Updated Article: See Below!
I've been at it again. This time with a good friend, Don Andersberg (pseudonym). On 9/6/11, he came over to my place to show me some of his latest UFO video. And he didn't disappoint. He's been getting consistently great UFO video for more than a couple of years now. Eventually, I'll try to document what he has been doing just like I have with my friend Randy Bell. So much to do though . . .
UFO Skywatching Like Fishing
After looking at Don's latest videos, we decided to do a little skywatch on my back deck just like I've been doing off and on this last year. Going UFO hunting is like going on a fishing trip. You never know what you are going to bring home. Sometimes you come home with a passel of fish, sometimes you come home empty handed. And I've certainly done both. See my Special Report: Personal Skywatch Nets More UFOs. But this time Don and I came home (again) with the goods. We both saw and photographed and videotaped UFOs. It wasn't a great haul this time, but it'll do as another successful UFO skywatch.
More "Lazy" UFO Orbs
We ended up spending about an hour skywatching and captured a prominent white/shiny orb-like object on photos and video. We also saw a bright pinkish/red, shiny object of similar shape appear nearby the white object after about 10 minutes of observation. We did not succeed in capturing the smaller—half the size(?)—pinkish/red object, unfortunately. It was just too tiny. See Update below!
The Observation Process
The observation process with these tiny-type, balloon-like UFO objects is to
- Scan the sky with your eyes first.
- If you see nothing, use binoculars.
- If you see something, observe it for a few seconds or so (30 maybe) to fix the characteristics of the object(s) in your mind.
- Lower the binoculars and hope you can see the object(s) with naked eyes (if your eyes are good enough).
- If not, locate it again with binoculars.
- Fix the location in the sky and keep looking at the location, slowly lower the binoculars, raise up your camcorder or camera to your eyes, and hope you can locate the object(s) in the viewfinder.
- Start videotaping and photographing regardless of whether you can see the object in the camcorder or camera viewfinder.
This juggling act is not easy on tiny objects, which most of our UFOs have been so far. But do your best like we do.
At the Start of the Session
We both went out to my back deck around 12 PM and got comfortable in two chairs facing to the NW with the sun blocked by some tall trees. We were loaded up with shooting and viewing power. I had my usual Canon 40D and 100 to 400 mm zoom lens, Canon Vixia HV40 HD camcorder, a new Canon Powershot SX30 IS camera, and 9X birding binoculars. Don had some 15X binoculars and his Sony video-capable "prosumer" camera and a late model Canon Vixia HF camcorder.
Don Spots One Quickly
Within five minutes of settling in for a skywatch session, Don spotted a small, but fairly prominent, single, white, shiny orb up about 70 degrees from the horizon. Don likes to use sunglasses when he watches in sunny sky conditions. This makes for greater contrast between UFO objects and the blue sky usually.
He pointed out where the object was and I immediately tried to find it first using my new Canon Powershot SX30 IS prosumer camera. I had bought this one recently hoping to use its 35X extreme range zoom lens to get somewhat greater resolution images in photographs. It also has built-in 720 HD video.
I Struggle But Succeed
However, I futzed around with this for five minutes or so trying to see the UFO in the viewfinder or on the pull-out screen. I failed at this. The resolution of the video viewfinder and pull-out screen is a little too low to find such tiny objects easily to photograph or video. So, I abandoned this camera and went back to my trusty Canon 40D and 100 to 400 zoom lens. I had success with this rig, which you can see in the comparison illustration below in this article.
I Try My Camcorder
I did a little looking through my binoculars and then went on to try my Canon camcorder. I struggled with this trying to view the white object in the viewfinder and pull-out screen. I never succeeded in viewing the white object, however. But I shot some video "blind" anyway, which is a good thing to do because sometimes you will capture the target UFO even if you can't see it. I succeeded in doing that here. So, the video is not much good for analysis, but does prove that an object was there. Video also records sound, of course, so it is a good way to document what you were doing and saying during a skywatch session. You might also think about getting a small, handheld digital recorder like a Sony or Olympus model and just start it and leave it on all the time if you really want to document the audio during a skywatch. Be sure to let other people know you are doing this, however.
I See a Red One, Too
After photographing and videotaping the white one, I went back to just observing it with my binoculars. Probably about 15 minutes into our sighting session, I spotted a smaller, shiny pinkish/red object of the same general character as the more prominent white one. Don took a few minutes to spot the red one after I called his attention to it, but he finally did. It was within about 5º of the white one to the left. We observed this red one along with the white one for an estimated 10 to 15 minutes when we lost track of it. We don't know exactly when or how it disappeared because we were doing the eyes/binoculars/camcorder/camera "dance" trying to get video/photo evidence, which we failed in.
Update: When Don got back home, he examined his video and saw that he had captured the red and white UFOs. We didn't know that he had captured the red UFO, too, at the time. Examination of the video shows that the red UFO actually moves from below the white one slowly over to the left of the white one, maintaining about the same distance of around 5º as it moves. See the crop from a frame of his video below. In the video, the red UFO shows up from about frame 00:58;28 to the end at frame 2:57;04, which means we have it documented as moving in about two minutes from the 6 o'clock position to about the 10 o'clock position with respect to the white UFO.
White One Moves Around and Then Disappears
After about 30 minutes or so, with the red one coming and going during the middle of the sighting, the prominent white one finally "decided" to move around a bit more and then was lost to viewing. We are not sure exactly how because neither of us were viewing the object in binoculars when we finally realized we could not find it again.
We spent another half hour watching the skies for more UFOs and then ended another successful UFO "fishing expedition"!
Some Photos of the Prominent White UFO
The photos in the composite illustration below are in chronological order from left top to bottom right. They were all taken from 12:07:30 PM to 12:07:46 PM, that is, over a duration of 16 seconds. The F-stop was f9 and the shutter speed was 1/500 or 1/640 sec for all images. All photos are at 500% in Photoshop and unmanipulated otherwise. Note the variations in white and gray shapes in the objects. Balloons don't tend to show this much variation in 16 seconds in constant bright sunny conditions.
"Lazy" UFOs Hang Around
The real giveaway that these UFO objects are genuine UFOs is the long duration of the time that they "hang around" in the sky. This white object only moved about an estimated ten to fifteen degrees from its initial position at 12:07:30 to my last photo of it at 12:31:35. Yes, that is 24 minutes and 5 seconds! And that is not the entire duration of the total sighting either. It was about 30 to 35 minutes.
This is entirely too long for a freely floating balloon regardless of the wind speeds aloft. We have other long duration balloon-like UFOs also in our files. Folks, these are probably not balloons!
Regular Balloons Are Different
We have documented regular balloons that are clearly regular balloons and they behave like balloons moving in the wind in video and do not last much longer than five minutes or more in sighting time viewed from one spot, especially when the spot is a restricted area viewing spot, such as my back deck. I can see at most around one quarter of the entire sky and that is if I move around on my deck. Don and I did not even have to get out of our chairs for more than 30 minutes of viewing this white object!
Get out there and start skywatching and photographing UFOs! If you live in Oregon and get some good photos or video, tell us your story and we'll put you up on Oregon MUFON's site (keeping you anonymous, of course).
Crop From Frame of Don's Video Showing Red and White UFOs
Sixteen Seconds of the Prominent White UFO
