# What large blue object did I see from an airplane? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 30, 2006, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832 "2006-08-30T21:01:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/21 "2006-08-31T21:52:01Z")
[QUOTE=mnemosyne] I don’t really want to start a new thread for this, but since we are looking at Google Earth images, can anyone tell me what this is? [http://www.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=johnson+way+oakville+ontario&ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=43.465068,-79.790783&spn=0.007507,0.027122&t=k&om=1](http://www.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=johnson+way+oakville+ontario&ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=43.465068,-79.790783&spn=0.007507,0.027122&t=k&om=1) [/QUOTE] Wastewater treatment plant. The shiny circles are actually geodesic domes that help trap sunlight to promote breaking down the sewer water into manageable sludge. (I have no idea why each dome appears to have light “dripping” from it, but chjalk it up to some quirk of the photo development process.) (Oakville appears to be ashamed of it. From the Town web site, there is a GIS mapping service and one can (with a bit of zooming out, panning, and zooming in) find the structures displayed on the map, but they are not given a name and I found no address associated with the Town on Johnson Way.) ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/22 "2006-08-31T22:03:04Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] [UAL 163 on July 12, 2006](http://flightaware.com/live/flight_track_bigmap.rvt?ident=UAL163;airports=KBOS+KLAX;key=deb5574861488fa50d9f15d21fb7aec402116896;keytime=1157060680;height=340;width=400;departuretime=1152701700;arrivaltime=1152723180) Awesome site, **BusDriver**! [/QUOTE] That definitely puts the plane in the right location for it to have been the potash trailing ponds. ---
**Author:** ![BusDriver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@BusDriver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BusDriver)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/23 "2006-08-31T22:19:39Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] Well, Flight 193 out of Philly probably has no relevance to his Flight 163 out of Boston, although, if you want to re-plot his actual flight, we might get confirmation of what he actually saw. [/QUOTE] Ha! See, if that had happened in the actual airplane, the computer would have been kind enough to alert me of my error. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/24 "2006-08-31T22:20:00Z")
**mnemosyne** , this is the beginning page from the [Oakville GIS tab](http://maps.oakville.ca/eo5prod/go?initializeclient=true) defaulting to the town hall, location. There are a number of map types one may select (including aerial photo), but they all stubbornly refuse to identify the structures. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/25 "2006-08-31T22:20:34Z")
[QUOTE=BusDriver] Ha! See, if that had happened in the actual airplane, the computer would have been kind enough to alert me of my error. [/QUOTE] Neat software. ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/26 "2006-08-31T22:27:02Z")
A really big swimming pool. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/27 "2006-08-31T22:31:08Z")
[QUOTE=mnemosyne] [http://www.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=johnson+way+oakville+ontario&ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=43.465068,-79.790783&spn=0.007507,0.027122&t=k&om=1](http://www.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=johnson+way+oakville+ontario&ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=43.465068,-79.790783&spn=0.007507,0.027122&t=k&om=1) [/QUOTE] Orange juice, or lemonade, or pomegranate juice, or whatever turns you on… ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/28 "2006-08-31T23:09:08Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] OOH! Even better, here’s the [track log](http://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL163/history/20060712/1055Z/KBOS/KLAX/tracklog) for the flight! [/QUOTE] I guess we should assume that the rest of the log is correct, but did you notice that at 6:58, the plane apparently jumped up to about 36, 000 feet and then bounced back down to around 7,000 feet. (I don’t have the log in front of me for specifics, but it was clearly inaccurately logging that info.) I don’t know if that’s a typo - probably so - probably the plane was just climbing through 6,000 ft - but, still, it makes you realize that even these logs could be inaccurate. I have no doubt that the overall direction and path is correct, however, and that was the question. Funny little glitch though. And, of course, if it were true, the folks on that flight would have something to talk about, as would the engineers who designed the plane! ---
**Author:** ![cantara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6f9a4e/32.png) [@cantara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cantara)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/29 "2006-09-01T12:29:27Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] Wastewater treatment plant. The shiny circles are actually geodesic domes that help trap sunlight to promote breaking down the sewer water into manageable sludge. (I have no idea why each dome appears to have light “dripping” from it, but chjalk it up to some quirk of the photo development process.) (Oakville appears to be ashamed of it. From the Town web site, there is a GIS mapping service and one can (with a bit of zooming out, panning, and zooming in) find the structures displayed on the map, but they are not given a name and I found no address associated with the Town on Johnson Way.) [/QUOTE] It is a private waste management facility. If you drive by it on Bronte, there is a nondescript sign indicating the company…Philips Environmental maybe, I don’t recall offhand. You can’t see the facility from Bronte Road, and I’m too cheap to take the 407. ---
**Author:** ![mittu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@mittu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mittu)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/30 "2006-09-01T14:48:14Z")
[QUOTE=CC] I guess we should assume that the rest of the log is correct, but did you notice that at 6:58, the plane apparently jumped up to about 36, 000 feet and then bounced back down to around 7,000 feet. (I don’t have the log in front of me for specifics, but it was clearly inaccurately logging that info.) I don’t know if that’s a typo - probably so - probably the plane was just climbing through 6,000 ft - but, still, it makes you realize that even these logs could be inaccurate. I have no doubt that the overall direction and path is correct, however, and that was the question. Funny little glitch though. And, of course, if it were true, the folks on that flight would have something to talk about, as would the engineers who designed the plane! [/QUOTE] I don’t know what the maximum ascent/descent is of the plane in question but this part caught my eye: > [@](#): > > 12:38PM 18100 descending > 12:39PM 38000 climbing > 12:39PM 17300 descending ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/31 "2006-09-01T16:01:29Z")
Bumpy flight. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/32 "2006-09-01T17:03:26Z")
[QUOTE=CC] Bumpy flight. [/QUOTE] No, that is beyond bumpy and entering into involuntary bowel evacuation territory. ---
**Author:** ![BusDriver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@BusDriver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BusDriver)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/33 "2006-09-01T21:20:56Z")
[QUOTE=CC] I guess we should assume that the rest of the log is correct, but did you notice that at 6:58, the plane apparently jumped up to about 36, 000 feet and then bounced back down to around 7,000 feet. [/QUOTE] The altitude isn’t very reliable, but the track log should be. I’ve compared the track logs from my own flights on my handheld GPS to the ones recorded by Flightaware and they are very close. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2006, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/34 "2006-09-03T00:03:14Z")
Long stretch of 38000 on that log…never a 38050, or 37950, or even 38001? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2006, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/35 "2006-09-03T14:34:28Z")
Ikea? :d ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2006, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832/36 "2006-09-04T19:33:36Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] **mnemosyne** , this is the beginning page from the [Oakville GIS tab](http://maps.oakville.ca/eo5prod/go?initializeclient=true) defaulting to the town hall, location. There are a number of map types one may select (including aerial photo), but they all stubbornly refuse to identify the structures. [/QUOTE] Thanks for finding that out for me! It always caught my eye on the 407 but I didn’t know how to go about figuring out what it was, and I guess my googling wasn’t very efficient! Sorry for the delay in thanking you - I was away for the weekend. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-large-blue-object-did-i-see-from-an-airplane/370832.md?page=1)