It was definitely most like the lower left one.
reminded me instantly of a dragon fly, and moved like one as well.
Honestly, have these people never heard of video? How about high powered rifles? Even better proof if you can shoot it down, considering you can walk right under it.
[QUOTE=NurseCarmen]
Honestly, have these people never heard of video?
[/QUOTE]
Too hard to fake.
[QUOTE=garygnu]
In fact, I’ve seen three different versions of the thing.
[/QUOTE]
from which I think (playing along for a moment that this is a real device) we can conclude that the various horizontal protruberances have nothing much to do with flight - since it seems to do just fine with any configuration or assortment of them.
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
I don’t think anyone would conclude that either.
[/QUOTE]
Except **Brewha ** in post #15. I guess I should have been more specific or linked, sorry.
[QUOTE=NurseCarmen]
Honestly, have these people never heard of video? How about high powered rifles? Even better proof if you can shoot it down, considering you can walk right under it.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, right. And then they assume we’re hostile, and get out their 21st century death rays, and that’s it for mankind 
I saw it too. It crossed the highway, hovered for about 30 seconds, then landed, and Elvis got out.
[QUOTE=DustyButt]
It’s a pretty good fake, I guess!
Here’s a higher resolution view
[/QUOTE]
Am I the only person that sees the Phillips screws holding the thing together? Look at the high resolution picture and zoom in on the three dome shaped things on the bottom in a triangular pattern and then there’s one more to the right where that arm extends out.
Phillips screws? If anything, those dome things look like they have two off-center holes in them, not anything cross-shaped. And even the high resolution pics don’t show enough detail to see anything in the domes. The dome things might be some sort of fastener, but Phillips they’re not.
I’ll say that’s neither alien nor military. In both cases, were it either one of those, and the developers didn’t want us to see it, we wouldn’t. They’d either fly it at night or in locations where people wouldn’t be able to see it. If they did want us to see it, then we would have some kind of press release/public announcement. So those choices are out.
That leaves some sort of hoax/prank via model or photoshop or, it is a private corporation testing out some kind of gizmo, and they’re not particularly concerned if it get’s seen, but they’re not planning on going public with it yet. The hoax part, I’m not qualified to say, but the gizmo is one I won’t rule out. Several major corporations (like Cox Communications) have been talking about using floating platforms for things like cellular and wifi access. It is possible that this could be a prototype platform such a thing.
[QUOTE=MacGyverInSeattle]
It was definitely most like the lower left one.
reminded me instantly of a dragon fly, and moved like one as well.
[/QUOTE]
This a whoosh, right? Comparing it’s flight to a mythical creature’s?
[QUOTE=Don’t fight the hypothetical]
This a whoosh, right? Comparing it’s flight to a mythical creature’s?
[/QUOTE]
I believe it’s a typo.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Yes, if it’s a real object, and it flies, I think it’s quite unlikely to be capable of the claimed behaviour, but (assuming for a moment that it isn’t just a photoshop job), it could still be the case that ‘Chad’ has built some kind of flying model, snapped a few photos of it ambling about and made outlandish claims about its manoeuvrability, in the hope that other reports will roll in from third parties - all they need to say is “yeah, I saw that thing too”, and it would immediately lend weight to his claims, including those regarding the flight patterns (which of course the third parties would not have seen if they never actually happened).
However, there don’t seem to be any third party reports, so all we have is this ‘Chad’ fellow submitting two sets of pictures from two distinct locations, but trying to pass them off as two independent reports from different people, which, at the end of it all, I think does point to it being a photoshop job.
[/QUOTE]
Hmmm…we’re going in circles. I say that if Chad went to the trouble of building a functional model that intricate, he would have taken the additional step, without much trouble at all, of capturing it on video. Yeah, if it was some crappy slapped-together hobby kit like this, I would concede that it might be some doofus just fooling around who snapped a couple pictures of his toy and didn’t bother filming it because he was lazy. But this thing has no visible rotors or propellers anywhere. It has an empty hole in the middle - if there’s some sort of ducted fan concealed in the ring, how is it connected to the craft? In order for a fan to spin, it needs to be anchored in the center, with some sort of motor driving it. If these are unretouched snapshots of a toy, it is a fantastically complex toy. Or if you’re saying he took some sort of toy that does have a propeller, and photoshopped out the propellor, isn’t the simpler explanation that he just photoshopped the whole thing?
EDIT: I guess this is sort of a moot argument since we agree on the conclusion. So on second thought, never mind.
[QUOTE=MacGyverInSeattle]
It flies with the long tail in back like a dragon fly and looked about 20-25 feet long.
I was very interested and watched it intently, it was gray and drizzly or I would have stopped and taken pictures as I had a very good camera with me.
:smack:
It did indeed stop in mid air and hover several times then take off again which was what really got my attention as it didn’t look like a helicopter.
It had no problems getting up to 70MPH in a few seconds then stopping again but it didn’t tilt like a helicopter, the body remained fairly horizontal and that also seemed just aeronautically wrong.
:dubious: :eek:
MacGyver
[/QUOTE]
A few things make it seem doubtful that it was the same contraption.
First of all, the top wires are clearly intended to be electrical discharge wires of some kind – the plausible explanation being that they ionize air to provide propulsion. Would this still work in rainy weather?
At 70 mph, the discharge wires would be unlikely to be able to hold their shape – looking at the pictures, there doesn’t appear to be anything supporting the top end of the wires. Unless they were unnaturally stiff or were protected by a wind screen of some kind, the brush area would lose its shape (which is apparently key in making a device of this sort fly). Plus, at 70 mph, wind moving through wires like that would sing like a m**f. You’d hear this thing from quite a distance.
Further, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of vector control – what would propel the thing in any direction except vertically? The long arm looks vaguely articulated and maybe you could bleed some of the vertical thrust through it, but the volume of air it could carry makes it unlikely that it could provide any significant thrust. So barring some electromagical interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field, I don’t see what pushes this thing around. Anyone know how strong a magnet you’d need to produce appreciable thrust in our magnetic field? Things of this nature are supposed to have superconducters in them, so MRI levels of magnetism are not out of the question.
I wish this thing were real because it would be super cool, but I still think it’s computer imagery.
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
In order for a fan to spin, it needs to be anchored in the center, with some sort of motor driving it.
[/QUOTE]
Not to add anything substantial to the conversation, but I figured I note that this isn’t true.
Finagle: AFAIK, RL propulsion via corona discharge is super-weak, and is nowhere near able to carry the heavy electrical transformers and power source it would be required to. So while someone clearly wants you to think that’s how it flies, it really wouldn’t.
I think it’s just possible to build something like this that’s flyable; some strange custom variety of ring-shaped fan for thrust, with varying torque on it for rotation. You could lean it certain ways by, I dunno… moving a weight down the long arm somehow. I don’t see the return in it though, especially when there are plenty of cheaper, more effective ways to build a “floating platform” type thing.
[QUOTE=Nanoda]
Finagle: AFAIK, RL propulsion via corona discharge is super-weak, and is nowhere near able to carry the heavy electrical transformers and power source it would be required to. So while someone clearly wants you to think that’s how it flies, it really wouldn’t.
.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, I don’t for a moment think it’s real. But, in the game of “what is this thing supposed to be modeling?”, I believe that the central torus is supposed to contain a superconducting magnet that accelerates the ions downwards and provides additional thrust. Further, you can store a bunch of power in a superconductor.
But yes…there are many questions as to what advantage such a high tech, complicated device would offer over, say, a ducted fan flyer.
I’ll say again (at least, I think it’s again): Eyewitness reports on how this thing moves are unreliable. Estimates of how fast a thing is moving depend on how far away it is, and estimates of how far away something is are impossible to the human eye unless it’s very close (say, less than 50 feet), or its size is already known (which it isn’t, in this case). If someone got a Doppler radar return on one of these things at 70 mph, I’d believe that (along with the interesting piece of information that it’s opaque to radar). But an eyewitness saying that it moves at 70 mph, I’m going to ask how the witness can know. Likewise any claims for extraordinary maneuverability, only even more so, since there are also psychological distortions there.
[QUOTE=Nanoda]
Not to add anything substantial to the conversation, but I figured I note that this isn’t true.
[/quote]
Yes, well I can say with complete confidence that “Chad” did not build such a device, drive to Tahoe, and take still photographs of it flying.
[QUOTE=Finagle]
But yes…there are many questions as to what advantage such a high tech, complicated device would offer over, say, a ducted fan flyer.
[/QUOTE]
It would be relatively silent, whereas a ducted fan makes a hell of a racket.
I just wanted to chime in and say it’s a decent, but not flawless CGI/Photoshop job. I do this sort of thing for a living (not hoaxes, but vfx, compositing, retouching, etc…), and it’s a decent 3D model, probably built in an of-the-shelf app like Maya, Lightwave, 3DS Max, or Cinema 4D. Then textured, lit and rendered with an HDRI image to match as closely as possible the images he wanted to composite them into using photoshop.
Not bad. But not entirely perfect.
[QUOTE=cmyk]
I just wanted to chime in and say it’s a decent, but not flawless CGI/Photoshop job. I do this sort of thing for a living (not hoaxes, but vfx, compositing, retouching, etc…), and it’s a decent 3D model, probably built in an of-the-shelf app like Maya, Lightwave, 3DS Max, or Cinema 4D. Then textured, lit and rendered with an HDRI image to match as closely as possible the images he wanted to composite them into using photoshop.
Not bad. But not entirely perfect.
[/QUOTE]
So what specific things make it imperfect? I would be interested to hear your opinion.