanation type I read here in Forteana is that, with a phenomenon with multiple characteristics, if one of the characteristics can be conventionally explained, then the entire phenomenon can be dismissed. This is poor reasoning. Or that a similar observation/conjecture was shown to be disproven so the original observation is rejected as well. Poor reasoning again. The devil is always in the details.

In a certain sense, all hypotheses can be considered provisional, as additional evidence accumulates and the hypotheses change to address the new evidence.

Again, I have never witnessed a UFO, but provisionally accept that some sort of weird, unconventional phenomenon is happening. I don’t know how to isolate and remove this category of occurrence from similar reports from deluded or lying claimants.

@Ronnie Jersey writes that the phenomenon was witnessed by four observers, and the phenomenon blocked the stars. These two details, combined, in her report, got my attention. Fascinating.
 
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I find it interesting that you mention the feeling that the object knew you were watching and was gauging your responses.

There's often a sense with many UFO sightings that they are very specific to the observer: it's almost as if the experience was aimed at them in particular. There was a report related by, I think, Michael Swords from an astronomically trained witness where a light was seen moving across the sky occluding a series of particular stars. The implication is that this would only hold true for a few hundred square metres on the Earth's surface, and therefore the UFO sighting must, in some way, have been directed at that particular witness.
 
I have wounded if in the future we will crack time travel and come back to
see why the idiots of the time did certain things, you never know it could be
the history class of 3098 coming back for a live history lesson. :omr:
 
Sorry posted that before I saw your post. The limits of lightspeed eh? :)


A friend and I were stargazing. Mid 1960s so only satellites echo 1 and 2 aircraft fairly primitive compared to today.

We saw a bright light with a red flashing light moving slowly across the sky that we took to be a 'plane. and didn't take much notice. Then it winked out, which got our attention. Thirty seconds later it lit up again. We both got binoculars on it and watched while it repaeated this three times. When it blinked out we could see a solid object falling in a falling leaf movement before the lights came back on and it moved slowly across the sky.
It disappeared behind trees and made no noise at any time.

It could be that atmospheric conditions masked any engine noise but other 'planes we saw before and later could be clearly heard. It may have been a pilot in some quiet craft but if so he was a ****ing idiot as we were near flight path for Biggin Hill and turning his lights and engine off near a working airport is pretty daft.

Nothing like your experience Ronnie Jersey, but weird and I've never come up with a reasonable explanation
Are you sure what you saw was inside the atmosphere? Could it be that it was outside the atmosphere, bigger and further away than you thought?
 
Are you sure what you saw was inside the atmosphere? Could it be that it was outside the atmosphere, bigger and further away than you thought?
Would that not mean that the object was HUGE? The size of a planetoid?
 
As certain as I can be. There was an impression of a solid body falling which seemed to be very faintly reflecting light (urban site, so glow from street lights etc.) When the lights went back on they made it too bright to discern any shape. It could have been above the atmosphere but the white light was very bright (mag -4 at a guess) and the red light not much fainter. A red light that bright outside the atmosphere seems unlikely. Position in sky, east about 9.00 p.m. late Autumn make high altitude picking up sunlight unlikely, and we lost it very low behind trees.
 
One reason that these unidentified phenomena can sometimes appear to move very rapidly without making a sound is that they are (in reality) much more distant than they appear, therefore the sound is too diffuse or arrives much later than expected. Among successfully explained phenomena are such events as meteors, reentry events and bolides, which generally happen tens of kilometres away from the observer, and so the sound would arrive many minutes later if at all; and various rocket launches, fuel dumps and satellite passes, which occur above the edge of the atmosphere so make no sound we can hear.

In other cases the explanation is that the observed phenomenon is caused by a relatively distant plane or helicopter, much further away than the observer believes, but visible because of reflected light, brilliant landing lights or searchlights, or because of a large and obvious fuel or water dump. Note as well that chinese lanterns and balloons are silent, and drones are rarely loud enough to be easily heard.
Finally there are sightings caused by stars, planets, parhelia or other celestial objects, which are always silent.

It is relatively rare for any sound to be heard in association with the sighting of an unknown object, for these reasons; yet another reason to suspect that there are no alien spacecraft in our skies. And the 'interdimensional hypothesis' is impossible to falsify, so I won't bother with that.
Misunderstanding the distance can be a factor in these things, however there is something else going on as well.

My experiences started out with seeing "stars" that zipped around the sky in formatins of 3 or multiples of 3. As if they were giving messages that 3 was important. First it was just one star that was "joined" by two others in a triangle formation, then they would zip around in that formation for a few minutes, enough time to know they were not stars, then they would zip off very fast in different directions. Light show over. The first time I saw that was with a friend and my kids. The friend had told me about it as she had seen it often and considered it visits from "the space brothers". When I had a closer encounter it was very similar to @Ronnie Jersey 's description. I was alone and some weirdness happened beforehand that had me lying in bed at 7:30 pm reading, a luxury at that time, but both kids were asleep by 7:00 pm, so rare I worried that they were coming down with something. I fell asleep before 8:00PM. I always left the blinds to my bedroom window up because I am a stargazer. I was awoken by a bright light, so bright I jumped out of bed thinking I had overslept. But once awake and on my feet realized it was dark. I then felt that the light had gone past the windo from south to north. I looked out the window thinking I would see a prowler, but the dog was asleep in the back yard and there were no prowlers, and no cars on the road behind the house. No activity that I could see in the orchard on the other side of the road, or in the pasture where the horses usually were. I looked at the moon and it was crescent, and there was a star in the middle of that space. Weird, a reverse of the turkish flag. The star then zipped north and was joined by two more. They zipped around a bit and were joined by 3 more, all of them zipped around in formation, then 3 more were joined and they did different geometric shapes in the sky. My nose was against the window at this point. Then all but one zipped off in different directions and one came close, seemed to hover over a field to the north of my yard. It seemed to be a sphere with a light strobing around the middle, red, yellow, blue over and over. Then the lights went out for a breath and a beam of light shot down to the ground. The light did not diffuse, it was the same diameter at the ground as it was at the top and it was white, with a golden double helix inside, one helix pulsating down, the other pulsating up. It turned off, and back on 3 times. Then the ball was back with theh strobing red, yellow, blue light around the middle, then it moved away fast and turned in to a "star" and zipped away. I cannot say that any of that was actually a physical craft.

Someone else mentioned the lights going off and on 3 times in their experience and there are a lot who see triangles that they think are craft, but some see them as 3 separate lights like I have. For some reason 3 is important.
 
Would that not mean that the object was HUGE? The size of a planetoid?
Yes, it could, or it could mean that there is some non-physical thing happening and it was as close as you think. So many things are discounted if there is no physical evidence and that is what I think is the biggest mistake as we are all more than the sum of our physical parts AND scientists do not usually investigate non-physical questions or theories. Some are starting to now, but it will be a long road for them because the mainstream is slow to change, mainly because of funding. Corporations and governments will pay a lot of money for new experiments that lead to new technology but if it has to do with non-physical experiences, no one will pay for that.
 
@Ronnie Jersey, in post 5 you mention that the object was approx the height of 2 houses, and in post 9 you mention that you only viewed the object from underneath, at what point did your perception change to approximate its height? Or is this an observation that was reported by one of the other people present?

I too find it interesting that the starlight was blocked by the object.
 
@Ronnie Jersey, in post 5 you mention that the object was approx the height of 2 houses, and in post 9 you mention that you only viewed the object from underneath, at what point did your perception change to approximate its height? Or is this an observation that was reported by one of the other people present?

I too find it interesting that the starlight was blocked by the object.
I'm sorry, that was a misunderstanding - the object was approximately the height of 2 houses AWAY from us, on top of us.
I did not realize it would be interpreted that way.
We could never view the top of this craft, only the bottom.
 
So, for those who have kept up with UFO encounters in the last couple of decades; how common is it for observers to hear sounds, feel air movement and even hear sonic booms from UFOs? Are cases like these which are quite close but seem not to react with the environment in a physical way their own category?
In this internet age of 24/7 media sonic booms are prominent news, for example:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sonic-boom-london-loud-bang-today-b1786006.html

I feel that if something ‘outside’ was making sonic booms we would have heard about it
 
Objects which were apparently moving at supersonic speeds have been observed on radar on several occasions, including the 1952 Washington flap, the Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident and the Nimitz encounter. In none of these cases was there any report of a sonic boom.

Either UFOs have some sort of sonic boom suppression system, or they are the result of anomalous radar propagation. I suspect the latter, but we won't know until we get better evidence.
 
So, for those who have kept up with UFO encounters in the last couple of decades; how common is it for observers to hear sounds, feel air movement and even hear sonic booms from UFOs? Are cases like these which are quite close but seem not to react with the environment in a physical way their own category?
In relation to the Pine Bush (upstate NY) UFO flap, an anti-doppler effect was reported.
 
So, for those who have kept up with UFO encounters in the last couple of decades; how common is it for observers to hear sounds, feel air movement and even hear sonic booms from UFOs? Are cases like these which are quite close but seem not to react with the environment in a physical way their own category?

Sounds are not exactly common, but not unheard of either (to give one example, the witnesses in the Minot AFB case reported a faint droning or jet type sound when the object was apparently closest to them). Air movement seems a more commonly reported feature - things like whirling dust or debris (Alan Godfrey) or shaking trees (Trans-en-Provence; Joe Simonton).

Sonic booms are never reported; this has been discussed by ufologists since the days of Jessup and Keyhoe. Generally they've either - if ETH proponents - taken the route of suggesting theoretical ways an object could suppress a sonic boom, eg magnetic fields, or have used this to support the idea that UFOs are somehow transdimensional.
 
Objects which were apparently moving at supersonic speeds have been observed on radar on several occasions, including the 1952 Washington flap, the Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident and the Nimitz encounter. In none of these cases was there any report of a sonic boom.

Either UFOs have some sort of sonic boom suppression system, or they are the result of anomalous radar propagation. I suspect the latter, but we won't know until we get better evidence.
I had the bad luck to work with radar in the early 90's and one of the joys of testing sh1t was that the radar would often pick up radar pulse trains from other transmitters and because these were fixed in space (typically an airport radar) the results would show up as a single line on the display.

So...a moving radar source on your radar set's frequency might appear as a fast moving blip (along with the reflection from the target platform).

So…imagine a fixed radar transmitter mounted on some kind of rotating airborne platform, that is slowly rotating and depending on things like range, transmit rate and so on, 'voila' a really fast moving blip on your display that apears distant from (and moving away from) the static 'blip' from the target aircraft.

Feels possible, Pitch in folks…
 
You are The Ultimate Skepticus.

There. That’s yer YouTube channel name. All I ask is the 3% from patroneon.
 
So…imagine a fixed radar transmitter mounted on some kind of rotating airborne platform, that is slowly rotating and depending on things like range, transmit rate and so on, 'voila' a really fast moving blip on your display that apears distant from (and moving away from) the static 'blip' from the target aircraft.

Feels possible, Pitch in folks…

Boeing+Delivers+Upgraded+French+AWACS+Aircraft+2.jpg


AWACS with rotodome?

maximus otter
 
Sorry posted that before I saw your post. The limits of lightspeed eh? :)


A friend and I were stargazing. Mid 1960s so only satellites echo 1 and 2 aircraft fairly primitive compared to today.

We saw a bright light with a red flashing light moving slowly across the sky that we took to be a 'plane. and didn't take much notice. Then it winked out, which got our attention. Thirty seconds later it lit up again. We both got binoculars on it and watched while it repaeated this three times. When it blinked out we could see a solid object falling in a falling leaf movement before the lights came back on and it moved slowly across the sky.
It disappeared behind trees and made no noise at any time.

It could be that atmospheric conditions masked any engine noise but other 'planes we saw before and later could be clearly heard. It may have been a pilot in some quiet craft but if so he was a ****ing idiot as we were near flight path for Biggin Hill and turning his lights and engine off near a working airport is pretty daft.

Nothing like your experience Ronnie Jersey, but weird and I've never come up with a reasonable explanation
Think I posted elsewhere but will put it here, again.

In the 1960s when I was a kid, the son of my mum's best friend worked at Fylingdales:

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/nostalgia/fylingdales-golf-balls-yorkshire-pictures-9200533

Although he'd presumably signed the Official Secrets Act he did occasionally talk about it. I dunno what his job was (he would have been in his 20s, maybe?) but part of it involved monitoring satellite images, I guess it was. And he was very definite that they saw anomalies that nobody at the time could explain, that were definitely put down to being "UFOs". I can't remember specifics but I can recall my parents talking about what he said he'd seen and I do have a vague memory it was at night-times.

Ronnie, your account is very credible and one of the best I've read.
 
Although he'd presumably signed the Official Secrets Act he did occasionally talk about it. I dunno what his job was (he would have been in his 20s, maybe?) but part of it involved monitoring satellite images, I guess it was.
At Fylingdales they monitor the position of satellites and orbital debris using their powerful phased-array radar. I don't think monitoring the images that come from satellites would be quite as important a part of their workload. That's more likely to be done elsewhere.

Perhaps these anomalies were unusual radar returns rather than visual images.
 
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