Crash Of Odd Object

[Moontanman]

This is a video of an object hitting the ground in what can be described as an "unusual" manner. I'm not sure of what it is, but it's an old video 20 + years at least.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cfhs5nDuMw&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

 

I've tried to figure out what could do this but so far no real explanation has come to mind, some sort of tracer round from a very large gun is about as close as I have come, anyone want to give it a shot?

[Turtle]

...

I've tried to figure out what could do this but so far no real explanation has come to mind, some sort of tracer round from a very large gun is about as close as I have come, anyone want to give it a shot?

 

i think the largest modern gun ever fired was 16" bore and this object looks larger than that. i also think it's moving too slowly to be from a gun. given that the film starts with the object coming down and that the film is expertly shot, i'd guess it's a destructive drop test from a plane for either a weapons casing or a space vehicle.

[Moontanman]

i think the largest modern gun ever fired was 16" bore and this object looks larger than that. i also think it's moving too slowly to be from a gun. given that the film starts with the object coming down and that the film is expertly shot, i'd guess it's a destructive drop test from a plane for either a weapons casing or a space vehicle.

 

 

The thing I can't explain is why is it glowing? Even an object dropped from orbit should have stopped glowing by the time it hits the ground and this object looks like it is under control to some extent. This is a very old video, way too old for photo shop as we know it. It comes in on a non ballistic trajectory, hits the ground, looks like it is going to recover and does recover a little bit then hits the ground again and dissolves into a shower of glowing debris, very odd, while I've see the video before I've never heard anyone really address what it is other than "hey look look look it's a UFO"...

 

BTW Turtle, i thought of you the other day when the Earth, moved, I know your fetish for Earth quakes, all my dogs went nuts just a minute or so before it happened... Now I have to dig out of the Hurricane debris...

[JMJones0424]

16 inch bore (406.4 mm) is certainly big, but not the biggest ever. According to this list in wikipedia, that title belongs to a 914 mm (36 inch) mortar. Yamamoto class battleships had 460 mm (18.1 inch) main guns.

 

I agree it seems the object is moving too slowly, and it definitely does not appear to be a tracer round to me.

 

I was hoping to find a landmark (such as a tree) with a known height (or reasonably presumed height) to then estimate distance from camera and therefore camera rotation rate. Given this, we could estimate the size of the object for various distances from camera (and therefore speed). In other words, the further away it is, the faster it is going and the larger it is.

 

Sadly, I don't recognize the telegraph poles/radio towers, and can't make a height assumption.

 

Generally speaking, the phosphorus in a tracer separates from a round on impact and does not behave like the object in the clip.

[Moontanman]

When my sons were young we used to watch UFO shows and debate the reality of the reports, we would take turns being for or against and try to argue from both sides depending on which side we were assigned, I was positive on odd days and my sons were positive on even days but this one video always shut us down, it is truly odd, I'd love to know what it or even where it came from. Supposedly it was in the New Mexico desert, no doubt it's not an airplane, not a ballistic missile....

[Turtle]

The thing I can't explain is why is it glowing? Even an object dropped from orbit should have stopped glowing by the time it hits the ground and this object looks like it is under control to some extent.

 

well, it's glowing because the experimenters made it glow. as i say, i think it was dropped from an airplane, not from orbit.

 

This is a very old video, way too old for photo shop as we know it. It comes in on a non ballistic trajectory, hits the ground, looks like it is going to recover and does recover a little bit then hits the ground again and dissolves into a shower of glowing debris, very odd, while I've see the video before I've never heard anyone really address what it is other than "hey look look look it's a UFO"...

 

not sure what you mean by "non-ballistic". a strict interpretation of the definition would make a dropped object "ballistic" in nature.

...2. (Physics / General Physics) denoting or relating to the flight of projectiles after power has been cut off, moving under their own momentum and the external forces of gravity and air resistance...

>ballistic

 

BTW Turtle, i thought of you the other day when the Earth, moved, I know your fetish for Earth quakes, all my dogs went nuts just a minute or so before it happened... Now I have to dig out of the Hurricane debris...

 

 

yes, well, i thought of you too. i would have posted on the earthquake in my thread, but i didn't want to draw the attention of the "lhc made a black hole and we're gonna have earthquakes' nut. funny too how the media never mentioned the 5.3 in colorado (largest in 40 years) several days before -in spite of damage- until after your 5.8. go figure. :lol: just had a 3.0 23 miles east of quebec today, if you hadn't noticed, and a 7.0 in peru this week. > earthquakes hazards program i'm off to watch hurricane news. :weather_storm:

 

but i digress. whatever the object is, it's a controlled human experiment; not aliens. :naughty:

[CraigD]

The object doesn’t follow a ballistic trajectory – it clearly “pulls up” slightly before the first impact, showing that it has some aerodynamic lift.

 

Due mainly to how well-positioned and timed it is, my guess is that this is short clip of a film taken by a pro observation crew of an experimental US military device: a cruise missile, or possibly an aircraft (hopefully unmanned). I can’t see any signs of ordinary wings, so guess it’s of some kind of lifting body/blended wing-fuselage design. I can't see any vertical control surfaces on it, though, so it doesn't look much like any of the lifting body aircraft I've seen.

 

Other than tracking the provenance of the original film (or lack thereof – this could be a well-made digital hoax forgery, though as Moontanman saw it 20 years ago, this seems less likely to me), I can’t see how much could be told about the object. Whoever took it, I strongly suspect, knew well what it was, so it wasn’t truly an unidentified flying object.

 

Other than noting the non-ballistic change in its path, I’m just guessing. :shrug:

[Turtle]

The object doesn’t follow a ballistic trajectory – it clearly “pulls up” slightly before the first impact, showing that it has some aerodynamic lift.

...

Other than noting the non-ballistic change in its path, I’m just guessing. :shrug:

 

:lol: so...a frisbee in flight is not ballistic? or, do you mean you think the object is under power? or, do you disagree with the definition i gave in the first place?

 

edit: ps besides thinking of the moonster in regards the quake & storm, i thought of you, mercedes, and pam. how were those events for you? did any debris go ballistic. :doh: ;)

Edited August 28, 2011 by Turtle

[Turtle]

i did some sleuthing.

 

Simulation of Frisbee Flight: M. Hubbard and S. A. Hummel: University of Claifornia, Davis (2000)

 

the fellas reference several veerrrry interesting sources.

...

[8] E. J. McShane, J. L. Kelly, and F. V. Reno, Exterior Ballistics, The University of Denver Press (1953)

...

[14]G.D. Stilley, "Aerodynamic analysis of the self sustained flair[sic], RDTR no 199, Naval Ammunition Depot, Crane Iniana (1972)

[15]G.D. Stilley and D. L. Carstens, "Adaptation of Frisbee flight principle to delivery of special ordnance". AIAA paper 72-982, (1972)

...

 

edit: further sleuthing of sleuthies:

 

AIAA 2002-3150FrisbeeTMAerodynamics

again an intriguing "older" reference.

...

(13) Katz P., The Free Flight of a Rotating Disc, IsrealJ. Tech., Vol. 6, No. 1-2, 1968, pp150-155.

...

Edited August 29, 2011 by Turtle

[CraigD]

so...a frisbee in flight is not ballistic?

No, a Frisbee doesn’t follow a ballistic trajectory, except in the special case where it’s thrown rotated 90% from the usually attitude. Neither is an unpowered aircraft, ie: a glider.

 

or, do you mean you think the object is under power?

It doesn’t look to me to have any thrust, though again, I’m guessing.

 

or, do you disagree with the definition i gave in the first place?

No, I agree with your definition. “related to the flight of projectiles after power has been cut off, moving under their own momentum and the external forces of gravity and air resistance” is the conventional definition of “ballistic”.

 

Note that this definition includes only the force of gravity and air resistance, not forces due to aerodynamic lift. Roughly, this means something like

Height [math]h = \frac{a}2 t^2 +tv_0 +h_0[/math]

and horizontal acceleration [math]dv = k v^2[/math]

where a is the acceleration of gravity and k is a constant describing the projectile’s drag/mass ratio. A ballistic trajectory, or path, is roughly parabolic, its slope always decreasing (changing in a negative direction. If it deviates significantly from this, such as the “pulling up” maneuver that appears to occur just before the first impact, it’s not ballistic.

 

After the first, bouncing impact, the trajectory looks pretty ballistic to me, as whatever was controlling it stopped working after that impact. I hope that whatever wasn’t a pilot.

 

edit: ps besides thinking of the moonster in regards the quake & storm, i thought of you, mercedes, and pam. how were those events for you? did any debris go ballistic. :doh: ;)

The worst the quake did to me and mine was shake a few knick-knacks off some window ledges and scare my cats. As my house doesn’t have carved stone angels on it like the National Cathedral about 10 miles from it, it fared much better.

 

As expected, hurricane Irene downed our electric power, for about 24 hours. Thanks to a friend who gifted me with a free 1700 W generator, with the exception of internet access, we were pretty dry, bright, and comfortable – though I reek of small engine exhaust from filling the jenny’s little tank every couple of hours. Unlike some of my neighbors, my trees fared amazingly well, loosing barely an armful of lose branches. I lost a few shingles (I’ve no idea what their trajectories were like :)), though, and took a bit of water through the ceiling, which the cats found fascinating.

 

:( Despite our gaggle of battery backups, my and apparently all my neighbors’ internets connections went way for the duration about 10 min after the power. All of us, it seems, have Verizon Fios. The in-house part of a Fios connection comes with a 6+ hour UPS, and the modem/router is on one good for about 4 hours, but just as with a previous outage, the outside-the-house system failed long before any of the UPSs.

[Turtle]

No, a Frisbee doesn’t follow a ballistic trajectory, except in the special case where it’s thrown rotated 90% from the usually attitude. Neither is an unpowered aircraft, ie: a glider.

 

It doesn’t look to me to have any thrust, though again, I’m guessing.

 

No, I agree with your definition. “related to the flight of projectiles after power has been cut off, moving under their own momentum and the external forces of gravity and air resistance” is the conventional definition of “ballistic”.

 

Note that this definition includes only the force of gravity and air resistance, not forces due to aerodynamic lift. ...

 

i agree the frisbee is not a conventional projectile. rather than argue the point i'll move to something more to the op. do you think the object in the video could be a spinning disk dropped from an airplane? what did you think of my references to the self-sustaining flare or naval munitions? is this perhaps a test of a ground version of the water "bouncing bombs" of ww2?

 

 

 

...After the first, bouncing impact, the trajectory looks pretty ballistic to me, as whatever was controlling it stopped working after that impact. I hope that whatever wasn’t a pilot.

well, i don't think that was a controlled maneuver. presuming it is a spinning disk, i think the disk was disturbed as it droppped -perhaps by an updraft or wind shear- which caused a change in the angle of attack & it stalled briefly before restabilizing due to the spin. if it's a flare, perhaps uneven burning was a disturbance. i know i can throw a frisbee & get it to skip in a similar manner to the object's path. at that steep of an angle of descent, you only get one skip. so if it's a weapon meant to be dropped, skipped, and detonated on second impact, what kind of target would it be for?

 

 

The worst the quake did to me and mine was shake a few knick-knacks off some window ledges and scare my cats.

...

Unlike some of my neighbors, my trees fared amazingly well, loosing barely an armful of lose branches. I lost a few shingles (I’ve no idea what their trajectories were like :)), though, and took a bit of water through the ceiling, which the cats found fascinating.

...

 

roger. :thumbs_up standing down rescue wagon. :D

[CraigD]

do you think the object in the video could be a spinning disk dropped from an airplane?

...

It’s hard for me to tell what the object is from the video – it’s basically a fuzzy whitish blob. Its lack of a noticeable wobble before or after the bounce makes me doubt it’s spinning. Based on the conclusion that this is some sort of aircraft with aerodynamic control surfaces that allowed it to pull up before impact (the change in direction seems to me to sharp to be due to an updraft, ground effect, or some other passive effect), and assuming available technology from when I guess the video was made, my guess is that it had a fixed nose and tail, because it’s hard to have control surfaces on a spinning disk – but other than that it doesn’t have prominent wings or other aerodynamic surfaces, I can’t tell much about its shape.

 

As it doesn't look like something that could have flown itself aloft, I agree with your dropped from a plane hypothesis. It'd be nice to know what size this thing was. Assuming the video is in normal speed, it should be possible to estimate that from the duration and height of its bounce, but I got woken early with a work emergency this AM, and need to get some shuteye (and some decent video editing software :() before messing with such a project. Maybe you, another hypographer, or the good internet elves will do it for me while I sleep. :)

 

Looking at the video some more, I notice that it increases its upward slope after the bounce, suggesting that it is still at least somewhat under control. My impression remains, however, that the intended maneuver was a more gentle crash landing, and the bounce and subsequent boom was unintended.

 

That it’s trailing smoke or mist seems an important clue, but one I can’t make much immediate sense of. Maybe, as you suggested, it has some sort of burning coating, like phosphorous, perhaps to make it easier for the camera to track. Or maybe it’s made of some chalky, crumbly stuff, and its trailing dust – how it breaks into chunks, with no sign of big and little parts like what an airplane disintegrates into after an impact like this, suggests something like this.

 

So my guess it something with control surfaces made of burning/glowing chalky stuff. Pretty freak’in weird!

 

:QuestionM Moontanman, do you have any info on where this video came from? I’m still guessing that it you could find the people who made it, they’d be able to tell you at least vaguely (precisely what it is might still be a military secret) what it is.

[Moontanman]

The vid was in an old UFO show opening credits, they never gave any explanation of it or addressed it in any way which is what makes me think it wasn't really unidentified but it's behavior is not easily explained, especially the bounce, not many aircraft hit the ground and bounce, appear to almost regain control then nose dive in for the money shot (explosion) It was labeled as a film from the New Mexico Desert. If not for the bounce i would say we are seeing the flaming exhaust from a missile and the missile it's self was too small to be seen over the exhaust but missiles don't bounce.

 

The storm raised quite a bit more hell here than i originally thought, I worked all day yesterday just replacing and repairing my fence and dragging limbs and brush off the fence. today I'll be ripping up wet and sour smelling carpets and i still have a yard full of large to small limbs to pile up for a bonfire. Replacing the missing roof shingles is probably beyond my pay grade so I'll have to pay someone to do that.

 

My efforts to divert water away from my basement helped to some degree but the sump pump was still the hero of the basement wars, I did collect more than 500 gallons of rain water. We only lost power about a hundred times but the longest interval was just a few minutes, we were very lucky, all around us people lost power in the early stages of the storm and didn't get it back until the storm was over. I can see but one other house from my house and he kept power as well. We saw sustained winds of 60mph+ and gusts much higher, this damn storm lasted more than 16 hours! I live with in 15 miles of the ocean so the effects were magnified somewhat. A guy died less than a 1/4 mile from me when in a drunken stupor him and three buddies drove to the boat landing (at the height of the storm) and he attempted to swim across the river (about 150 meters one way) which really has no far bank to haul out on so he would have had to swim both ways. They found his body yesterday...

 

I am pretty sure this puts me over the mark of one dozen hurricanes under my belt, close anyway...

[Turtle]

...As it doesn't look like something that could have flown itself aloft, I agree with your dropped from a plane hypothesis. It'd be nice to know what size this thing was. Assuming the video is in normal speed, it should be possible to estimate that from the duration and height of its bounce, but I got woken early with a work emergency this AM, and need to get some shuteye (and some decent video editing software :() before messing with such a project. Maybe you, another hypographer, or the good internet elves will do it for me while I sleep. :)

...

 

 

just got back myself froma call-away. :steering: i don't know how to capture a whole video, so the best i might try is to pause the vid & grab some screen shots and load them in a drawing program for mark-up. will see if i can get to that after chores. i have found the internet elves in possession of a sporadic work ethic & reistant to my tender touch.

[Turtle]

oky doky. i tried some frame stacking as astronomers do, but that's only good when the camera isn't moving. :doh: nevertheless, at the start the camera isn't moving (where is that thing!!?? :lol:)& i stacked 3 frame-grabs of the early descent. see first attachment.

 

i also grabbed frames as it passes the first utility pole after the skip. ( i would have put a frame of the skip impact but it appears to occur down in a hollow & out of view. :shrug:). to me it appears the object is passing in front of the utility pole. if so it may be much smaller than i/we thought. i'm off to see a goog about utility pole size and grab more stuff. (do i see an antenna on the pole? mmmm... )

 

thoughts? suggestions? ridicule?

 

ps best i can do on pole height is between 25 and 55 feet.

Edited August 30, 2011 by Turtle

[JMJones0424]

I'm not convinced that the object is in front of the poles, though I admit at full speed it is hard to tell. The last pole at the end certainly appears to be in front of the explosion to me, because we can see the bottom of the pole but not the impact that caused the explosion. Also, it seems that pole comes into sharper focus during the explosion, can you grap a still of it at that point?

[CraigD]

oky doky. i tried some frame stacking as astronomers do, but that's only good when the camera isn't moving. ...

 

thoughts? suggestions? ridicule?

 

ps best i can do on pole height is between 25 and 55 feet.

No size comparison to the poles or other geometry is needed. All you need to do is get an accurate elapsed time in seconds T between the bounce and the final impact. Assuming, then that the object was more falling ballistically than flying aerodynamically between those two (not exactly true, my eye tells me, but close enough), and not much slowed by air drag, the height at the top of its arc will be

 

[math]H = \frac{g}{2} \left(\frac{T}{2}\right)^2 \dot= 1.25 \, T^2 \,\mbox{m}[/math]

 

You can then use a ruler to compare that height to the object to get its rough dimensions.