UFO Sighting over Eastern Australia

Quantum Quack

Quantum Quack

Life's a tease...
Valued Senior Member
News just published on our national broadcaster www.abc.net.au tells of a mysterious unidentified flying object traveliing across the early morning skys Eastern Australia.

this image c/o ABC.net.au
ufo.jpg


An astronomer says a bright spiralling light spotted in the sky by people across eastern Australia this morning was probably a satellite, space junk or a rocket.

The UFO was seen moving through the sky just before sunrise in New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT.

ABC News Online has received dozens of emails, pictures and videos from those who were awe-stricken by the huge white light.

Some described it as a "lollipop-type swirl". Others say it hovered for a while before gradually moving in an eastern direction until it was out of sight. Those who saw the object say photos do not reflect how large it actually was.

Geoffrey Whyatt from the Sydney Observatory says it was probably a satellite, space junk or a rocket.
Click to expand...

A privately-owned rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on its first test flight is believed to be responsible.

But Doug Moffett from UFO Research NSW says he has a few problems with this theory.

"Firstly, the time of the launch was 18.45 GMT, which translates to 4.45am EST, the duration of the flight was 9 minutes 38 seconds - this is a full hour before the reported sightings," he said.

"Secondly, where was the glow from the boosters or from the friction created by the craft moving through the atmosphere, where was the tail of the rocket?

"Thirdly, why would anyone launch a rocket on a maiden test flight with a trajectory that would take it over the most heavily populated parts of Australia?

"And how big must this rocket have been to be seen so clearly, at the same time, over such a vast distance?"
Click to expand...
ABC article link:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/05/2919095.htm?WT.mc_id=newsmail
 
When people report UFO's they tend to be very sketchy about the time period and never attempt to give a Longitute/Latitude for the position of their vantage point and direct/angle of what they are viewing. This information can aid in generating a way of working out the position and potential distance via triganomitry, which in turn can be used to then identify the angle of investigation to be taken.

Absense of this sort of information just means someone doesn't want it "debunked" as being something manmade.

As for the image/video/sighting... If I was going to inquire into it, I would first identify recent launches for satellite deployment via all countries that currently launch. The reason I would query this is because the light from the sighting is the reflection of sunlight and it appears that it's possible one of the lower stages of a rocket spiraling through a decaying orbit.(Not necessarily entering into a lower orbit but potentially weightless in space with spent fuel surrounding it creating the spiral effect.) Obviously though thats using an extremely poor quality mobile phone video, so it could literally be anything, but it's definitely light from solar reflection.
 
Last edited:
Stryder said:
When people report UFO's they tend to be very sketchy about the time period and never attempt to give a Longitute/Latitude for the position of their vantage point and direct/angle of what they are viewing. This information can aid in generating a way of working out the position and potential distance via triganomitry, which in turn can be used to then identify the angle of investigation to be taken.

Absense of this sort of information just means someone doesn't want it "debunked" as being something manmade.
Click to expand...
Frankly I don't think the above makes any sense. First people tend to say exactly where they are calling from and in which direction they are looking when they see a UFO. That they don't estimate longitude and latitude - whatever minutes difference from their home or sighting location - hardly implies they are avoiding debunking. How many people can estimate like that? Second their calls to newspapers, the police, etc., tend to be logged by the recievers, so the time is not an issue.
 
say for example it was a test rocket launch as suggested.
say that a piece of the tail had fallen off earliy in the test and caused the rocket to:
1] move way off it's designated path so that it flew over populated regions of the East coast and
2] the spiralling effect was due to the loss of nav control and trimiing.

Say the owners of this rocket are ego centric and would never admit to such a blunder and possibly have no insurance cover for this possibility of their rocket comming down in a major city area killing scores of people in the process.
Maybe they would not want to admit to it to avoid litigation etc etc.
Maybe they would destroy all records of the rocket and it's launch to avoid public scrutiny and cover up the whole debacle if they can. To avoid major USA / Australan relationship issues. [presumption that the USA was the source - although it could have been a secret local product ]

To me it looks awfully like a human ship as most previously recorded UFO sightings never talk of a rocket exhaust flares or plumes of rocket exhaust emmissions as the UFO's of more E.T. kind seemingly don't use solid/liquid/chemical fuel for flight but more anti gravity or inertia type systems [ speculated] that have no emmissions.
 
Guess where the 2nd-stage spinning, gas-spewing booster of the Falcon9 would have been at the time of the sighting? If you said over Australia then you'd be correct.
Unless of course you are referring to some coincidence that happened at the same time and place as SpaceX's vehicle.
 
Doreen said:
Frankly I don't think the above makes any sense. First people tend to say exactly where they are calling from and in which direction they are looking when they see a UFO. That they don't estimate longitude and latitude - whatever minutes difference from their home or sighting location - hardly implies they are avoiding debunking. How many people can estimate like that? Second their calls to newspapers, the police, etc., tend to be logged by the recievers, so the time is not an issue.
Click to expand...

What I am trying to imply is that to substantiate a claim requires claimants to be more aware of what information is required of them. If their observation is too sketchy, then whats the point in outputting a claim that they observed something.
 
UFO sighting in Scotland:
sun.jpg


Shocked onlookers remarked on it's heat, and described it as a "big ball of yellow".
 
SFinn said:
Guess where the 2nd-stage spinning, gas-spewing booster of the Falcon9 would have been at the time of the sighting? If you said over Australia then you'd be correct.
Unless of course you are referring to some coincidence that happened at the same time and place as SpaceX's vehicle.
Click to expand...

Writeup by Phil Plait:
Oh, those Falcon UFOs!
Dot points:
  • Falcon 9 launched Saturday, 4:45 Australian EST.
  • Approximate ground track of Falcon 9, passing over East Australia a bit over half an orbit post launch:
    falcon9_groundtrack.jpg
  • UFOs seen around Saturday, 5:50 Australian EST, in eastern sky just before sunrise, heading East.
  • Spiral pattern matches previous sightings of gas leaking from spent booster rockets.

Conclusions:
  • Rockets are Very Cool.
  • Science. Yeah, it works.
 
I wonder whether fully-explained UFOs such as this one ever change the minds of any UFO nuts.
 
yeah guess what was on board that Falcon? eh! go on!:p
of course there were heat resistant aliens aboard...had to be!
 
"But Doug Moffett from UFO Research NSW", ....


Hey Doug, the word there is research you imbecile. Do yours. Do not speak to the press, nor give an opinion until you have, because you make yourself look stupid. Sorry, stupider for firstly believing in UFOs, and then trying to debunk the truth.
 
phlogistician said:
"But Doug Moffett from UFO Research NSW", ....


Hey Doug, the word there is research you imbecile. Do yours. Do not speak to the press, nor give an opinion until you have, because you make yourself look stupid. Sorry, stupider for firstly believing in UFOs, and then trying to debunk the truth.
Click to expand...
To be fair on 'ole Doug, he never actually said what he thought it was. He only was skeptical of the private rocket suggestion!
May be the media new what it was and were baiting poor 'ole Doug but failed!
but hey what he hell the head lines of a reputable national news broadcaster read:

UFO spotted over eastern Australia
and Doug is representing UFO research NSW....

so maybe.....
 
Incidentally:
Source: BBC
The Japanese space probe Hayabusa, which was designed to return samples from an asteroid, has been placed on course for a landing in Australia.

...

At the weekend, the Japanese Space Agency (Jaxa) announced that Hayabusa had successfully completed its third Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre (TCM), designed to guide the spacecraft towards a touchdown in the Australian outback.

The spacecraft now lies within about 3,600,000km of our planet.

Just one further, more detailed, correction manouevre is planned for the spacecraft before its sample capsule is returned to Earth at around 1400 GMT on Sunday.
Click to expand...

So expect more UFO's and may be some Third kind encounters with hopefully some Asteroid samples.
 
James R said:
I wonder whether fully-explained UFOs such as this one ever change the minds of any UFO nuts.
Click to expand...
Think about what you are suggesting. Should an instance where a non-anomalous id is verified make people assume all other observations are also non-anomalous?

Does this mean, for example, that if there is one sighting of, say, a mountain lion in Maine and it turns out to be some other animal all other sighting should be assumed to be mistaken or some other animal?
 
phlogistician said:
Shows Doug is a complete idiot. He was given the correct explanation, but was too stupid to see it. How dumb you got to be for that?
Click to expand...
How dumb does one have to be to be skeptical of official explanations?
Hm.
Like WOMD in Iraq. All those stupid skeptics.

The great thing about being skeptical is that one can then, a little later, evaluate new information. Or should we simply believe what we are told?
Hey Doug, the word there is research you imbecile. Do yours. Do not speak to the press, nor give an opinion until you have, because you make yourself look stupid. Sorry, stupider for firstly believing in UFOs, and then trying to debunk the truth.
Click to expand...
Is there really anyone who does not believe in UFOs? Do they think all sighted objects or what seem to be objects are identifiable (directly)?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top