UFO flyby over Brazilian protests

[Joe]

The previous links don't work. I found this video, not sure if it the same quoted above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6hDQB_WG8w

It's the same one. Just an FYI, let's leave open the possibility that this has been 'videoshopped'

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

Drones can stop in midair, and travel that fast?
I am really asking because Im not familiar with this technology.

I'm not aware of any drones that can move like that. That video of the UFO shows the main characteristics of other alleged UFOs.

Assuming it is a quadcopter, it should be able to stop in midair. The manufacturer site of the Phantom DJI actually states its "Hovering Accuracy (GPS Mode): Vertical: ± 0.8m Horizontal: ± 2.5m". This probably means that you can set a GPS location and it will stay in that fixed position with the mentioned accuracy.

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

I don't think that drone footage from a cloudless sky with reflective snow cover beneath and still recognizable as a quadcopter, comes nowhere near the circular halo light filmed in Brazilian cloud covered dusk.

Hmm. You're right. It cannot be due to reflection alone, considering that the sky seems to be pretty dark at the time the video was shot.

Here is a video of a Phantom DJI at night to compare.
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbfPkxz30_4

Not sure it clears it all up.

This video does a better job of explaining the drone's strange "glow".

The Phantom DJI has a limited control distance, it seems to fly higher up in the protest video ?
I can't really estimate the distance though.

The 2.4 G ISM frequency makes the effective control distance up to 300 meters (can be impacted by the specific flight environment)

Product page :

_http://www.dji-innovations.com/feature/phantom-features/

That would make the official control distance upto around 1000ft max. In one of the reviews for this quadcopter listed on Amazon's website (here : http://www.amazon.com/DJI-Phantom-Aerial-Drone-Quadcopter/product-reviews/B00AGOSQI8), there's the following

ADDENDUM: Quick note, but I was dead wrong about the maximum altitude the Phantom can achieve. On my second flight, it just kept climbing as it disappeared into the clouds. I lost visual, and was sure I'd never see my Phantom again. I didn't notice the the throttle stick does not revert to center when you let it go. It stays where you leave it, and for me, that was full throttle. From calculations based from DJI's web site that it climbs 6m/second, which means it attained an altitude how somewhere between 5000 and 7000 feet. I didn't realize until I got the video back. This is *not* good, though, since untiI I saw the video, I didn't realize I was in controlled airspace. Do *not* do this. Keep you Phantom in visual range at all time, or risk getting arrested, or even worse, causing a flight accident. You should not fly it at over 400-500 feet.

Now I know this guy has not used an altimeter and is making this claim based on his calculations, but assuming the lowest clouds to be at a height of <6500 ft (the clouds in the video look like Cumlus/Stratus/Stratocumulus, http://nenes.eas.gatech.edu/Cloud/Clouds.pdf), the drone may be able to make it up to the low-level clouds.

Even then, the video is of pretty low quality and I am not really sure if the quadcopter actually does fly into the clouds. It just seems to be moving away at an increased altitude but at that distance, and due to the video's low quality, it may give the impression that it's flying up into the clouds.

I think you are right about the drone being able to enter the clouds.

Regarding the 2.4 GHz, I think it can communicate a lot further than 300m. I had a number of model sailplane gliders and now they are flown using 2.4GHz systems and they keep being flown in and out of clouds, probably much higher than the clouds seen in the video.

The supposed UFO seem to me to be at least partially engulfed by the clouds at around 0:44~0:46 if you see it frame by frame (_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6hDQB_WG8w). So I was trying to figure out the cloud altitude with some accuracy.

I was able to obtain from _http://bancodedados.cptec.inpe.br the Synop and Metar meteorological data for June 20, 2013, São Paulo. There are three Synop and two Metar stations that are closest to Paulista Av, where the video apparently was shot. These stations reported the following information for 18:00 on that day :

Air temperature (ºC): 22.7; 22.0; 20.7
Air relative humidity (%): 61; 69; 72
Dew point temperature (ºC): 14.9; 16.1; 15.5
Cloud base of lowest cloud (meters above ground): 2250; 450; 800

Since the cloud base of lowest cloud seen was very different between the three Synop stations, I thought that maybe the 450m and 800m measures indicate low cumulus clouds and the 2250m measurement could indicate a moment where there were no low cumulus directly above the station and it was measuring a higher level of clouds. The average of the three would be 1166m.

Given the difference I calculated the cloud base based on an approximation for cumulus clouds that I found online ((air temp - dew point temp ) x 120). This would result in 936m, 708m and 624m. The average would be 756m.

So, it seems that the cloud base was indeed low that day (I think anything below 2000m considered is low), maybe between ~750m and ~1200m but probably not exceeding 2250m, which was actually measured. This would be very close to or even lower than your estimate of 6500ft (1980m).

Nevertheless, the strong light seen in the video is very weird and strong. Also, maybe we should be able to see some faint "cone" of light if the idea of the LED is to illuminate what is being filmed? Or maybe there is and the resolution doesn't allow us to see it. Or maybe it was just videoshoped, as suggested by Perceval.

 

[sacriface]

Nevertheless, the strong light seen in the video is very weird and strong. Also, maybe we should be able to see some faint "cone" of light if the idea of the LED is to illuminate what is being filmed? Or maybe there is and the resolution doesn't allow us to see it. Or maybe it was just videoshoped, as suggested by Perceval.

Two things about this video could suggest it's a fake,IMHO.

1: the strong light, which really is strong given that the object is at cloud attitude, however low the clouds would be.
2: There were thousands of protesters, I find it quite odd that there is only ONE video of it everyone keeps posting.Just one person saw and filmed it being so bright??
Although it would be pretty hard to 'mount' it in such a shaky image.

Three things could also suggest it was a drone;

1.No erratic maneuvers whatsoever, the way it moves can fully be ascribed to a drone, I think.
2.Only one video because only one person thought it might be a UFO and not a drone.
3.Light UFO's if close enough so as to see their apparent 'size' and not a teeny dot on the screen, tend to twinkle, change shapes etc. this is one static like a torch.

So, the only point that it could possibly be a UFO is the strength of the light, but that isn't impossible to do, either.
If someone wanted to make people think it's a UFO, mounting a heap of LEDs to a drone isn't a bad idea.

The 'flare' around the light could well be a greasy lens on the phone camera.

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

Two things about this video could suggest it's a fake,IMHO.

1: the strong light, which really is strong given that the object is at cloud attitude, however low the clouds would be.
2: There were thousands of protesters, I find it quite odd that there is only ONE video of it everyone keeps posting.Just one person saw and filmed it being so bright??
Although it would be pretty hard to 'mount' it in such a shaky image.

Number 2 is a good point ametist. Besides the only one video with thousands of protesters (a whole bunch of which were probably carrying cellphones with cameras), there is no other report of a similar sighting at protests at other locations that were also filmed by Folha de São Paulo presumably with the same drone, as can be seen on the second video on this page: _http://www.openminds.tv/protesters-film-ufo-while-drone-films-protesters-video-1057/.

 

[sacriface]

And there is one more thing.
At 1:00 the drone could be entering the clouds, OR, this could just be the tilt resulting from a sharp U-turn that makes the lights point away from the viewpoint of the camera. Or both.

Along with what you have found, Courageous Inmate, I'd be decidedly lenient to the drone explanation.

 

[Iron]

The second objection may need further consideration. When I was young I and a friend saw a UFO while walking in a busy street. We kept pointing at the sky so people could see it too and people either look and saw nothing, or ignored us. It was a rather strange experience.

 

[sacriface]

The second objection may need further consideration. When I was young I and a friend saw a UFO while walking in a busy street. We kept pointing at the sky so people could see it too and people either look and saw nothing, or ignored us. It was a rather strange experience.

This could be due to children's ability to sometimes see what adults can't, due to 'already' installed programming to refute such things.
In this case I'd say they were likely adults since this was an anti-government protest..

 

[Nienna]

The second objection may need further consideration. When I was young I and a friend saw a UFO while walking in a busy street. We kept pointing at the sky so people could see it too and people either look and saw nothing, or ignored us. It was a rather strange experience.

This could be due to children's ability to sometimes see what adults can't, due to 'already' installed programming to refute such things.
In this case I'd say they were likely adults since this was an anti-government protest..

John Keel has pointed out in his books that there are certain people (adults) that can see phenomena and others who can't. Just because these weren't children doesn't mean that some of them could see a ufo and others couldn't.

And I'm not saying this was a ufo. The first thing I thought when watching the video was "drone". But that's probably because of reading articles on them, looking at different varieties and thinking to myself, "Hmmm, this could certainly make people think they are looking at an ufo."

I'm also not debunking ufos at all, as I have seen a few myself.

fwiw

 

[sacriface]

John Keel has pointed out in his books that there are certain people (adults) that can see phenomena and others who can't. Just because these weren't children doesn't mean that some of them could see a ufo and others couldn't.

And I'm not saying this was a ufo. The first thing I thought when watching the video was "drone". But that's probably because of reading articles on them, looking at different varieties and thinking to myself, "Hmmm, this could certainly make people think they are looking at an ufo."

I'm also not debunking ufos at all, as I have seen a few myself.

fwiw

Yes, that's fair enough, I didn't intend to portray these things in black&white terms.

Whether it was a drone or a UFO, at the end of the day, IMO, it depends on what the people make of it.

It can be dismissed as the former, or it could raise some awareness of the latter, no matter what it was.

Confirmed or debunked, no one here on the forum is trying super hard to believe in things of questionable authenticity anyway