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Planes Filmed Standing Still In The Air

Vardoger

Make mine a 99
Joined
Jun 3, 2004
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Valaskjalf (Ex. pat.)
Quantum time shift and Mandela effect seems to get the blame. Unfortunately it's often impossible to see what's real and what's CGI (computer generated imagery) these days.

Edit: video removed due to copyright claims.

The clip from the user who made the copyright claim:

Another airplane standing still film short.
 
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I seem to remember seeing something like this when I was a teenager. Heard a jet engine, looked up, saw a plane in the sky, noticed that it was barely moving. It took ages to move across the sky.
 
Unfortunately it's often impossible to see what's real and what's CGI (computer generated imagery) these days.
That is very true. And has been for quite some time.

And if anyone would like to see/hear an utterly-uninspiring apologitica that (I believe the term is 'debunks') the hitting of the WTC, in that famous footage, here you go...

(Since this forum is somewhat-resistant to radical conspiracism, I'll avoid directly debunking the debunking, ignore the silhouette jet sectional outline blending into the WTC building, and just pose a few simple damn-fool rhetorical questions:

  • Just exactly how did the cameraman happen to make a tripod tracking shot that perfectly-caught an unscripted action? With a jet travelling at hundreds of miles an hour?
  • Why do all the vertical facing structures of the WTC buildings display an off-white fuzzy blur, as opposed to the window bays that existing in physical reality?
Something I have huge problems about is: why do otherwise-intelligent people have an inability to question the veracity of semi-realistic fiction, when it is depicted as reality? Perhaps I don't mean in the context of 9/11. Though maybe I do.....

ps if you feel entirely-reassured by the explanation offered-up in the embedded video above, perhaps you could vector some of that confident acceptance over in my direction. It'd make my life so much easier....
 
I have a couple of vague memories of planes, whilst not standing still in the air, but moving very slowly.

In the early sixties when I was about five or six, and living in a village in East Yorkshire, I was playing in a wheatfield at the back of our house, when I saw a large 'v' shaped plane (probably a Vulcan), flying overhead but very slowly. No sound either from what I can recollect.

The second memory stems from when I would have been about 10 or 11, so maybe '68 or '69. I remember being stood in the back garden and seeing a jet move very slowly across the sky. As an avid Airfix model kit builder at the time, I identified it as an English Electric Lightning, and it was close enough for me to make out some kind of insignia on the fuselage (red markings from what I can recall). I do remember being quite amazed at how slow it was moving, having seen jets fly overhead many times previously.

Maybe there are quite rational explanations, but the oddness of both occurrences have stuck with me over the years.
 
Quantum time shift and Mandela effect seems to get the blame. Unfortunately it's often impossible to see what's real and what's CGI (computer generated imagery) these days.


Pulled for copyright infringement claims.
 
Quantum time shift and Mandela effect seems to get the blame. Unfortunately it's often impossible to see what's real and what's CGI (computer generated imagery) these days.

Edit: video removed due to copyright claims.

The clip from the user who made the copyright claim:

Another airplane standing still film short.
The aircraft looks possibly to be a Dreamliner in Boeing colours. It looks super fake.
 
A moving object viewed from another moving object with nothing around it to give a frame of reference... No need to resort to hoax/CGI as explanations for this. It is a simple illusion of perspective.

So, it's sort of the opposite of the moon appearing to travel with you effect then?
 
This pretty much destroys any doubts about what's possible in holographic projection.
An airliner, up in the sky, not close. Who could tell? We have no idea what we are really seeing any longer. Seems to imply to me that cloaking isn't just to make something invisible, but to make it look like something else, or to hide something or someone inside of something else.
 
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Quantum time shift and Mandela effect seems to get the blame. Unfortunately it's often impossible to see what's real and what's CGI (computer generated imagery) these days.

Edit: video removed due to copyright claims.

The clip from the user who made the copyright claim:

Another airplane standing still film short.

I'd say that in the firt clip we are looking at a model aircraft mounted for display - possibly at the entrance to, or in the general location of, some kind of Aviation Museum. If you look properly you can see that the object is mounted on a static rod of some kind (also it looks about half the size of such an aircraft). I have seen these sorts of things in Russia where aviation and military hardware are somewhat glorified and quite often showcased in this kind of way, and sometimes mounted on the sides of streets where motorists can admire them.

Clip number Two raises all kinds of questions: (1) What made the person in the car film it in the firstplace? Had they had their eye on it for some time and then decide to film it? Where they forewarned? Generally, what are the circumstances that lead to him/them filming it?(2) Why is this a` plane standing still` and not just a good old fashioned UFO sighting and shot? I for one can't see enough detail to identify it as known aircraft, and even if it were to have what look like wings, it could still classify as a UFO owing to ts apparent behaviour.
 
I drive past Sydney Airport to and from work. The combination of the moving car and a slowly descending airplane can make it look like it is standing still or moving very slowly indeed. It's a common thing to see. That's re video#2.

Re video #1, it does look like the plane is mounted on something. You can see a similar thing at an airplane museum in Germany that I've seen. They have full planes mounted outside, and the effect can be freaky when you drive past.

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This is great. As a direct result of this thread, I've started keeping an eye on planes and I'm happy to report that I experienced this on a recent car journey. We were on a motorway driving in the direction of an airport. A plane had just taken off and was climbing, nose up. Because of our speed and angle relative to the plane, it looked to be standing still in the air. It lasted quite a while. As it got higher, we were moving forward towards it but also nearer to the treeline in front of us. The distance between the bottom of the plane and the trees seemed to remain the same giving the impression that the plane wasn't going anywhere at all.

It lasted so long that I told the children to "look at the magic plane".
 
Another video of a plane seemingly standing still in the air. From Russia.

 
A moving object viewed from another moving object with nothing around it to give a frame of reference... No need to resort to hoax/CGI as explanations for this. It is a simple illusion of perspective.

Indeed, the aircraft appear to be moving at a normal speed for the current conditions in the videos. It's simply a matter of not recognising parallax and perspective.

The effect can be very striking indeed. I've seen it myself when passing an airport in a car or train. The aircraft really do appear to be hanging in the sky. But of course they are moving normally -- it's just an error of perception.
 
I've noticed that too, several times while driving near a big airport. I haven't looked at any of these videos lately, but one very striking one a while back made me suspect it was actually shot from the rear window of a car while the plane and car traveled in near parallel directions. Then it was reversed to look like it was shot facing forward. There were few visual cues in the video to base an opinion on, such as lane directions or really any part of the car involved. I was almost moved to learn to use a video editing program to see what it looked like run "backwards" but it really wasn't that interesting. Optical illusions are fun, but learning to use computer programs is not, at least for me.
 
I have to say that what is of greatest Fortean interest to me in connection with this illusion is not the illusion itself but how a few people seem to genuinely believe that it is real and not merely an illusion (and, further, how they extrapolate this into a belief in widespread conspiracies to do with things like aircraft propulsion, aircraft size, the height of the sky(!), and so on).

See here for an example of more parallax/perspective confusion nuttiness:

Needless to say, all the aircraft in the video are acting completely normally and are flying at normal speeds for the circumstances.
 
I have to say that what is of greatest Fortean interest to me in connection with this illusion is not the illusion itself but how a few people seem to genuinely believe that it is real and not merely an illusion (and, further, how they extrapolate this into a belief in widespread conspiracies to do with things like aircraft propulsion, aircraft size, the height of the sky(!), and so on). ...

It's not just you ...

In the 6 decades during which I've been interested in Fortean type phenomena I've come to understand that a lot of tantalizing tales have more to do with observer naivete or excessive credulity than with something truly odd occurring.

One doesn't have to be a purebred skeptic to question the facts or implications in evaluating the rising tide of wild-eyed (and often self-serving) reports, videos, etc., out on the 'Net.
 
One doesn't have to be a purebred skeptic to question the facts or implications in evaluating the rising tide of wild-eyed (and often self-serving) reports, videos, etc., out on the 'Net.

Indeed. This issue has only got worse as monetisation of Youtube content has been shown to be worth significant amounts of money.
 
A new video with a plane seemingly standing still in the air. Glitch in the Matrix or optical illusion?
 
I think we can probably take a punt at the answer. It's coming in to land & is getting progressively lower. If the video was longer it would've become clearer what was happening.
 
Isn't it merely the effect of the camera focus? More believable than a plane suspended in mid-air.
 
And it's only been filmed from cars for some reason. Never seen a video of it filmed by a person standing right under it or in the vicinity.
 
And it's only been filmed from cars for some reason. Never seen a video of it filmed by a person standing right under it or in the vicinity.
Must be a trick of speed and perspective or something?
 
Planes appear to move slowly because when they are in the sky, often the only thing to measure their speed against is the length of the plane itself. The plane looks small because it is so far away. Therefore, the unit of movement (lengths of itself per second) appears small. Put more simply, it's moving across a very small arc of a very big sky.

The effect can be exaggerated by the existence of clouds which may be closer to or further from the observer, but appear to be on a different scale. This is the human brain interpreting things that we wouldn't encounter "in nature" and which we don't spend much time closely observing even in the modern world. It is no surprise that we sometimes misinterpret what we are seeing.

The effect may also be exaggerated if the observer is moving. If you're moving one way, the plane may look like it's going faster; if you're moving the other way, it may look like it's travelling more slowly, or not not at all.

I'm a dinghy sailor, and on a quiet day, I sometimes feel that I am not moving at all. By choosing suitable reference points (a buoy in the foreground and an object in the far distance on the shore) I can reassure myself that I am travelling reasonably fast. This is also a good trick for boosting the morale when kayaking on a wide expanse of open water.
 
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