Major Ufo Sighting Causing Big News!

[CraigD]

Just want to pick a bone with Craig here as relates to my being right about kites possibility at Chatwick and Aethewoof and Nick Pope wrong. Heavy-duty winching gear is not necessary for tethered balloons or kites, and in fact I have never seen it used to bring in large kites. All that is necessary is a tie-off point [stakes, vehicle, tree, etcetera] with a loop/ring/carabiner attached through which the flying line is passed. The spare line can be on a reel or coiled in baskets or whatever. To lauch, a couple hundred feet of line is walked out with-the-wind, the kite then attached, and the kite is tossed into the air where the wind takes it up and it stops rising when the line goes taught to the tie-off. Additional line is let out as needed and controlled by putting the flying line in a bite on the ring. To get these bad boys down, walkers using heavy gloves and/or jackets grab the line at the tie-off and with the line held either under an arm -potentially dangerous- or firmly in hand they walk toward the kite as they slide their hands/armpits along the line. We call this oddly enough, "walking down a kite". :lol:

I stand bone-picked. ;)

 

I read about “walking down” kites at Gomberk Kites’s FAQ page, shortly after finding this excellent kite sales and information site while searching for info on Conyne kites after your first post about them. (I’m glad to know this name for a “triangular box with empty middle and wings outboard” design, as it’s a design that came to be one of my favorites ca. 1980, when during a period where I was homeless but not carless, nearly moneyless, but had a lots of string, paper, and thin hardwood sticks, so made and flew a lot of kites)

 

In my defense, I’ve never seen the technique used, likely because most of my kite flying has been from either small clearings and towers on hilltops in West Virginia, or mid- and southern US Atlantic cost beaches, neither of which have many nice clear paths that lend themselves to it – nor many or very organized kite flyers.

 

If you bother to look at my Google Earth® screen markups in earlier posts, you see there is plenty of room for this manuever at the location of the UFO sighting. Oh, and... :xmas_sheep: Ooops! I mean :coffee_n_pc:.

I’ve just did a little google maps/Earthing along the same lines, with agree, it looks doable, with some difficulty.

 

Given the reported 4-5 nm from airport heading 260°, the two saucers were at 51°10′23″N 0°04′00″W, over the Home Park Golf Center grounds (About 10 km from the Church of Scientology property at 51°6′19.99″N 0°01′36.55″W, Saint Hill Manor near East Grintead claimed by the Sun article) The reported about 1100’ AGL gives a kite line length between about 1200’ (if the kites and string were very low drag, nearly overhead) to much longer, perhaps 3000’. Winds were reported at 230°, about the same as the 777’s heading. From this, it looks to me like walking it down would have crossed Brickhouse Ln, a 2-lane road lines with big trees and hedges, several plowed fields edged by more trees (and though I can't see them, likely fences), and so on.

 

I imagine you can walk down a big kite, working around trees and over fences, hedges and lightly traveled roads, but if I was doing it, I’d use a winch, especially if I was trying to hoax an alien spaceship sighting, as I think you’d likely attract some unwanted neighborly attention with all the crossing of fields, fences, roads and fairways a walk down would involve.

 

Customer Enquiry @ Gatwick Airport

Can you tell me what the radar horizon is for the Gatwick airport? That is, at

incl

what elevation is an aircraft there under the radar?

…

That might be a hard question to which to get a simple answer. Horizon of all kinds are line-of-sight geometric functions of observer height, distance to target, and curvature and local variations in the Earth’s surface, so the basic data for Gatwick’s ATC radar would be “how tall’s your radar dish, and what’s its angle?” Radar is further complicated because it’s interpreted by computers to filter out noise from ground signals and ignore small targets, like birds, and lock on to fast moving targets, like planes. I’d say the best data we’re likely to get specific to objects like the disk in the airprox report is in the airprox report: a primary target corresponding to one of the disks was appeared in one screen update, then disappeared, when the object was at a visually estimated hight of 1100 to 1200 ft. above the ground at a distance of 4 to 5 nm.

 

:thumbs_up Inquiring with Gatwick Customer Enquiry a good idea, though – at worst, they’ll ignore you, at best, you’ll get a reply from a real, professional radar expert.

 

 

Meantime, I got to thinking that if Aethelwulf isn't really intimate with Nick Pope, then Nick Pope might consider it libel for Aethelwulf to say Nick said something he didn't say. Not to worry because again I'm not a piker so I wrote Nick Pope myself, apprised him of the situation, and invited him to join our forum to set the record straight. Got mail?

Nick Pope makes his living giving talks and selling books to UFO-ologists at many kinds (the continuum of these folks is wide, from diagnosed schizophrenics to unconventional religionists to scientifically literate SETI enthusiasts), so I doubt he’d want to stir up ill will by suing one for misquoting him.

 

If anyone hasn’t already, I recommend reading Nick Pope’s wikipedia article and official website. Compared to many well-know alien visitation proponents, he seems to me a pretty well-grounded and reasonable person, with practically peerless experience in official government UFO programs. As best I’ve been able to digest, his main message of late is to caution UFO investigators of all kinds from relying too much on radar data, noting that a spacecraft capable of traveling a great distance to visit earth might well be able to control radio reflections from its surface – that is, that they might be effectively radar stealthy. He also strongly condemns many conspiracy theories on the grounds that they are racist or anti-government, including “9/11 truthers” and "we didn't go to the moon"-ers

 

At the risk of being branded a cultural bigot, I think that, among UFO folks, Nick Pope is “one of the good ones.” It would be a blast if he'd join us at hypography - though professional in these sorts of discussions that he is, we might be a bit small in our audience reach for him.

[Turtle]

I stand bone-picked. ;)

 

I read about “walking down” kites at Gomberk Kites’s FAQ page, shortly after finding this excellent kite sales and information site while searching for info on Conyne kites after your first post about them. (I’m glad to know this name for a “triangular box with empty middle and wings outboard” design, as it’s a design that came to be one of my favorites ca. 1980, when during a period where I was homeless but not carless, nearly moneyless, but had a lots of string, paper, and thin hardwood sticks, so made and flew a lot of kites)

 

In my defense, I’ve never seen the technique used, likely because most of my kite flying has been from either small clearings and towers on hilltops in West Virginia, or mid- and southern US Atlantic cost beaches, neither of which have many nice clear paths that lend themselves to it – nor many or very organized kite flyers.

 

:lol: You're a paragon of research my friend.I have seen and used the walk-down technique at beaches and in fields many times. For kites large enough to lift a single person should a gust hit, we use teams of walkers. As I earlier said, it's best to not use the under-arm technique for big kites; this is because if you get lifted it's hard to let go.

 

 

 

 

I’ve just did a little google maps/Earthing along the same lines, with agree, it looks doable, with some difficulty.

 

Given the reported 4-5 nm from airport heading 260°, the two saucers were at 51°10′23″N 0°04′00″W, over the Home Park Golf Center grounds (About 10 km from the Church of Scientology property at 51°6′19.99″N 0°01′36.55″W, Saint Hill Manor near East Grintead claimed by the Sun article) The reported about 1100’ AGL gives a kite line length between about 1200’ (if the kites and string were very low drag, nearly overhead) to much longer, perhaps 3000’. Winds were reported at 230°, about the same as the 777’s heading. From this, it looks to me like walking it down would have crossed Brickhouse Ln, a 2-lane road lines with big trees and hedges, several plowed fields edged by more trees (and though I can't see them, likely fences), and so on.

 

I imagine you can walk down a big kite, working around trees and over fences, hedges and lightly traveled roads, but if I was doing it, I’d use a winch, especially if I was trying to hoax an alien spaceship sighting, as I think you’d likely attract some unwanted neighborly attention with all the crossing of fields, fences, roads and fairways a walk down would involve.

 

Well, as I have pointed out -and you agree- the speed & direction of surface winds are not of necessity the speed & direction of upper winds. As there is no instrumentation giving upper winds, we can only narrow a launch/control position to a circular region of a radius fitting the line-length limits you give.

 

 

That might be a hard question to which to get a simple answer. Horizon of all kinds are line-of-sight geometric functions of observer height, distance to target, and curvature and local variations in the Earth’s surface, so the basic data for Gatwick’s ATC radar would be “how tall’s your radar dish, and what’s its angle?” Radar is further complicated because it’s interpreted by computers to filter out noise from ground signals and ignore small targets, like birds, and lock on to fast moving targets, like planes. I’d say the best data we’re likely to get specific to objects like the disk in the airprox report is in the airprox report: a primary target corresponding to one of the disks was appeared in one screen update, then disappeared, when the object was at a visually estimated hight of 1100 to 1200 ft. above the ground at a distance of 4 to 5 nm.

 

:thumbs_up Inquiring with Gatwick Customer Enquiry a good idea, though – at worst, they’ll ignore you, at best, you’ll get a reply from a real, professional radar expert.

 

As I have said numerous times, the radar horizon at an airport is not a secret. Small craft without a transponder regularly communicate with the tower when under the radar to report their speed, direction, and altitude.

 

 

 

Nick Pope makes his living giving talks and selling books to UFO-ologists at many kinds (the continuum of these folks is wide, from diagnosed schizophrenics to unconventional religionists to scientifically literate SETI enthusiasts), so I doubt he’d want to stir up ill will by suing one for misquoting him.

 

If anyone hasn’t already, I recommend reading Nick Pope’s wikipedia article and official website. Compared to many well-know alien visitation proponents, he seems to me a pretty well-grounded and reasonable person, with practically peerless experience in official government UFO programs. As best I’ve been able to digest, his main message of late is to caution UFO investigators of all kinds from relying too much on radar data, noting that a spacecraft capable of traveling a great distance to visit earth might well be able to control radio reflections from its surface – that is, that they might be effectively radar stealthy. He also strongly condemns many conspiracy theories on the grounds that they are racist or anti-government, including “9/11 truthers” and "we didn't go to the moon"-ers

 

At the risk of being branded a cultural bigot, I think that, among UFO folks, Nick Pope is “one of the good ones.” It would be a blast if he'd join us at hypography - though professional in these sorts of discussions that he is, we might be a bit small in our audience reach for him.

 

If Nick can't see his way to defend his professional opinion here or anywhere, I can see my way to mock him for his blindness.

 

Gotta run. (forgive any typos; will fix if needed.) Thanks Craig & check ya later.

 

 

EDIT: fix typos

Edited July 3, 2013 by Turtle

[Aethelwulf]

''At the risk of being branded a cultural bigot, I think that, among UFO folks, Nick Pope is “one of the good ones.” It would be a blast if he'd join us at hypography - though professional in these sorts of discussions that he is, we might be a bit small in our audience reach for him.''

 

I'll tell you what, why don't you post say.... 20 questions and I will start up a page containing them questions and unless he is free (he is awfully busy) I am sure he would be more than welcome to join in and answering the questions formally.

[Aethelwulf]

 

Nick Pope makes his living giving talks and selling books to UFO-ologists at many kinds (the continuum of these folks is wide, from diagnosed schizophrenics to unconventional religionists to scientifically literate SETI enthusiasts), so I doubt he’d want to stir up ill will by suing one for misquoting him.

 

 

 

No worries Craig, I haven't misquoted him. The very question went like this

 

'' You said in the interview of the ufo's above scientology HQ's that the kite explanation holds no water... could you expand on why for me? I agree but have been having some heated debates with some people. I just wondered what was your reasons''

 

 

''It's difficult to put into words, but after having done this for the government, one develops a sort of 'gut instinct' for these sorts of things, based on taking a holistic view of the case: the witnesses, the description, the parameters of the objects/phenomena being suggested as conventional explanations, any supporting evidence (e.g. radar), etc.''

 

 

 

I think turtle is just trying to find something I have said incompetent. Hard to find when all I am interested is in facts.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Aethelwulf

[Moontanman]

Turtle, you did a pretty good job of convincing me that the Zamora case was a kite, it was a damn well choreographed hoax, and still seems a bit much to fool some podunk town cop but it answers a few questions I've had about that sighting for many years. But your evidence in that case was no better than the cops evidence, his was eyewitness, yours was second hand hearsay and an appeal to authority... but it was better than a slow meteor...

 

And I agree that the ufos over the scientology headquarters was spectacularly unimpressive and hoaxing the scientologists appeals to me just on general principles but where is your evidence it was a kite? Might have been, could have been, maybe, but anything asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence as well...

 

You seem to think that because it might have been a kite it must have been a kite, I'll accept might have been. It might have been aliens landing at the scientology center, it might have been balloons, it might have been many things none of which I am willing to assert as fact...

 

So I'll ask, are you saying it was a kite or are we just arguing about whether or not it could have been a kite? I see no reason why a kite should be dismissed out of hand but it could have been something else as well....

[Turtle]

Turtle, you did a pretty good job of convincing me that the Zamora case was a kite, it was a damn well choreographed hoax...

...

So I'll ask, are you saying it was a kite or are we just arguing about whether or not it could have been a kite? I see no reason why a kite should be dismissed out of hand but it could have been something else as well....

 

If you bothered to read all my posts here you might have noticed I exactly clarified your question. Perhaps you will find it on a re-read.

 

The only reason I responded here was that Pope & Woofy both specifically declared there was no way the sighting could have been kites and I'm a kite expert. Same for your thread on Zamora, which I nicely referred to as an "invitation" there, but really you were daring me -no one else- to show how it could have been a kite.

 

Both could have been a lot of things, but as a kite expert I kept to explaining how such a hoax could be done with kites. No matter how much you alien believers whine and fuss & blubber, I have done my part. Arguments such as Aethel's "it's a crime" or even Craig's "it would be hard" are strawmen because people commit crimes inspite of the law and do hard things in spite of the difficulty.

 

Now go right ahead with your blubbering & whining; it just makes you look more foolish than you already do. :cry:

[Turtle]

Sometimes agression is the better part of valor; sometimes it's discretion. :)

 

 

I have redacted the documents by changing my e-mail name, deleting a classified reference, and bolding & underlining the pertinent content..

From: Nick Pope

To: Turtle

Sent: Tuesday, July 2, 2013 9:54 AM

Subject: Re: Gatwick Event

 

Roger,

 

[classified reference deleted here]

 

I claim no special knowledge of kites, over and above having flown them as a kid and having investigated a few UFO sightings for the MoD where it transpired that kites had been misidentified. So of course, I can't entirely rule out this option here.

 

Best wishes,

 

Nick Pope

 

 

 

Message Received: Jul 03 2013, 02:29 AM

From: Turtle

To: "Nick Pope"

Cc:

Subject: Re: Gatwick Event

 

 

Hi Nick,

 

Thanks for your reply. I'm not in the habit of disclosing what people say in e-mails without their permission, and this is no exception. May I quote you in the thread?

 

Thanks again.

 

Turtle

 

 

 

Re: Gatwick Event 6:38PM

 

No problem. Happy for you to quote me.

 

N

[Moontanman]

If you bothered to read all my posts here you might have noticed I exactly clarified your question. Perhaps you will find it on a re-read.

 

The only reason I responded here was that Pope & Woofy both specifically declared there was no way the sighting could have been kites and I'm a kite expert. Same for your thread on Zamora, which I nicely referred to as an "invitation" there, but really you were daring me -no one else- to show how it could have been a kite.

 

Both could have been a lot of things, but as a kite expert I kept to explaining how such a hoax could be done with kites. No matter how much you alien believers whine and fuss & blubber, I have done my part. Arguments such as Aethel's "it's a crime" or even Craig's "it would be hard" are strawmen because people commit crimes inspite of the law and do hard things in spite of the difficulty.

 

Now go right ahead with your blubbering & whining; it just makes you look more foolish than you already do. :cry:

 

 

Damn turtle you really are a cantankerous old cooter, if I ever blubber and whine I'll let you know, I am glad you debunked the Zamorra sighting, it makes much more sense now, from this distance in time it still seems like quite a bit of trouble for such limited audience but it did spread out and I bet the hoaxers where surprised as hell.

 

So you are a KITE EXPERT? Appeal to authority much? I never said this threads sighting couldn't be a kite and I thought your posts were a bit ambiguous... you get cranky and on occasion it's hard to tell where the play stops and serious posts begin... maybe it was just hard for me to see from your point of view not being a kite expert and all that...

[CraigD]

Turtle, you did a pretty good job of convincing me that the Zamora case was a kite, it was a damn well choreographed hoax, and still seems a bit much to fool some podunk town cop but it answers a few questions I've had about that sighting for many years.

From what I’ve read – this wikipedia article and this blog page by OFOologist Anthony Bragalia – I gather the 24 Apr 1964 “Lonnie Zamora incident” is believed best explained not by a kite, but by a sky lantern . Other than the appearance of these small unmanned hot air balloons matching Zamora’s description, Bragalia seems convinced of this explanation mostly from conversations with Stirling Colgate, former president of NMIT, where the hoaxers are believed to have been students, in which Colgate claims to know some of the hoaxers, and the details of the hoax. Their explanation for why they were not forthcoming with this information early on is that they only wanted prank Zamora, not publically embarrass him or themselves.

 

The affair has ultimately proven more embarrassing, I think, to debunkers such as Philip J Klass, who initially suggested ball lightning as an explanation, then suggested, based it appears on little sound detective work, that it was a hoax orchestrated by Zamora and then mayor of Socorro Holm Bursum to attract tourism. By best accounts, Zamora appears to have acted in good faith – to quote Bragalia:

 

Lonnie reported things as he saw them, did his utmost best to answer questions put forth of him and was a good person. But like all of us, he had his flaws…including the flaws with his powers of perception that dusky day. He was not “Saint Zamora of Socorro.” He was neither an educated man nor an articulate or especially intelligent man, as gracefully noted by the Air Force’s Dr. J. Allen Hynek in his interview report of Zamora. Lonnie probably never had seen such an unusual thing and to his faulted perception that day, remained honestly and thoroughly confused. And remember also the context of the time, 1964, a time when satellites were like science fiction and man had barely even been in space, and not yet on the moon.

[Moontanman]

From what I’ve read – this wikipedia article and this blog page by OFOologist Anthony Bragalia – I gather the 24 Apr 1964 “Lonnie Zamora incident” is believed best explained not by a kite, but by a sky lantern . Other than the appearance of these small unmanned hot air balloons matching Zamora’s description, Bragalia seems convinced of this explanation mostly from conversations with Stirling Colgate, former president of NMIT, where the hoaxers are believed to have been students, in which Colgate claims to know some of the hoaxers, and the details of the hoax. Their explanation for why they were not forthcoming with this information early on is that they only wanted prank Zamora, not publically embarrass him or themselves.

 

The affair has ultimately proven more embarrassing, I think, to debunkers such as Philip J Klass, who initially suggested ball lightning as an explanation, then suggested, based it appears on little sound detective work, that it was a hoax orchestrated by Zamora and then mayor of Socorro Holm Bursum to attract tourism. By best accounts, Zamora appears to have acted in good faith – to quote Bragalia:

 

Lonnie reported things as he saw them, did his utmost best to answer questions put forth of him and was a good person. But like all of us, he had his flaws…including the flaws with his powers of perception that dusky day. He was not “Saint Zamora of Socorro.” He was neither an educated man nor an articulate or especially intelligent man, as gracefully noted by the Air Force’s Dr. J. Allen Hynek in his interview report of Zamora. Lonnie probably never had seen such an unusual thing and to his faulted perception that day, remained honestly and thoroughly confused. And remember also the context of the time, 1964, a time when satellites were like science fiction and man had barely even been in space, and not yet on the moon.

 

 

This is the wrong thread to discuss this in detail but the sky lantern doesn't hold water for me, first it was in the daytime, second the blue flame and fused glass at the sight aren't explained by it. Not to mention the speed of the object. A kite can be towed quite fast and lift some heavy objects like a propane tank... I doubt any reasonable sized sky lantern could do this.

[Aethelwulf]

Sometimes agression is the better part of valor; sometimes it's discretion. :)

 

 

I have redacted the documents by changing my e-mail name, deleting a classified reference, and bolding & underlining the pertinent content..

 

 

Of course, I had told you he was working on gut instinct. As I quoted him before, he has a certain knack for the subject. He can't entirely rule it out but it seems unlikely.

[cal]

Aethelwulf, stop double posting.

 

Also...

Your ignorance is no excuse for continuing to accuse me of mistatements. Better you remain silent & have folks think you a fool than to keep writing and remove any doubt.

That was one of the most beautifully worded f*<k you's that I have ever read. Turtle, are you single lol? Cause I'm pretty sure I love you.

____________________________

 

Also, you are all wrong. It's not an alien craft and it's not a goddamn kite. It was just a normal fighter jet (probably vertically landing) like the ones tested at Area 51 (they test bombers too I think). If it didn't look like a standard air-force vehicle it's because it probably wasn't a standard air-force vehicle. Other aircraft exist that aren't publicly documented... I don't see why there is any reason to think that it wasn't just a normal thing happening like how normal things happen every other day.

[Turtle]

... snip

 

I never said this threads sighting couldn't be a kite and I thought your posts were a bit ambiguous... you get cranky and on occasion it's hard to tell where the play stops and serious posts begin... maybe it was just hard for me to see from your point of view not being a kite expert and all that...

 

What can I say; I'm a competitive writer. I love you even if you aren't a kite expert.

 

 

That was one of the most beautifully worded f*<k you's that I have ever read. Turtle, are you single lol? Cause I'm pretty sure I love you.

 

...snip

 

Masher! I'm not that kind of girl. (call me ) And thank you, but in all fairness I was rewording the still-dead Mark Twain who said, "It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”

 

Now all of you...go fly a kite. :)

[Aethelwulf]

Aethelwulf, stop double posting.

 

Also...

 

That was one of the most beautifully worded f*<k you's that I have ever read. Turtle, are you single lol? Cause I'm pretty sure I love you.

____________________________

 

Also, you are all wrong. It's not an alien craft and it's not a goddamn kite. It was just a normal fighter jet (probably vertically landing) like the ones tested at Area 51 (they test bombers too I think). If it didn't look like a standard air-force vehicle it's because it probably wasn't a standard air-force vehicle. Other aircraft exist that aren't publicly documented... I don't see why there is any reason to think that it wasn't just a normal thing happening like how normal things happen every other day.

 

 

Why don't you just take your love affair somewhere else?

 

I could use the browser space.

[Turtle]

I was doing some reading on kites and ran across a germane image in a 1958 article on Domina Jalbert, inventor of the Kytoon and ram-air-inflated parafoil kite. Other readers may discover in the article, his work with the military. Shhhhh!!!

 

Way way back in the day, kiters enjoyed making and operating kite "messengers". These are winged devices which ride on the line of a kite already in the air. The messenger has foldable wings which are spring loaded. The wings are opened and locked, the messenger hung on the line, and the wind blows it up the line. At a desired point on the upper line, a toggle is fixed such that when the messenger hits the toggle a trigger is activated and the wings spring closed and the messenger falls back down the line under the influence of gravity.

 

There is a specific design given in the classic 1929 book by Leslie Hunt, 25 Kites That Fly. ( Messenger Description Here)

 

 

Attached image is a pre-1960's military collapsible radar reflector kite.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Turtle