Monday, February 01, 2010
Newfoundland UFO Mystery Solved?
My call to Newfoundland media has found that the case seems to have been closed.
Today, I was told by a reporter that as far as the Newfoundland media are concerned, the photos of the missile-like object over Harbour Mille are only of a jet contrail, backlit by the Sun.
"The consensus is that it was all just contrails," the newsman told me.
That would explain why the story seems to have died on the wires over the weekend.
But there's still some loose ends that need tying up. For example, why did RCMP tell the witness it was a missile launched by France? Why did National Defence and the RCMP later retract that explanation and simply say the UFO was "something" without offering any details?
It would have been nice, for example, to give us the flight numbers of the aircraft so the explanation of contrails could be verified, then offered to the curious and very puzzled populace.
The reality is that there are dozens of planes in the air at any given time around Newfoundland, since it's on many paths from the US Eastern Seaboard to Europe. A contrail of a high aircraft heading east could have been any one of several flights that might have been in view at about 5:00 pm Newfoundland time on a Friday night.
When I first saw the photos, my first impression was that the UFO was a contrail, having seen so many videos and photos of them as UFOs during the past 20 or 30 years.
What threw me off was the RCMP's comment about missiles. I mean, it was possible, I suppose, but why? And then the government's suggestion it was an amateur rocket. Silly, but possible, I guess, but... then they decided it wasn't after all.
I still wonder why this plausible explanation of aircraft contrails, and the providing of simple details, could not have been offered to media by National Defence, rather than their evasive response? All this does is fuel suspicion and give conspiracy theorists more fodder.
Today, I was told by a reporter that as far as the Newfoundland media are concerned, the photos of the missile-like object over Harbour Mille are only of a jet contrail, backlit by the Sun.
"The consensus is that it was all just contrails," the newsman told me.
That would explain why the story seems to have died on the wires over the weekend.
But there's still some loose ends that need tying up. For example, why did RCMP tell the witness it was a missile launched by France? Why did National Defence and the RCMP later retract that explanation and simply say the UFO was "something" without offering any details?
It would have been nice, for example, to give us the flight numbers of the aircraft so the explanation of contrails could be verified, then offered to the curious and very puzzled populace.
The reality is that there are dozens of planes in the air at any given time around Newfoundland, since it's on many paths from the US Eastern Seaboard to Europe. A contrail of a high aircraft heading east could have been any one of several flights that might have been in view at about 5:00 pm Newfoundland time on a Friday night.
When I first saw the photos, my first impression was that the UFO was a contrail, having seen so many videos and photos of them as UFOs during the past 20 or 30 years.
What threw me off was the RCMP's comment about missiles. I mean, it was possible, I suppose, but why? And then the government's suggestion it was an amateur rocket. Silly, but possible, I guess, but... then they decided it wasn't after all.
I still wonder why this plausible explanation of aircraft contrails, and the providing of simple details, could not have been offered to media by National Defence, rather than their evasive response? All this does is fuel suspicion and give conspiracy theorists more fodder.
# posted by rutkows @ 9:58 AM 
