Daily Mail article about August 2020 video of shiny black object near El Mirage airfield close to Adelanto, CA

SuppaCoup

Active Member
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-Adelanto-airfield-sighting-Reaper-drone.html Here is the link to the article
https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/vide...27545230/1024x576_MP4_6817731069227545230.mp4 and a direct link to the video


Contractor Andy Segobia, 52, was driving to work at El Mirage airfield near Adelanto, California, in August 2020 when he saw a 10ft sphere hanging in the air.


He took out his iPhone 7 and started filming the object that was no more than 50 ft in the air, shooting a surprisingly clear video compared to many grainy or blurry UFO footage.

Segobia told DailyMail.com that to the naked eye the object looked like dark tinted glass, was the size of the top of a palm tree, about six to 10 feet in diameter, and was completely silent.

'I thought it was a balloon at first. As I got closer, I could see it wasn't tethered to anything,' he said.

'There was no sign of propulsion, there was no noise, it was just sitting there.'
After filming the 90-second video of the stationary object, he said he had to go inside a building to take some measurements, and emerged less than a minute later to find it had disappeared.

'We went into this building 15 feet away and took one measurement, walked back out the door and it was gone. It had been maybe 30 seconds,' he said.

'I looked everywhere, it was a clear day, I would have seen it float away. It either disappeared or just shot out of there. I was bummed I didn't get that footage.'

Segobia's foreman, Juan Valdez, was with him that day. Valdez confirmed to DailyMail.com that he saw the object too, but did not comment further.

'I looked around, I even walked over to see if it came down to the ground,' Segobia said.

'It was gone, nowhere to be seen. If I'd just stayed there another minute I would have seen it zoom away or disappear.'
Seems like a balloon, would be interesting to play around with google maps, wind records and poke around to see if this airfield uses balloons that match this for anything.
80043563-12965895-Metadata_from_the_video_shows_it_was_filmed_using_an_iPhone_7_Pl-a-16_170542...jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-Adelanto-airfield-sighting-Reaper-drone.html Here is the link to the article
https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/vide...27545230/1024x576_MP4_6817731069227545230.mp4 and a direct link to the video



Seems like a balloon, would be interesting to play around with google maps, wind records and poke around to see if this airfield uses balloons that match this for anything.
A balloon tethered to the car that appears to be below and adjacent to the "shiny black object."
 
Marik von Rennenkampff (mvonren) pulled up the wind map from that day and, if this is a balloon tethered to/near that car on the ground, the relative position of the balloon to the car would make sense. The balloon would be to the left and closer to the camera than the car visible on the ground. There was a ~7.5mph wind to the NE, and the car filming is driving E. This is southern california, just NE of Los Angeles, in summer, so the sun in the morning is very E. The article says the video metadata says the video was taken at 7:08am (localtime, UTC-7) on Aug 4, 2020. The sun would be at an altitude of ~12º, and an azimuth of ~77º (slightly N of E).

Screenshot 2024-01-16 at 9.34.04 PM.png

Which essentially is what is seen in the video. The angle to the sun is not exactly visible in the video because thte sun in is never in frame, it's always off to the side, but it looks roughtly in the same direction as the road, meaning the car is driving roughly E. A lot of the roads in that area are a grid, either N/S or E/W, which would make sense.

Long roads mostly aligned to compass grid:
Screenshot 2024-01-16 at 9.24.25 PM.png

So we know the car is driving ~E, the sphere is SE of the camera, and the wind is blowing to the NE. The sphere is slightly E of the parked car. The N/S is harder to judge because distances to blobs in the sky are hard to judge, but it also appears to be solidly N of the parked car (closer to the camera than the parked car). You can see how the 2D left/right alignment of the balloon to the parked car decreases as the filming car continues to drive E, meaning some of that offset from earlier in the video was actually a N component, not just an E component.

So if the sphere was a balloon tethered to the parked car, all this would make sense, since the wind would be pushing it that direction.

There are numerous points in the video where power/telephone poles are visible, but the video is so low res and far away from them that you cannot see the cables hanging between them. So I don't put much weight in the witness saying they couldn't see anything tethering the balloon to the ground. It would be hard to see.

Here's my (very) rough sketchup below. Sketchup allows you to render sunlight and shadows based on a specific datetime, and all of it checks out with the video. The very left edge of the balloon is illuminated, rest is in shadow. The left side of the parked car is illuminated, rear is in shadow.

Screenshot 2024-01-16 at 9.01.09 PM.png
Screenshot 2024-01-16 at 9.33.00 PM.png

Personally I think it's very obvious upon first look that a tethered balloon is a likely explanation, even ignoring the possibility that the car on the ground is involved. I don't know why people think videos like this exhibit anything related to some hypothetical phenomenon of unexplainable advanced aircraft created by NHI. Other than the fact that it is a blurry sphere-ish thing in the sky that the witness failed to identify, which seems to be all it takes.
 
There seems to be a small airfield with old planes , airport and other aviation places right next to it....so maybe its all related..wind or weather testing?

just a snap from google maps based on Kyles location work

chrome_xsyaZ7Mhxq.png
 
Do you all think it might be worth it to contact El Mirage Airfield and see if they have a vehicle and balloon system they were using in August 2020 that explains this sighting?
 
I guess "no sign of propulsion" has become one of the UFO catch phrases now. It was just sitting there, all balloon-like, not being propelled...
 
Do you all think it might be worth it to contact El Mirage Airfield and see if they have a vehicle and balloon system they were using in August 2020 that explains this sighting?
According to Wikipedia, "El Mirage Field is a private airport located 3 miles west of El Mirage, California. It is leased by General Atomics of San Diego. Its primary use is the development and testing of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for the United States military and US Government."

General Atomics makes drones, radars, ground control systems and related equipment for the U.S. military. Not sure how forthcoming they will be. Interesting to see if they care about an outside contractor shooting video of the balloon / stealth drone / orb while visiting the facility.
 
Worth also noting that the DailyMail article linked to a Weatherspark page that lists the wind direction much less precisely than the site NullSchool that Marik linked to, which can give data for a two decimal place lat/long. The Weatherspark page makes it look like the wind across the whole region of tens of square miles is coming from due south, but this is not really accurate or how surface winds work. The NullSchool page shows varying currents across that area and wind coming from SW at that lat/long.

Marik's tweet:

Source: https://twitter.com/MvonRen/status/1747345603640893540
https://twitter.com/MvonRen/status/1747345603640893540

Weatherspark page for 2020-08-04 in Adelanto, CA (linked by DailyMail):
https://weatherspark.com/h/d/1919/2...t-4-2020-in-Adelanto-California-United-States

Screenshot 2024-01-16 at 11.29.03 PM.png

Earth NullSchool page linked by Marik:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/...aphic=-117.68,34.72,26489/loc=-117.589,34.624
Screenshot 2024-01-16 at 11.29.19 PM.png

Clicking around within the 2 digit lat/long precision you can get a 225º wind reading:
Screenshot 2024-01-16 at 11.49.14 PM.png

Which is a 45º wind from the SW (to NE, the wind arrow in my diagram).

A wind from 225º isn't close to a perfectly south originating wind suggested by Weatherspark. I guess this is a just a good reminder to make sure the tool is not giving misleading data.
 
Last edited:
I guess "no sign of propulsion" has become one of the UFO catch phrases now. It was just sitting there, all balloon-like, not being propelled...
Was it, though? To me, it looked like it was moving relative to the ground when the observer was almost stopped—and while the observer was moving, it would've been impossible to judge.

Anyway, it's not a "catchphrase", it's an "observable". To quote from a previous post of mine:
TTSA¹ defines these observables as
  • Sudden and instantaneous acceleration
  • Hypersonic velocities without signatures
  • Low observability (includes "inability to gain a clear target picture")
  • Trans-medium travel:
  • Positive lift:
These have a problem built in, because "low observability" precludes that good data on the system can be gathered by anyone. This "observable" requires UFOs to be in the LIZ! And that prevents gathering good evidence on the other 4 "observables", which thereby mutate to "unobservables".

¹ https://tothestars.media/de-de/blogs/press-and-news/five-characteristics-unique-to-uaps
More:
Article:
I think it would be fair to say that AATIP's "5 Observables" are more accurately termed the "5 Assumables," given that there is a huge gap in going from what they believe is being observed to proving that their remarkable interpretations are valid. These are extraordinary claims, and as such require extraordinary proof, not just simple assumptions.

And that explains why the Daily Mail story is as long as it is:
'We went into this building 15 feet away and took one measurement, walked back out the door and it was gone. It had been maybe 30 seconds,' he said.

'I looked everywhere, it was a clear day, I would have seen it float away. It either disappeared or just shot out of there. I was bummed I didn't get that footage.'

'I looked around, I even walked over to see if it came down to the ground,' Segobia said.

'It was gone, nowhere to be seen. If I'd just stayed there another minute I would have seen it zoom away or disappear.'
Content from External Source
Normally, the video would've barely met the fifth observable, because it wasn't manoeuvering.
But with these speculations, the balloon is now assumed to have
  • Sudden and instantaneous acceleration: "zoomed away"
  • Hypersonic velocities without signatures: here's the "no sign of propulsion"
  • Low observability: "nowhere to be seen"
  • Trans-medium travel: [strike out]
  • Positive lift: no wings, but then flew away
So without that narrative, we have a balloon; with it, we're 4 out of 5 on TTSA's UAP criteria—based off assumptions, not actual observation.
 
Was it, though? To me, it looked like it was moving relative to the ground when the observer was almost stopped—and while the observer was moving, it would've been impossible to judge.
It does appear to move when the observer is stopped. It appears to move exactly the way one would expect a tethered balloon to behave when the wind picks up a bit. Further away and down from the tether point. Nothing extraordinary.
 
Shadows in the prior sketchup diagrams were a few degrees off. Only really noticeable from the top view. In the interest of accuracy, here are the corrected views with the ~77º sun azimuth angle, plus an overhead showing the balloon is along a 45º line from the car in the diagram.

Screenshot 2024-01-17 at 1.26.37 AM.png

Screenshot 2024-01-17 at 1.26.04 AM.png
Screenshot 2024-01-17 at 1.27.03 AM.png
 
It does appear to move when the observer is stopped. It appears to move exactly the way one would expect a tethered balloon to behave when the wind picks up a bit. Further away and down from the tether point. Nothing extraordinary.
or like one would expect a non-tethered balloon to behave?
 
or like one would expect a non-tethered balloon to behave?
If it was not tethered, in 7.5mph of straight-moving wind, over 90 seconds it would traverse ~1000ft of horizontal distance, which I don't think it does. It's hard to tell with how much the camera is moving around (why didn't he get out and take a video with the camera stabilized??), but I get a feeling that the balloon is not perfectly stationary, maybe moving a little bit up/down/etc from minor changes in wind. I don't have any experience with video stabilization or object-in-video motion tracking though.
 
If it was not tethered, in 7.5mph of straight-moving wind, over 90 seconds it would traverse ~1000ft of horizontal distance, which I don't think it does. It's hard to tell with how much the camera is moving around (why didn't he get out and take a video with the camera stabilized??), but I get a feeling that the balloon is not perfectly stationary, maybe moving a little bit up/down/etc from minor changes in wind. I don't have any experience with video stabilization or object-in-video motion tracking though.
Agreed. The relative size and location of the balloon in relation to the vehicle I am claiming to be close to the anchor don’t appear to change much if any throughout the duration of the video.
 
If it was not tethered, in 7.5mph of straight-moving wind, over 90 seconds it would traverse ~1000ft of horizontal distance, which I don't think it does. It's hard to tell with how much the camera is moving around
Precisely. When the balloon is closer to the observer than the car, but appears to stay in the same relative position, parallax demands it must be moving.

Agreed. The relative size and location of the balloon in relation to the vehicle I am claiming to be close to the anchor don’t appear to change much if any throughout the duration of the video.
I disagree.

SmartSelect_20240117-083429_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083247_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083500_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083541_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083606_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083623_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083716_Samsung Internet.jpg
 
Precisely. When the balloon is closer to the observer than the car, but appears to stay in the same relative position, parallax demands it must be moving.


I disagree.

SmartSelect_20240117-083429_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083247_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083500_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083541_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083606_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083623_Samsung Internet.jpgSmartSelect_20240117-083716_Samsung Internet.jpg
I think your images help my position. The balloon and the vehicle in these captures are both getting larger. The distance from the anchor to the balloon appears roughly the same.
 
Is there a wind at that date time in the morning though? I ask because I didn't notice any wind effect on the grass etc, particulary at the brief moment he stops the car
 
I guess "no sign of propulsion" has become one of the UFO catch phrases now. It was just sitting there, all balloon-like, not being propelled...
And "I couldn't see a thether" implies "not tethered". I wonder, could he resolve the chain link between the fence posts - his zoomed iPhone couldn't, even on the fencing which was much nearer?
 
For what it's worth, here's the last 11 seconds of the balloon zoomed in and stabilized before it leaves the frame. Selected from the video downloaded directly from the Daily Mail article.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Here's a side-by-side of the video with a copy with edge-detection filter applied. I adjusted the parameters to best bring out the fence wires, which also allows a few glimpses of the more distant telephone pole wires. Any balloon tether there is below that resolution threshold, possibly due to some combination of its thickness, distance, and contrast. Apologies for the slightly out of phase audio.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Do you all think it might be worth it to contact El Mirage Airfield and see if they have a vehicle and balloon system they were using in August 2020 that explains this sighting?
I mean i guess you could ask if they have any new globe drones they reverse engineered from anti gravity alien technology
 
No street view, but aerial images from 2020 allow us to match the bushes on the berm and the shadows of the left-turn signs to get street locations.

2024-01-17_09-24-17.jpg
2024-01-17_09-26-20.jpg

Then matching images with the mountains gives us lines of sight.
2024-01-17_09-28-06.jpg

2024-01-17_09-28-21.jpg

Rough triangulation

2024-01-17_09-20-09.jpg
KMZ attached.
 

Attachments

  • Adelanto Balloon-like UFO.kmz
    3.4 KB · Views: 29
Last edited:
Looks like a WASP Aerostat (Winch Aerostat Small Platform) or competitor considering there is a vehicle or winch trailer under it.

WASP Aerostat
The WASP is a two-balloon system that doesn't quite match the video, but he PDF brochure for the WASP is dated May 2017, so presumably the system or its competitors have improved over the years, even by the August 2020 date of the contractor's video. (The companion video for the WASP Lite shows a translucent white balloon that records as black when shooting toward the sun.)

The WASP video -- which is really interesting for showing what the civilian IR system could do even years ago -- says it takes 30 minutes to set up or take down, but you can also just drive off with the aerostat in tow.
 
No street view, but aerial images from 2020 allow us to match the bushes on the berm and the shadows of the left-turn signs to get street location

Mick it's interesting your rough triangulation lands right on top of this circle in the ground. It's been there since at least '94, looks like a building foundation but could be a spot to send an aerostat up.

Screenshot 2024-01-17 at 12.44.11 PM.png
 
The WASP is a two-balloon system that doesn't quite match the video, but he PDF brochure for the WASP is dated May 2017, so presumably the system or its competitors have improved over the years, even by the August 2020 date of the contractor's video. (The companion video for the WASP Lite shows a translucent white balloon that records as black when shooting toward the sun.)

The WASP video -- which is really interesting for showing what the civilian IR system could do even years ago -- says it takes 30 minutes to set up or take down, but you can also just drive off with the aerostat in tow.
Yeah definitely not an exact match but still close. I'd also think there is significant security and surveillance around one of our DoD drone contractors and their airstrip. I'd also suspect these guys are in the aerostat business as well.

Funny note as I was cruising around on Google Earth street view looking to match the mountains background (Mick beat me to it) you can see a security truck following the Google cam car on the road by the airstrip lol
 
Looks like a WASP Aerostat (Winch Aerostat Small Platform) or competitor considering there is a vehicle or winch trailer under it.
Videos of this system:

WASP light, the littler version
https://droneaviationcorp.com/wasp-lite
46 seconds in is a nice shot demonstrating the tether not being very visible at pretty close range!
wasp light balloon tether.JPG


The bigger version:

https://droneaviationcorp.com/solutions
Nice shot with tether invisibility at 52 seconds
wasp big version.JPG

It is being towed by a moving vehicle at 2 minutes in.

They both have a "drag sail" (unless I guessed with extreme luck it is probably not called that) projecting below them, presumably to hold orientation with the wind to keep the camera platform reasonably steady. I do not see that in the vid in question... I feel like we SHOULD, but that is just based on my feelings, I could be wrong. Of course, some competitor might lack that feature...

Kites of comparable sizes are flown on line around 5 mm (when new, it fuzzies up to a bit more than that with use.) I'd expect these balloons to have more drag that we do, so call that a lower limit. That would be Spectra or Dyneema line, or more rarely kevlar. Strongest rope per weight we can get -- I'd expect they'd be using one or the other, but didn't see that info on their site. (May have missed it, I'm just off a long flight and pretty tired.
 
Mick it's interesting your rough triangulation lands right on top of this circle in the ground. It's been there since at least '94, looks like a building foundation but could be a spot to send an aerostat up.
That seems to be roughly where it ends up, but it seems to start more to the East, maybe half a mile, suggesting it's being towed west along Linson St, at about 20 mph.
 
I think your images help my position. The balloon and the vehicle in these captures are both getting larger. The distance from the anchor to the balloon appears roughly the same.
my point was about the change in angle of the connecting line, which shows their positions are not the same.

I think some of the enlargement is due to zoom, as the mountains appear to be getting larger as well.

note also that the slantiest of the screenshots shows a 45⁰ angle, which means the balloon should dip to ~70% of its maximum altitude above ground at that point if it was on a fixed-length tether, but it doesn't look like that to me

I bet this is going to be a challenge for sitrec because the observer speed varies quite a bit
 
Here's a side-by-side of the video with a copy with edge-detection filter applied. I adjusted the parameters to best bring out the fence wires, which also allows a few glimpses of the more distant telephone pole wires. Any balloon tether there is below that resolution threshold, possibly due to some combination of its thickness, distance, and contrast. Apologies for the slightly out of phase audio.

Presumably the top wire on the fence is barbed wire, which would necessarily be heftier guage. Likewise, the telegraph cables would need to be thicker than chainlink too, as they're under constant tension. So nothing yet firmly denies the "is tethered" argument, and several things still support it.
 
Just a though. Here is the sphear:

1705523741052.png

And zoomed in from @Sylvester:

1705523802455.png

This is an older radar calibration target form Area 51:

1705524046708.png
https://www.lazygranch.com/a51misc1.html#calibrator

As well as from a maker of said targets:

1705524117227.png

From this thread: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ro...e-engineering-program-at-area-51.13109/page-7

And from @jdog above:

According to Wikipedia, "El Mirage Field is a private airport located 3 miles west of El Mirage, California. It is leased by General Atomics of San Diego. Its primary use is the development and testing of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for the United States military and US Government."

General Atomics makes drones, radars, ground control systems and related equipment for the U.S. military. Not sure how forthcoming they will be. Interesting to see if they care about an outside contractor shooting video of the balloon / stealth drone / orb while visiting the facility.

The company at this facility make radars. Is this a newer style mobile balloon radar calibration target?
 
Back
Top