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Indeed. I'm not convinced by my own model, so this chap should not take it as a positive identification. However, the balance of probabilities suggests that a smallish cluster of irregularly-shaped balloons is a good candidate.

Hmm; I've read your account, elsewhere, as you know; as far as I can see there doesn't seem to be anything about it that is inconsistent with a formation of jets seen under unusual circumstances. But this thread is about pilot misperceptions, while you were in a car. Similar circumstances, but...

See this post and following posts; probably Starlink on-station flares. https://www.metabunk.org/threads/why-are-starlink-racetrack-flares-mostly-reported-from-planes.12720/post-310431

The suggestion with Fravor's sighting is that the object he saw was significantly closer than he thought, so when he circled around it, the object appeared to be 'circling' opposite him at approximately the same rate. To model that in your aircraft combat simulation game, you would have to...

Not really; the statement you posted a link to says (and I repeat) That is the exact opposite of an accurate assessment of the behaviour of these objects. ---- I note that the so-called 'Acorn' UAP is in fact our old friend the Batman Balloon. I can guarantee that this object was not...

That doesn't sound very accurate to me. The article was talking about the 'Acorn', 'Metallic Blimp', 'Sphere' and 'Pyramid'. Most of these objects were probably balloons or drones, so the assessment of their behaviour was most likely in error. The Pyramid clip seems to show stars, distorted by...

Almost everybody makes this mistake, but I don't see any evidence that Dunning is one of them. On the other hand, Fravor appears to have been one of the very first people who saw the video, and I suspect (but cannot prove) that the video changed his own recollection of his own first-hand...

So, less than 408 km then. A rather large error bar.

How did you establish its height? I've only ever established the height of an unknown aircraft by talking on the phone to another simultaneous witness and comparing angles - even then I'd expect at least an error of about 2x the estimate. Judging the height of an unknown is usually very...

Exactly. The people may only be a couple of hundred yards behind the balloon cluster. In which case the balloon cluster would be larger, and the speed would be somewhat faster, but still within the range of credible wind speeds.

Yeah, The 'pointy bits now look more like the corners of 'balloon bags' to me. Not a net, but a bag of balloons. I'm veering back towards 'accidental release' again.

Two curious aspects of this sighting are suggestive; 1/ the bunch of balloons (or whatever) is almost perfectly neutrally buoyant. That suggests it has been deliberately weighted so that it will float. Whenever I've attempted to do this it has been a fairly difficult task, adding small weights...

We know the balloon cluster is 2 metres wide or smaller, depending on its distance from the camera. The smaller letter balloons would probably fit the bill.

This is a bunch of balloons, not a single balloon. Some, or many, of these balloons appear to be oddly-shaped novelty balloons as well. That makes matching the shape effectively impossible.

We have a thread on this particular statement; https://www.metabunk.org/threads/claim-cia-spy-planes-account-for-over-1-2-of-all-ufo-reports-in-the-50s-and-60s-in-the-us.13063/ it appears to be hyperbole, but the most likely interpretation is that around half of all unexplained UFO reports at...

To be charitable, the 'system' 'billions of light years away' they are referring to may be 'the closest system with an advanced alien civilisation'. I know of a few astrobiologists who would agree with that estimate, or rather they would not dismiss it as unlikely. Advanced, spacefaring...

That's right. The distance between the object/bunch of balloons is not accurately known, and cannot be known accurately given the data we have; and the speed is entirely dependent on that distance. If the object is half-way between the camera and the reference objects in the background, then we...

Curiously enough, one night I saw a fire lantern balloon descending after it had run out of fuel. The lantern was slowly drifting downwards and was tilted sideways, so it looked for all the world like a light grey box jellyfish. Something like this, but without the tentacles.

No ping-pong movement there that I can see. If this is the earliest account, it seems fairly consistent with a parallax error. Of course you need to take Deitrich's account as well, which describes a much shorter encounter and was presumably recorded much later.

Yes, I think that is it. The document is probably here on Metabunk somewhere but I can't think of a tag to search for it with.