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I noticed this YouTube video by Mila Zinkova headed 'Superior mirage of a cargo ship'. I don't think there is much doubt about this one, as the ship appears conspicuously distorted. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-77gAd-lJoo&t=44s Zinkova's channel has several other videos of...

A few months ago for some reason YouTube started recommending videos of ball lightning for my viewing pleasure. Most of them were obviously either fakes or misinterpretations of other phenomena, such as fireflies or distant aircraft lights. I did not find any that seemed clear evidence of ball...

Well, yes, at night they wouldn't be visible at all unless they had lights on. Why would they have lights on? I know a lot of drones are equipped with lights, but they could be removed or obscured for operations intended to be secret. Active lights would suggest some other motive, such as...

Reading the article in The Drive I was struck by the following passage: Judging from this, there ought to be a good photographic and video record of the suspected drones, but there is no clear statement, either in the article or some others I found, that any such record exists. It all reminds...

The UK media are at it again. See the following from today's Guardian which confidently ascribes a hovering ship of the coast of Dorset to a superior mirage. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/18/pop-up-enabled-ship-hover-dorset-coast-superior-mirage In this case there is even less...

The UK media continue to feature stories about these levitating ships, invariably explaining them as mirages. There have been several reports in the Times (paywalled, so I won't link to them) and this one on the BBC website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-56338236 This one...

I don't know about Cornwall, but I can say from bitter experience that in South Devon (between Torquay and Teignmouth) the path doesn't stay on the cliff top! The coastline is deeply indented by streams and 'chines', and the path often goes down steep steps to the beach and then up the other...

I'd love it to be a thylacine, but whenever I see reports of large mystery animals, whether the Yeti, Bigfoot, or black panthers in the English countryside, I wonder: where's the shit?? When conservationists want to know if there are otters in a river, they don't hang around all day waiting...

There is an Arizona media report (from "AZ Central") on the incident here. https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2021/02/24/american-airlines-pilot-reports-ufo-flight-to-phoenix/6805563002/ I don't think this adds much of substance to other accounts, except for naming the source of...

I should have thought of the published medical records. I'm surprised that Snopes.com don't mention them either, instead of just speculating about cosmetic surgery. A medical history of surgery for skin cancer could well explain the photographic oddities, though the newspaper article does not...

Probably. But once it is pointed out, it does look odd. I think the triangular projection, apparently called the tragus, is now smaller than in pre-2020 photos. It looks like the bottom of it has been removed. Compare it in the 2009 and 2021 photos in post #1. That might be more consistent...

Thanks. That seems decisive. But if it was purely cosmetic surgery I don't think I'd hire the surgeon. The result looks weird. I still wonder if there was some medical reason for the procedure. Elderly white folk who spend time in the sun are at high risk of basal cell carcinoma. Maybe...

On a related point, various people on Twitter have claimed that Biden's earlobes have changed over time, and that this is either a sign of cosmetic surgery or use of a body double. The key issue is whether or not his earlobes are 'attached', and if so whether this has changed. One claim is...

There is a very similar account in the Gulf News: https://gulfnews.com/uae/science/hope-probe-why-two-moons-recently-appeared-in-dubai-1.77049516 I don't think much journalistic acumen has been applied to the subject. The Gulf News and Khaleej Times are just repeating an official account...

If there really were two large unidentified objects floating over Dubai, one might expect it to be front page news in local media, if only to dismiss it as a publicity stunt, advertising balloons, etc. I looked at three online sources for Dubai news - the Kahleej Times, Gulf News, and UAE News...

Has anyone identified the 'mathematician' responsible for this? On searching for 'edward solomon mathematician' I got numerous results for Professor Edward I Solomon at Stanford, but he is a chemist, not a mathematician (though no doubt he is a better mathematician than I am), and in any case...

That's what I did think when I saw the photo. Thanks for the word "placket"! In my original comment, which I posted in the thread on President Biden's 'blank' executive orders, I may have been primed to favour a similar explanation for the missing phone cord - i.e. that it disappeared due to...

Thanks! Yes, that must be it. I had assumed that the dark vertical line was just the shadowed edge of the part of his shirt with the button holes in it, which no doubt has some technical name. But on a closer look it appears to extend below the edge of the shirt, so it can't be part of the...

In the UK today many newspapers carry photographs of Boris Johnson in his office speaking on the telephone to President Biden. Various people on social media, including a normally sane, if over-excitable, TV commentator called Robert Peston, have noticed that in the photographs the spiral...

I haven't done that, but the distance from Cape Hatteras to Cape Canaveral is about 1000 km, and from that distance about 70 km of altitude would be 'hidden' below the observer's horizon. The lowest earth orbits are much higher than that (about 300 km), so there is plenty of leeway to play...