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"Paper (Bag)" UFOs

N

Nemo

Go away, leave me alone, nemo is home
Joined
May 10, 2006
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About 45 mins ago, I saw what looked like two big sheets of paper, that had a slow tumbling motion at about a 45 degree angle. 1 side was a brownish? colour, the other side was a whitish/silvery? colour.

They came from a northerly direction , 1 stayed in my view, while the other moved off in a westerly direction behind some trees.

The 1 that had stayed in my field of vision had moved to my right at a higher angle and it was smaller than before, then it was jioned by the 2nd one. They continued to rise together & get smaller until winking out into the cloud above me at almost 90 degrees.

Sorry its taken a while to post this, it does take time to collect thoughts etc.
 
Oddly enough I saw something very similar last night at about 8:30.

Three objects, two of them very close together and the third one above them. Travelling from north to south and very high up. At first I thought that they were hangliders, but I was unable to see any pilots hanging beneath them. Maybe those powered mini aeroplane things? No engine sound. Three people, including myself, saw them, so I'm pretty sure the objects were not imaginary. The objects eventually disappeared into the distance, probably over the Humber by that point. The wind at ground level was roughly from the south west.

And that wasn't the only odd thing that happened last night!
 
Some weeks ago I saw a black object tumbling through the sky. I called my wife and we looked in wonder. Then I ran to get my camera but (of course!) the batteries were empty. I still managed to grab my binoculars and saw that it was an "S of "5" tumbling through the sky. It felt like 1 meter high. I guess it escaped from some birthday party.
 
Ground level barely a breeze. At the height of the objects, light wind maybe(?) from the east to west.

Deff. not kites (No public access to the property the other side of the trees.)

These had 2 differently coloured sides. I've never seen those rectangular balloons with 2 colours.

Anyway, I'll just mark it all down to "something strange and I haven't the foggiest WTF happened file" :crazy:
 
This reminded me of something weird a bunch us us saw in downtown Houston in the late 90's. We were at work in an office on the 12th floor of a highrise building. We had a pretty nice view from up there. About a quarter mile away there was a brick church with a tall steeple. Someone happened to look out the window and said, "What the hell is THAT"? We all looked and saw what looked like a giant V file folder hovering over that church. It was like two flat panels connected at the bottom and open at the top. It was huge and we could see the dimensions of it were about the same as the dimensions of the church beneath it. It didn't move at all. We were accustomed to see airplanes towing advertising signs around and we looked for an airplane that could be towing it, but nothing. We had work to do and had to get back at it, but we kept looking out the window at it. It just hung motionless over that church for a good half hour. Then we looked and it was gone. We never could figure out what that thing might've been.
 
Old_Shoe said:
It was huge and we could see the dimensions of it were about the same as the dimensions of the church beneath it. It didn't move at all
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I cannot shake-off the thought that this could somehow have been an up-close view of an inverted Morgana-style local mirage.

What were the weather conditions, shortly before and during the sighting? Were there any adjacent lakes or water features?

Mr_Nemo said:
what looked like two big sheets of paper, that had a slow tumbling motion at about a 45 degree angle. 1 side was a brownish? colour, the other side was a whitish/silvery? colour.
Click to expand...

This reminds me very-strongly of two things: firstly, the corner-reflector radar 'passive return' panels that can be seen suspended under a meteorological sonde balloon; and also, of an outdoor / upscaled version of the old solar energy rotational-effect-engine-in-a-small-glass-globe tabletop science demo conversation pieces, similar in overall 'wow:how?' factor to a Newton's Cradle/pseudoperpetual motion machine.

@EnolaGaia do you concur?
 
Ermintruder said:
I cannot shake-off the thought that this could somehow have been an up-close view of an inverted Morgana-style local mirage.

What were the weather conditions, shortly before and during the sighting? Were there any adjacent lakes or water features? ...
Click to expand...

The same speculative thought flitted through my mind, but I didn't pursue it because the incident description was insufficiently rich to give me a clear notion of precisely what was witnessed. However, since you asked ...

The 2 flat planar thingies joined along a single seam or edge are suggestive of a roof, and the anomalous object was observed 'hovering' in the air above the visible buildings. This pair of factoids suggests a superior (elevated; in the air) mirage of a distant roof. However ...

It's difficult to delve into the possibility of a mirage unless we have a better description of the observed object. If the object appeared to be a disconnected / isolated V-shaped roof, it's hard to see how the mirage effect could disassociate the roof from the rest of the building beneath.

If, on the other hand, the object appeared to be a roofline section of a building the mirage hypothesis would seem more appropriate.

Old Shoe's description suggests the vision was stable for some time and then disappeared. This sounds more like a superior mirage than a true Fata Morgana, which typically involves distorted imagery and mutation of the image(s) during the observation period.

I agree that the weather conditions might afford us some clues.

I'd also point out that the witnesses were on the 12th floor - over 100 feet above street / ground level. This means the horizon would have been relatively 'low' from their vantage point (consistent with a mirage interpreted as close and low).

I'd like to know (e.g.):

- Whether the vision remained in a stable position throughout the observation period;
- How close, and in what relative orientation, the vision was relative to the church above which it was viewed;
- Whether the vision's appearance (e.g., colors) matched the church or any other building(s) in the line of sight.
 
Ermintruder said:
...This reminds me very-strongly of two things: firstly, the corner-reflector radar 'passive return' panels that can be seen suspended under a meteorological sonde balloon; and also, of an outdoor / upscaled version of the old solar energy rotational-effect-engine-in-a-small-glass-globe tabletop science demo conversation pieces, similar in overall 'wow:how?' factor to a Newton's Cradle/pseudoperpetual motion machine. ...
Click to expand...

Again, I'm severely limited by the description offered ...

My impression is that these were a pair of similar sheet-like / planar objects differentially colored (one side versus the obverse). They were obviously light in weight and seemingly at the mercy of the breeze and / or updrafts.

My first guess would be two sheets of paper or plastic or Mylar* blowing in the wind.

(*The coloration Mr. Nemo specified makes me think of Mylar.)

I didn't read Mr. Nemo's description as suggesting the sort of orderly motions / transformations one would expect from a corner reflector or the rotating vanes of a classic radiometer.

I suppose a corner reflector at a sufficient distance might appear this way, but corner reflectors are rigid objects that aren't light enough to get airborne unless there's a substantial wind. That's why they're suspended beneath balloons.
 
This is quite uncanny. Yesterday taking dog for a walk over clifftops near to Saltburn North East round 5.50 pm. I turned round to look at object ( no noise) perhaps 5ft across slowly descend down in straight line towards cliff. Cylindrical, black with glimpses of silver. Being cynical i thought it was drone. It was approx 20 to 30 feet above cliff. It then went out to sea and literally disappeared.

Strange thing, the weather was quite windy but there was no jostling or lateral movement. No noise either. Like the original poster at first I thought it was a paper bag, lantern or drone.

Near to the sighting is a bench, two dog walkers were there but they made no obvious movements of turning to see object. I ask another dog walker, she said she never saw anything.

Very odd
 
Years ago - maybe fifteen - I saw what was probably just an airborne carrier-bag. It moved, however, as if directed and making steady progress about roof-height. There was no writing visible but it might have been a white bin-bag, though it did not ripple or crumple, keeping its shape, while under observation. Maybe it was carried on a steady thermal current. It was not an especially windy day but its direction suggested a southerly breeze. I have often seen rubbish swirling around on gusty days but usually only a few feet from the ground. This bag's appearance of purpose was something I have not seen since, though as UFOs go, it is not very thrilling. :bored:
 
This is a bit similar to something I saw a few years ago. I was on the way to work and driving out of my estate and as i glanced down a road to check that there were no drivers going to pull out on me I saw an odd black shape that seemed to be tumbling in the distance - I couldn't gauge scale properly, - but I suppose I think it was about 300/400 yards away or so and pretty big. I couldn't stop to look properly, but it registered as weird, and initially i thought it might be a paraglider at a strange angle, but there was no further sign of it when i tried to look through gaps in the houses.
Never worked out what it could be, but it was definitely there, and not in my imagination!

To add - I was half expecting to hear something had crash-landed in the local area after I saw it as that was my first thought.
 
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We seem to have stumbled across a new Fortean phenomenon here! Tumbling rectangles. If they're as common as they appear here, we could get the mag onto it. I wonder if there's any footage online, or a new piece of airborne tech that could explain it? Doesn't sound like typical paper bag behaviour, does it?
 
[QUOTE="GNC, post: 1773978, member: 48905"]We seem to have stumbled across a new Fortean phenomenon here! Tumbling rectangles. If they're as common as they appear here, we could get the mag onto it. I wonder if there's any footage online, or a new piece of airborne tech that could explain it? Doesn't sound like typical paper bag behaviour, does it?[/QUOTE]

Quite - (apart from Old shoes post, which is altogether stranger). Some random first responses:

* I have great difficulty actuallly visualising what people are describing here! How big were the objects? What is meant by a `45 degree angle` (in relation to what?)? What is meant by `tumbling` exactly? Did they, or did they not look like something that could have been paper bags?

*Once again it seems significant that no photoshots resulted from these events - even though (presumably) all the witnesses had smart phones nearby, or like technology. And this despite the fact that no exotic UFO claim is being made! (I have written elsewhere of the difficulties of arranging shots of suddenly appearing phenomena - even in this connected day and age).

*I have a hunch, just a hunch, that whatever is going on here is connected to the extreme weather that the UK has been experiencing lately (i.e a heatwave followed by quite severe wind and rain storms) - even if the weather in the localities where the sighting s took place was not all that turbulent at the time.

* I once observed, (in a wind storm in the U.K), an unmoored tent tumbling along the road. Could a tent become airborne?

* I think that this thread properly belongs in the `U.F.O` section. By saying this, I don't wish to prejudice the response to it - but I feel it is more likely to gather some more constructive responses over time if it were to be found there - and what trasnspires could well be of pertinence to general `U.F.O` studies too.
 
Zeke Newbold said:
... I once observed, (in a wind storm in the U.K), an unmoored tent tumbling along the road. Could a tent become airborne? ...
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Indeed! Here are a couple of photos from the German Parookaville festival last week. A large dust devil took multiple unanchored tents airborne ...

Parookaville-1.jpg
Parookaville-2.jpg

​
 
Not used to this phone, but the sketch should give an idea what we saw. The object appeared about the same dimensions as the church. It was above the church. We never saw any motion. It was just there for about a half hour then it wasn't there anymore. It looked like a solid object. The weather was clear and not windy that I recall.
 
Old_Shoe said:
Not used to this phone, but the sketch should give an idea what we saw. The object appeared about the same dimensions as the church. It was above the church. We never saw any motion. It was just there for about a half hour then it wasn't there anymore. It looked like a solid object. The weather was clear and not windy that I recall.
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Thanks for taking the time to produce a sketch ...

11013-19246bdaaf2aa34515a56738135a3291.jpg

May we assume the relative orientation of church and object were just as illustrated in the sketch - i.e., with the long axis of the object roughly orthogonal to the long axis of the church?
 
I think it was white or light gray. Not a brilliant white but kind of neutral. The likelist explanation we could think of at the time was maybe it was an advertising sign being towed by an airplane. Some of the tow planes they use have very low stall speeds and a slight head wind could give them little or no ground speed. We looked for a tow plane and never saw one. I've never seen a sign shaped like that. I still wonder what it was. Bear in mind we were all licensed aircraft mechanics with a lot of years in the aviation business. We all knew what we saw but we didn't recognize it.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Indeed! Here are a couple of photos from the German Parookaville festival last week. A large dust devil took multiple unanchored tents airborne ...

Click to expand...
Well the next question to ask is: did these sightings (Nemo's, Cavynauts and Bobandterry's) occur in areas where there would have been a campsite or festival or training ground in - say- a twenty mile radius? Then the next question is: what were the weather conditions like? Could there have been localised high winds in the location where the objects were airborne?
In short: could they have been tents as in the above pic shared by Enola?

Old_Shoe said:
I think it was white or light gray. Not a brilliant white but kind of neutral. The likelist explanation we could think of at the time was maybe it was an advertising sign being towed by an airplane. Some of the tow planes they use have very low stall speeds and a slight head wind could give them little or no ground speed. We looked for a tow plane and never saw one. I've never seen a sign shaped like that. I still wonder what it was. Bear in mind we were all licensed aircraft mechanics with a lot of years in the aviation business. We all knew what we saw but we didn't recognize it.
Click to expand...

My first thought was of some kind of promotional - maybe in connection with the church itself.
Some sort of kite kept aloft by hot air blown from below? Sounds a bit crazy, I know, but then so does the sighting!

And Old shoe: What happened subsequent to this sighting? Did you ask anyone else about it? Were there any newspaper reports? (It's hard to imagine that such a large structure could appear in a built up area without causing a lot of comment). I know it was twenty odd years back, but still....

The description (as well as the other sightings on this thread) puts me in mind of some of the ones logged over Eastern bloc (as was) Romania in the 1975 classic book UFOs From Behind The Iron Curtain. In that there were a lot of gemetric origami type UFOs. I have head these explained as being the Soviet miltary secretly testing balloons - although quite why the Soviets would be dicking around with such odd types of structures is abyone's guess!
 
recall a letter from FT a few years back, guy crossing one of the bridges in london sees geometric lines and vertices of huge translucent cube suspended above bridge
 
My sighting happened near to a cliff over looking a beach Cattersey sands in North East. At first I thought it was a bag, the way it moved left to right. Then it became static, dropped down and then flew out to sea. The colour was black but then you'd see a flash of silver on the side.

There was enough breeze to cause twisting buffering movement in case of a drone or maybe a bag. In this case there was none of this.

As a sceptic I thought bag, then drone but there was no noise or blades.
 
I never heard another word about our odd sighting that day. Houston is a big crazy city. I've seen a lot of strange things there that never made it into the news. Driving to work early one morning I passed by a group of cops standing around a dead body. Their car headlights were all aimed at it from different directions. They all stood around it in a circle, all nodding their heads. I didn't see a wrecked car so I figured a pedestrian had been killed in a common hit and run. I watched the news papers and TV for a few days and saw not a peep about it.
 
Things don't always get reported. When I was teaching in an infant class one of the girls for show and tell said she had seen police with a dead woman as she came to school.
I asked if she was sure the woman was dead and she said "Yes, there were flies buzzing around her,"
Nothing was in the news or papers though.
 
I'll just try to clear up questions :)

There weren't any weather balloons visable. (weather ballons are always white iirc)
The 45 angle is from the horizon.
Re:- Tumbling...horizontal spinning I guess
Imagine paper potato sacks.
I honestly doent own either a phone or camera.
There isn't a campsite or festival or training ground in the local area.

The weather was high clouds (not the fine wispy ones, possibly the next "level down" IYKWIM?) & the sun was out the wind was east to west.

Anyway I hope this post has answered some questions. :D
 
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