Ufology Research

I've been studying the raw data of UFO reports in detail for 25 years. The 2013 Canadian UFO Survey, when completed in a few months (I hope) will be the 25th annual study of its kind, and the only one of its kind in the world.

The vast majority of sightings this past year (and several previous years) involve observations of orange lights moving in the sky. In many cases (more than some might expect) the culprits have been Chinese lanterns.

No, really. There have been cases where we received many reports of groups of orange lights moving in the sky and then someone points out that some lanterns were released in the area. And then we verified that the claim was true, and then matched the launching of the lanterns to where the UFOs were seen. And they fit.

Now, what about cases where the UFOs observed act exactly like the ones that turned out to be lanterns, but we didn't get any reports of launchings that night? Does that mean that they were something else?

Then there's the problem of some observations of orange lights that move faster than lanterns should. You know, where the witness says, "It zipped away really quickly." That doesn't sound like lanterns, which need light winds to fly best. Well, there's always mini-helicopters or drones, I suppose. The mini RCs often have lights so they can be seen at night and found later, but few RC enthusiasts would fly them in tandem and at night because of the risk of damaging or losing them entirely. Drones are another matter. Yes, they're being tested now and flown by military and aerial photo orgs but they're somewhat regulated. Besides, you'd hear them, and their trajectories would tend to be smooth.

There are two ways to look at such observations. One is to try and figure out what could fly in such a manner and see if it can be matched to the witnesses' reports. The other way is to accept that witnesses' observational capabilities are often wrong. (We won't bother here with a third possibility, that the witnesses are just lying.) So if some witnesses report slow-moving lights and others report fast-moving ones, it's actually probable that they were watching the same things but with different interpretations of what "fast" and "slow" really mean. It's also probable that the witnesses reporting fast-moving objects were simply in error and that they only thought the objects they had seen moving slowly at first suddenly zipped away because they disappeared suddenly.

In the case of the many reports in California around New Year's Eve (when it should be obvious that Chinese lanterns and other things would be sent aloft in celebration) where there is a large population of potential witnesses, it has been conceded by UFO buffs that some of the UFOs seen in conjunction with the formation were lanterns, but say that some were not. But in southern California, like many urbanized areas, the presence of many airports and aircraft would suggest many UFOs seen at night will be explainable as airplanes.



One news story about the California UFOs: http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/01/02/ufos-california/

But here's the thing: people report seeing orange lights moving in the night sky, not aircraft. No strobes, no wingtip navigation lights. Why?

I recall my university courses in physics and optics that taught me about how light is affected by atmospheric disturbance, distance and observational instruments themselves. I think the orange lights are simply white or red lights on planes seen at a distance through the atmosphere. The blinking lights and strobes won't be visible because of the distance.

But I can't prove it. Yet.

Readers of this blog might not be surprised to know that in parallel with the British hobby of trainspotting, there is an analogous version called planespotting. Yes, people spend their free time watching planes take off and land at airports. Who better to ask about lights on planes?

So I went to a Planespotting website and asked them about it:

Chris Rutkowski
Hi! I'm throwing a question out to anyone here, since you're more experienced than most people with this. I frequently get reports from people who see high-altitude, distant orange lights moving slowly in the night sky, sometimes (but not always) near airports. I'm fairly certain they are seeing planes, but witnesses insist they are not planes because the lights are steady and not flashing, and also that no red/green navigation lights are seen. My question is: what do planes look like at various distances in the night sky? Will the nav lights always be visible?
 Planespotting
Nav lights are required at night and are always visible. Light on the right wingtip is green, and that on the left wing is red. The aircraft strobes help draw attention to the airplane. These lights will be used when on an active runway, and also when below 10,000 feet. Flashing strobe lights are an excellent method of making other air traffic aware of the airplane. They are turned off when flying through clouds, because the intense flashing effect can be reflected back into the cockpit and cabin by the cloud, causing a blinding effect.
 Chris Rutkowski
Thanks for the prompt reply. Is there a distance effect? At a range of, say, three or four miles, will the nav lights still be visible? I'm puzzled at why there are so many reports of distant orange lights moving quickly in the sky.
 Planespotting
Above 10,000 feet, air traffic is equipped with transponders, which allow Air Traffic Control to see pertinent information such as speed and altitude. Because of this, the chances of an aerial collision is lessened, and the strobes can be safely deactivated.
 Chris Rutkowski
Okay, so this was reported as a UFO to Transport Canada: "On January 1, 2014, a witness reported seeing a UFO or something unknown in the sky in Maple Ridge, BC. He was in his hot tub at 00:10 PST New Year's Day when he saw 4 objects in the sky moving from south to north at a great altitude. The objects were orange or yellow in colour but not glowing; they were in formation an estimated 1/4 mile apart. They stopped, then flew towards the west. They were visible for about 5 or 6 minutes. The sighting was reported to the RCMP as well."
 Chris Rutkowski
Could these have been aircraft?

Planespotting
Chris I think that when the visibility is very poor, the nav lights are not visible.
 Chris Rutkowski
That's what I wanted to know, thx.

• How far away does a plane need to be before its nav lights are invisible? 
• Do the colours of the lights shift with distance and direction or speed or altitude? 
• Will they become distant orange lights?
• Are 737s different from 747s?
• Do lights on 747s appear different than those of Piper Cubs at various distances?

Labels: orange UFOs lights California aircraft IFOs Chinese lanterns experiment observation witnesses