Comments on: Hangzhou Light Show

By: Jim O

Jim O — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:41:52 +0000

Chinese ‘official report’ released today, dismisses famous ‘light smear’ photo as aircraft unconnected with sighting, doesn’t mention other images of small lights leaving contrails, admits cluelessness about cause of original pilot report of light over airport, and displays unrelenting garble and confusion.

In other words, no progress.

But meanwhile, the absence of evidence for a DF-31 test launch diminishes in my view the likelihood of that suggestion. Without more specific eyewitness descriptions — appearance, motion, azimuth, etc.. — there are too many potential prosaic explanations to select from.

Investigation: UFO seen in Xiaoshan airport is aircraft
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/7080675.html
14:58, July 26, 2010

Hangzhou’s UFO was definitely not aliens, experts say
Elaine Chow in News on July 26, 2010 10:00 AM
http://shanghaiist.com/2010/07/26/hangzhous_ufo_was_definitely_not_al.php

By: Benoit Racine

Benoit Racine — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:10:55 +0000

Thank you for that link. From what I can make out, it is about the June 30, 2010 sighting of a rocket in Urumqi (Xinjiang region), China (a week before the Hangzhou incident). The author seems to be saying (correct me if I’m wrong) that it couldn’t have been an American missile fired in the Pacific (or over the Pacific, it’s not clear) and that it most certainly had to be a rocket fired from the Kazakhstan launch site, 1,255 miles away from Urumqi. The official Chinese press release about that incident does show a photo of what is “clearly” the Kazakhstan rocket – when compared to other available videos of that event (see: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/7054799.html ).

No mention, of course, of the possibility of a Chinese DF-21 rocket fired from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, just 631 miles away from Urumqi…

This report also totally ignores the Hangzhou incident.

By: Jim Oberg

Jim Oberg — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:16:21 +0000

I just found this highly valuable website on Chinese (Xinjiang) ‘UFOs’ and Russian rockets. The English is awkward but the author’s knowledge of the subject is very, very helpful to this discussion:

Xinjiang UFO phenomenon and the Russian space launch activities — July 13, 2010

http://www.comhaha.com/blog/502544-xinjiang-ufo-phenomenon-and-the-russian-space-launch-activities/

By: Jim Oberg

Jim Oberg — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:03:48 +0000

Benoit, of course twilight lasts longer in Canada in summer, since the Sun is passing just below the northern horizon. Satellites can be visible all night long. It’s one of the blessings of your geography. But don’t generalize the solar illumination conditions too far southwards.

By: Benoit Racine

Benoit Racine — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:12:34 +0000

I meant latitude, of course. I should have checked. Toronto: 43 degrees North. Hangzhu: 30 degrees North.

By: Benoit Racine

Benoit Racine — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:08:13 +0000

I live in Toronto and the sky stays lit until almost 10 PM on a July night. I didn’t check the longitude of Hangzhu versus Toronto but a lit sky at 8 PM doesn’t seem so strange to my Canadian eyes.

By: Benoit Racine

Benoit Racine — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:42:41 +0000

I posted the following video on YouTube in order to bring a little sanity to that quagmire of falsehoods and fakes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzk6hmq9ovo

By: Jim Oberg

Jim Oberg — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:35:11 +0000

The problem with connecting the top photo with the airport event is the solar illumination condition. Local sunset was about 7:02 PM local time. An hour later, the sky is dark and rockets or satellites may remain sunlit, but not aircraft or their contrails. One has to ask, how would a naive observer in the city be prompted to take a photo BEFORE the UFO was reported, and even recognize that such a photo was relevant once they had heard of the report, later? If any of those images really IS from the day of the event, they were probably random tourist photos later examined for anything unusual in the sky.

While a missile ID is a reasonable going-in conjecture (one of many), there remains no other reports of such an event on that date and time, and the observation conditions across vast stretches of China were ideal for eyewitness detection.

We still don’t have raw eyewitness accounts of the airport event. Whether there was one light or many, what azimuth/elevation it was seen at, or whether it was moving across the sky or not, or steady or twinkling — nothing is reliably known.

By: Benoit Racine

Benoit Racine — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:32:20 +0000

You wrote: “Most comments touching upon this must have been disapproved, but still it’s been already pointed out that the analysis WAS done on an UNRELATED image.”

Pointed out by whom? Where? How? When?

By: WhySkyIsBlue » OMG! UFO! Or Maybe Not…..

WhySkyIsBlue » OMG! UFO! Or Maybe Not….. — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:35:16 +0000

[...] examine the images of the flying object that he felt were not created with Photoshop.” Then, on a blog, Forden wrote: “It seems to me that a DF-21 [missile] launch somewhere near Jiuquan and aimed [...]