Indian police spot glowing UFOs zig-zagging over nuclear power plant - (ISS)

[flarkey]

This report came up on Reddit and links to a recent article on the The Daily Mail website. They are linking the sightings in India to the UFO sightings at American Nuclear plants.


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1bq92ka/footage_of_indian_police_spots_glowing_ufos/


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...cer-wife-ufo-footage-nuclear-power-plant.html



Hmm, looks kinda like the ISS to me...



lets check the records of ISS passes over the region (city of Madurai) for August 8 2023 at 7:03pm. And yes strangely there was a pass of the ISS overhead at exactly that time.

 

[flarkey]

The other video is from the same location, but August 6 2023 at 7.22pm. The sky is much darker so it is likely later than the other video. It looks very much like the ISS again...



The ISS pass on 6 August was closer to 7.00pm and didnt get very high above the horizon. I think its unlikely that the time & date is reported correctly in the caption.

There were no ISS passes in August around the 7:22pm that I can see.

From in-the-sky.org

 

[JMartJr]

If it actually zig-zagged, that would rule out ISS. But since it only moves along with the background or foreground, as the camera moves, in every case where there is anything else in frame (buildings, trees, what seems to be a star, etc.) the "zig zagging" claim seems to be in error. Unsure whether it's naivete on the part of the observers, or is done with intent to deceive, but in either case once again we have an example of the UFO not being captured by the camera actually doing the cool UFO stuff that is being claimed.

(Not to be curmudgeonly, but I'm also not seeing the "over a nuclear power plant" part, beyond an assertion that a nuclear plant is over there in that direction somewhere out of sight...)

(Also, I note somebody on Reddit ruling out an ISS pass as the station goes quite fast, and should be out of sight in seconds. The longest passes in the charts you share above are around 6 minutes long. The ENTIRE Daily Mail video of BOTH sightings is around 6 minutes.)

 

[john.phil]

I didn't examine the footage yet. From the policeman's town, the nuclear reactor is about 60km South-Southwest.



On 8 Aug 2023 19:34, the ISS briefly appears above the horizon, moving in the direction of the NPP, which lies between S and SW, and setting there about 5 minutes later.





On 6 Aug 2023 19:16, the ISS sets east of the NPP general location, thus 5 minutes before the claimed time of 19:22.



Curiously, if the date is typed in MDY format (8 June 2023 instead of 6 Aug 2023), it becomes similar to the 8 Aug passage at 19:22:

 

[flarkey]

Curiously, if the date is typed in MDY format (8 June 2023 instead of 6 Aug 2023), it becomes similar to the 8 Aug passage at 19:22:

Wow, nice thinking and you're right. It's a match

 

[FatPhil]

Curiously, if the date is typed in MDY format (8 June 2023 instead of 6 Aug 2023), it becomes similar to the 8 Aug passage at 19:22:

Bravo! This should probably be added too our toolkit.

This highlights one of the problems with n-th generation reports, it only takes one intermediary to have a perverse interpretation, and the message gets mangled. Classic "game of telephone".

 

[flarkey]

Also, am I right in thinking that the video time on a mobile phone is at the end of the recording, not the start time? These videos are quite long (3 mins) and they match up at the end of the ISS pass. It is something I've noticed in other cases.

 

[jarlrmai]

When you look at metadata on phone videos there's a few times so it depends on what is showing you the time

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

ISO 8601 is an international standard covering the worldwide exchange and communication of date and time-related data. The standard provides a well-defined, unambiguous method of representing calendar dates and times in worldwide communications, especially to avoid misinterpreting numeric dates and times when such data is transferred between countries with different conventions for writing numeric dates and times. In representations that adhere to the ISO 8601 interchange standard, dates and times are arranged such that the greatest temporal term (typically a year) is placed at the left and each successively lesser term is placed to the right of the previous term. [year/month/day}

Today's date in the USA (Freedom Date): 3/29/24 - month/day/year - March 29, 2024

Today's date in India and the UK: 29/3/24 - day/month/year

Today's date in ISO 8601 format: 24/3/29 - year/month/day - (which is the most rational method)


Hypothetically, June 8, 2023 written in ISO 8601 format - 23/6/8 - could be interpreted in the UK as the 6th of August.

Just a hypothetical, of course.

Question: Is the metadata on this particular phone displayed in ISO 8601 date format? Or could ISO 8601 format have been used in some other way?


Another hypothetical: The story may have passed from India, through the USA, and on to the UK. The hiccup occurred in the USA where June 8, 2023 was written as 6/8/23. In the UK this was interpreted as the 6th of August, 2023.

 

[jarlrmai]

The time stamp is generally in UTC ISO 8601 with timezone adjustments recorded and the device chooses a format to show you based on your locale, but if you see a screen grab from a device then all bets are off if you mistranslate it, it's why we really want to see original video files from the device. Then there's devices on airplane not updating to correct time etc etc.

 

[Mick West]

The time stamp is generally in UTC ISO 8601 with timezone adjustments recorded and the device chooses a format to show you based on your locale, but if you see a screen grab from a device then all bets are off if you mistranslate it, it's why we really want to see original video files from the device. Then there's devices on airplane not updating to correct time etc etc.

I wrote a bit about the problems with determining iPhone video start time here:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/how-to-determine-the-start-time-of-an-iphone-video.13408/

You can't really verify the time unless you have the original video. Even if you have video downloaded directly from the phone with AirDrop, you can't tell if it has been cropped without access to the phone. You can detect if the time has been edited, but not what it originally was.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Noted that the Encoded date, Tagged date and com.apple.quicktime.creationdate are in year/month/day format... ISO 8601.

This is consistent with the hypothetical scenario that someone in the UK, looking at an ISO date, unknowingly switched the date from June 8 to August 6. Thin stuff, but worth thinking about. The India to USA to UK scenario - the 8th of June 2023 to 06/08/23 to the 6th of August 2023 - might be somewhat more likely.

We would need to go back to a primary source somehow to find out for sure what the date was. That might mean looking for a story in an Indian newspaper.

 

[flarkey]

If there's issues with the date format, I think its more likely that they'd get both dates wrong rther than just one, so I checked the ISS passes for 8 June 2023, and thee's a matching pass for the ISS then too.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I think you're right. There seems to have been a UFO flap in July and August. I don't think a date in June would fit. The June 8th ISS match is just a coincidence.

 

[flarkey]

Hmmm - Are we at risk here of being accused of picking and choosing the evidence (dates & times) to fit our preconceived conclusions? I feel at least that my confirmation bias is working in overdrive here. I think it's pretty clear that the 2nd video looks like the ISS and the time stamp matches an ISS pass - and although the 1st video looks very similar the reported time stamp doesn't fit. However we can make it fit by assuming reporting errors from the eye witness or ambiguity in the date format as reported by the Daily Mail journalists. That is something that ufo-fans regularly accuse us of.

Of course all this could be solved if we had access to the original videos and the associated metadata. But trying to get them from someone who I think is a ufo-fan is probably unlikely.

This again highlights the issue not just with eye witnesses testimony, but with alleged eye witness 'data' - and I use that word data to include things that should be objective like dates and times.

 

[john.phil]

That might mean looking for a story in an Indian newspaper.

A couple of days ago, after going through the news report in detail and the footage, I noticed a number of inconsistencies with the reporting. So, I searched the Indian news in both Tamil and Hindi. All sources I found were either directly quoting the Daily Mail report, or indirectly, or DT Next (quoted and linked by the Daily Mail). I couldn't find the footage in any of the reports, and in at least one of them, they say he gave the rights to the Daily Mail, hence the lack of footage.

The inconsistencies I found:

• The report indicates the footage was recorded from Tirunelveli (38 miles from the NPP), but both pieces of footage state he was 19 miles from the NPP, which corroborates with the NPP being a reference for him, as he would be much closer. The Indian reports and DT Next state he's from Tirunelveli district, and do not mention Tirunelveli as his hometown, or the footage being recorded there.

"A sky map for that night and time, geolocated to the Kaders' hometown of Tirunelveli (...) The ISRO facility is also approximately one hour's drive south of the Kaders' home, which is in the city of Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu"

Content from External Source

DT NEXT: "(...) UFOs were spotted in the sky covering Koodankulam in Tirunelveli district last year (...)"

Content from External Source

• The report states one of the two pieces of footage was taken at 19:30, but the text in the footage itself states 19:03, perhaps a typo on either;

"(...), in Kader's August 8 video, filmed at dusk (7:30PM local time), (...)"

Content from External Source

Considering ~19 miles as road distance, and the statement that the NPP is in a southernly direction, a ~19 miles radius can be drawn. It's possible the footage was recorded from one of the largest towns North of the NPP, and there are several smaller towns within the constraints. Geolocation would be more arduous due to the poor street view coverage. I'm showing 2 examples (Ilangulam and Vadakku Valliyur):

• The footage attributed to 6 Aug shows a bright light travelling from left to right and climbing, then moving away and downwards towards the horizon. This is consistent with the 6 Aug passage, but the annotated time is off by at least 6 minutes (i.e. the ISS enters the shadow around 19:16, the footage states 19:22 (either start or end time) (EDIT: Software loaded incorrect data), footage duration is 03:30. The NPP is between S and SW from Ilangulam, and S and SE from Vadakku Valliyur);

EDIT: Incorrect picture generated by the software removed to avoid confusion.

• The second footage is attributed to 8 Aug, and also shows a light moving left to right quite high in the sky, but from my previous post, the ISS passage for 8 Aug is from right to left and close to the horizon, thus the footage does not match the ISS path for that day (EDIT: Conclusion based on incorrect software data). If the date is changed to 7 Aug 2023, the ISS appears after 18:30 19:45 (EDIT: Fixed in accordance with sky chart), high in the sky, moving towards the general direction of the NPP, and from left to right, generally matching the footage;

EDIT: Incorrect picture generated by the software removed to avoid confusion.

• The footage attributed to 8 Aug is noticeably lighter than 6 Aug, although the difference between the two is supposedly 19 minutes (if you believe 19:03 is correct, otherwise, if 19:30 is correct, then 8 Aug should be slightly darker than 6 Aug by 8 minutes, which is not the case). If instead, the time is assumed to be around 18:35 of the previous day (7 Aug), in accordance with the ISS passage above, it would explain why 6 Aug is noticeably darker (assuming the phone is the same, the footage was recorded with similar settings and from a nearby location). (EDIT: After loading the correct data, the 8 Aug light matches the ISS pass). Below is the sunset location in the footage attributed to 8 Aug (19:03 or 19:30) (sunset in the region was between 18:30 to 18:40);

source Ilangulam: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/@11668001?month=8&year=2023
source Vadakku Valliyur: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/@1253605?month=8&year=2023



In the report, it is said the footage was taken 10 days after the DGP photos were taken, which happened on 26 July 2023. This is consistent with 6 Aug, 7 Aug and 8 Aug.

Kader's video-taped sightings, as Hussain told DT Next, 'happened just 10 days after former DGP [Director General of Police] Prateep V. Philip took pictures of a UFO on [the] Muttukadu sea shore near Chennai.'

Content from External Source

This was the light that got our attention on 26/7/23 that turned up on my iphone camera as four UFOs

Content from External Source

source:
Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=764561375683254

As raised before, more precise time stamps and location are required to demonstrate, or otherwise, that the lights are the ISS.

About his claims of seeing anomalous movement, he seems to be looking at the screen, and not the light itself with the naked eye, whilst narrating what he's seeing on the screen to his companion.

 

[flarkey]

wow, nice details @john.phil - however

• The second footage is attributed to 8 Aug, and also shows a light moving left to right quite high in the sky, but from my previous post, the ISS passage for 8 Aug is from right to left and close to the horizon, thus the footage does not match the ISS path for that day. If the date is changed to 7 Aug 2023, the ISS appears after 18:30, high in the sky, moving towards the general direction of the NPP, and from left to right, generally matching the footage;

your findings here don't match up with mine. in my investigations the pass on the 8th matches pretty closely. I used in-the-sky.org which uses the valid historical orbital data for any date set by the user. There's a screenshot below (unfortunately I can't provide a hyperlink because the website uses a cookie for your location,) it definitely shows a high left-to-right pass, not a low right-to-left as your post suggests.




I double checked this using http://www.isstracker.com/historical and entered "2023-08-08 19:03:00+0530" as the date time parameters, and that shows that the ISS was passing over the India from NW to SE, matching what in-the-sky.org predicted.
@john.phil - how did you determine that " the ISS passage for 8 Aug is from right to left and close to the horizon, thus the footage does not match the ISS path for that day." ... ? Are you using the correct orbital data for the ISS?

In other news I have been in touch with the Daily Mail journalist Matthew Phelan who wrote the article to try and get the original video files. He said the copies he used to make the embedded video were received via WhatsApp and have had all metadata stripped. He said he'd consider asking the source to send them via alternative means to retain the metadata but wasn't hopeful that they'd agree to send it.

 

[john.phil]

your findings here don't match up with mine. in my investigations the pass on the 8th matches pretty closely.

It turned out the software was automatically enforcing the latest TLE data, instead of loading the TLE for the period 5/6 Aug 23 and 7/8 Aug 23, as specified. Now with the issue solved, the simulation corroborates the sky chart for the region:

For 8 Aug, the ISS transits between 18:59 and 19:04, from NNW to SE.



In the simulation, the same information is now displayed:




As the video is not geolocated, I'm stating "left to right", and it is in respect to buildings and the operator, but he does turn and move to the right, causing a parallax shift, he also moves forward and uses the zoom, so I looked for the frames that would be comparable. After he does the 360 turn, he stands still for long enough for the light to be seen clearly moving from left to right, matching the ISS pass.

As he is facing towards the southern direction, then the light moves in his field of view either ESE to SE (as the ISS does in the simulation above), or SE to SSE, or SSE to S.

This is what it looks like in the footage:



And this is what it looks like when he stands still for long enough:




NNW - The ISS is behind his position (he is not recording yet):


The ISS Crosses the sky:


He recorded the light for 02:24 minutes, which could have started about here:

And stopped about here:


Thus for the footage 8 Aug 2023 19:03, the ISS pass is a close match for his sighting and the text in the newspaper stating 19:30 is most likely a typo.

"(...) in Kader's August 8 video, filmed at dusk (7:30PM local time) (...)"

Content from External Source

As a small side note, the sky chart you've shown is for Madurai, a bit too far North:





For the 6 Aug transit, the sky chart shows only a small pass between 20:35 and 20:36, too short for the 3:30 minutes of footage. Thus, it is essential to confirm the date and time of the footage, in order to verify the likelihood that the ISS was the light source for the 6 Aug footage.