debunking Denver's UFO

A KDVR-TV cameraman records some peculiar video footage of an airborne object above Denver, CO.

What's the most likely explanation?

I say it is a gnat or some other bug.

I vote for flying insect. Just the fact that it appears at a certain time of day is a clue, because insect activity is frequently temperature-dependent. Additionally, there is no way to discern the size of the object relative to anything else, or how far it is from the camera lens. As for the "afterburner" comment, that could simply be the sun reflecting off the bug's wing.

My biggest problem with all these UFO believers is this: they claim that ancient aliens came to Earth thousands of years ago to show people on every continent how to make pyramids and plot the stars and build elaborate structures in remote places and do all sorts of other things. Then they claim that these same aliens are still coming here, but all they're doing now is flying around and going away again.

Why aren't these visitors from these advanced civilizations teaching us anything any more? Why aren't they telling us how to cure diseases or showing us how to generate electricty without using up natural resources or how to build vehicles that don't rely on fossil fuels? Why aren't we still building pyramids? Heck, why don't they at least tell us how they built the first ones?

If a thousand years to them is like 10 minutes, to us why wouldn't they be doing for us what they did for the Egyptians or the Mayans?

Quote: Wizard

I say it is a gnat or some other bug.

An insect on fire? At the 1:06 mark in the video, the voiceover says “You can see a little burst of fire right there, kind of a thruster.”

I don't even pay attention to UFO sightings anymore. But Arthur C. Clarke's advice is worth following: even if you could read the license plate saying "Alpha Centauri," if it doesn't stop then forget about it.

Quote: reno

An insect on fire? At the 1:06 mark in the video, the voiceover says “You can see a little burst of fire right there, kind of a thruster.”

Just a camera glitch. Those cheap cameras don't capture small quickly moving objects exactly right.

My alternative theory is a good prangster with a "spud gun" (something I want to build BTW) shooting balls of alluminum foil.

Quote: Wizard

I say it is a gnat or some other bug.

Three points:

1) Yes, the consensus is that it is indeed an insect.

2) To settle the mystery decisively, the TV station should have sent out 2 cameras to triangulate the object. By triangulating, they could have determined if the object was 1 foot away from the lens or 1 mile away from the camera lens. A bug visible a mile away isn't an insect, it's a Volkswagon.

3) Some of the video was shot by an anonymous Denver resident, and some was shot by KDVR videographer Noah Skinner. Scroll down to the 2nd video on this page to see Skinner's video with no narration. The object in Skinner's video does NOT look like an insect to me. Probably a bird. (Maybe a meteor, though unlikely.)

5 or 6 years ago Discovery Channel ran (once that I saw) a show about Micro-UFO's. I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes... lint, hair and bugs all classified as UFO's way over the top.

Separately... imagine the zoom setting on the camera... this shrinks the field of view. Example:

A plane flies 10000 feet over the desert and drops a flashing ball 3 feet in diameter. A camera located 1/2 mile away captures the fall from plane to ground. A second camera located right next to the former zooms in to capture a small portion of the fall for verite. Looking through the second camera, the flashing ball is moving very fast "THROUGH THE FIELD OF VISION", whereas the first camera illustrates a slower fall taking many seconds to reach ground.

This is the Observer's Fallacy... both cameras recorded the fall at the exact same speed.

Quote: reno

2) To settle the mystery decisively, the TV station should have sent out 2 cameras to triangulate the object. By triangulating, they could have determined if the object was 1 foot away from the lens or 1 mile away from the camera lens.

It might be easier to just get a 10'x25' sheet of white plastic from Home Depot and hoist it about 30' in front of the camera. If the "UFOs" travel in front of the white plastic, it means bugs.

I'm thinking of starting my own hoax. I will go out into the desert with a spud gun and shoot shiny objects into the air. I could use a confederate to make the movies and put them on YouTube. Who wants to join me?