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In Case of Jerusalem Video, UFO Could Mean “Unidentified Flashlight Objects”

by Mark Thompson on February 8, 2011

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UFO’s are tricky little blighters. Those three letters have caused so much controversy over the years and I find myself, yet again, discussing one of the most misrepresented acronyms in the entire Universe. UFO stands for ‘Unidentified Flying Object’ and, if you have never seen a helicopter before, then its a UFO, its unidentified and flying! Forgive me then when I saw the news on January 28, 2011 of yet another UFO sighting and cries of alien visitors as if it were obvious. Well stop right there…..

I’ve been an astronomer for about 20 years and I look at the sky and objects in it, quite a lot. Strange then that I have never seen anything that has made me think yep, the little green men are here. Amongst my astronomer chums, I don’t know anybody that has seen anything that raises even so much as an eyebrow. Astronomers and perhaps meteorologists are perhaps the only bunch of people who have real experience studying things in the sky but, leaving that aside lets talk about the recent sighting in Jerusalem.

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The strange light at the centre of the controversy appeared over the ‘Dome of the Rock’ , a shrine in Jerusalem. It hovered there for a short while before seemingly giving off a flash of light and then shooting off, into the night. What gives the whole thing more credibility though is that a number of different people seem to have captured the strange event from different places around the city. Usually, UFO sightings are recorded on just one, dodgy video but to have it recorded many times, surely means its genuine.

Apparently not, according to UFO skeptic Larry Robinson who told Universe Today “One item seems to indicate a hoax. The guy yells ‘Whoa’ before the object jumps into the sky, not after.” He goes on to explain that the whole thing could easily have been knocked up using a flashlight and a window “This could be something like a flashlight reflected from a pane of glass. Tilting the pane of glass moves the UFO.” It seems then that the footage may not be quite so genuine after all.

The whole thing about alien visitors is a little far fetched for me I’m afraid to say. Human’s have only been capable of space travel of ANY form for the last 50 or so years now given that the Universe is about 14 billions years old, it really is the tiniest fraction of time in the scale of the Universe. Consider too that the Universe is totally and utterly colossal and then ask yourself what are the chances that another civilisation have really nailed space travel so well and exist in the same part of the Universe as us! I think those chances are pretty slim, not zero, but pretty slim. I certainly won’t be staying up tonight just in case ET decides to pop by and say hi.

Larry’s UFO website: You’ve Been Hoodwinked

Mark Thompson is a writer and the astronomy presenter on the BBC One Show. See his website, The People’s Astronomer, and you can follow him on Twitter, @PeoplesAstro

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Tagged as: Jerusalem UFO, UFO

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  • Rein

    I am no expert but my guess was and still is the vid is a fake, lots of lighting issues in my humble opinion… However we must keep an open mind… many of today’s accepted concepts, ideas, facts etc were ridiculed or called far-fetched and crazy at some point in human history.

  • Rafael17222

    I have an issue with the statement that “Chances are pretty slim” of intelligent life being out there in this Universe. To put into perspective the size of this Universe Just look at our solar system as a “grain of sand” in a beach that is 10 miles long. To sit there and say that intelligent life only exist on our little grain of sand is completely absurd.

  • Celso

    I agree Rafael, but the universe is not just a “small beatch”(I know you now that), we can´t imagine how great it is, it is unimaginable, our “fuses” would burn, just by imagine it. :-)
    Would it be “10 miles” long, there just had to be something after the end, Space, Universe… There is no “same part of the universe”, does anyone know on wich part we are? Does anyone know any part? Can we consider it a part?? Will we ever know a part? We know nothing, we are just an insignificant planet in THE Universe that is not big not small, it is all. Life is everywhere, There just have to be conditions on other planets to habbit life, even different life, it all depends on lots of coincidences, we are certainly not from earth, we are from the Universe, Earth conditions allowed develop of humans, and also to be as we are, were and will be, and the other species that live with us to be as they are, and other extinct were, dinossaurs had other coditions, but there are more out there, so many, so different and also common, we share the same origin.
    The vid is probably fake…
    MR. Larry Robinson “The guy yells ‘Whoa’ before the object jumps into the sky”, well I think he yells “Whoa” because of the Flash before the object jumps up.
    Greetings

  • Celso

    On the right camera you can see the flash coming from the left of the image and then it goes to the city, second 0:54

  • lylemckeany

    In the words of @shitmydadsays: “No. Aliens exist. I just don’t think they came millions of light years just to see Earth. Be like driving 1,000 miles to go to an Arby’s”

  • Greg

    Just another bit of logical reasoning that I like to throw into these conversations:

    Let’s suppose that an alien civilization has visited Earth and is scouting us for some higher purpose only they can be aware of. Perhaps even they have contacted our governments and made some kind of deal to help them cover their tracks. So what does mean for everyone else? The answer quite simply is nothing at all. Any alien civilization that may exist can and should remain irrelevant to us until which time they decide to make themselves known to humanity. So if you ask me whether I care or get caught up in all of the alien conspiracy nonsense, the answer is no. Until they care to contact us, or directly effect my life, I simply don’t give a hoot. Nor should I.

  • crd2

    *High fives Chrissyo and Olaf.

    I am blown away at the conspiracy theorists comment’s (chrissyo having spared me the task of replying to them directly). They never cease to amaze…and entertain me.

    They ignore the fact that no one in the city reported seeing a giant well lit ball hovering a few hundred feet in the air? Not to mention the 2 brilliant flashes of light which appeared very bright even from miles away. I could only imagine how bright those flashes would be if you were nearby. But then I’m sure they’ve have a totally *reasonable* and *logical* explanation for the lack of eye-witness accounts.

    How these people survive in today’s world lacking the ability to utilize basic logic and reason, I’ll never know. Even though its been revealed that this was a promotional stunt for a movie, some will still cling to the notion of truth claiming the youtube clips are real.

  • flogger11

    Believe what you want but I am telling you, other worldly UFO’s are real my friends.
    It was the mid 80′s, I was driving my Monte Carlo with three friends in central Wisconsin. We were driving along a river when I happened to look up out the drivers window and saw we were being followed by a saucer shaped UFO. It was apprx 400-500 yards away and without a doubt was not of this earth. My friends and I freaked out and I gunned the Monte to get the hell away from it, well guess what, the UFO matched our speed for apprx 3 minute until moving off in the distance. It was visible a mile or so away for at least five more minutes before shooting up in the sky and disappearing.
    The craft was not of this world, without a doubt. It was silent and looked IDENTICAL to many pictures that I have seen on the net. Once again, believe what you want, UFO’s and probably aliens are real. We have been visited.

  • Olaf

    I have been re-watching the clips.

    Right sight is nearly the same location just zoomed in a bit.
    Interesting is that the both object starts to drop nearly the same moment, the left a bit earlier. But interestingly the right clip lags behind. This is a zoomed in scene, the object should be lower at the same time as the left object if this was a real objects.

    Something I am missing here, something very obvious. Where is the sonic boom? When it departs!

    Also something odd. Look at the lights. Overlap them, look at the blue light below and compare the left image with the right image and tell me how it is possible the on the right side there are lights at different positions than the left side? And why are there missing lights on the left side? These video clips are taken on 2 different times.

    The right clip seems to be taken from a monitor screen.

    The strange thing is that none of the people that filmed it zoom in on the object.

    The object takes about 6 seconds to drop. Clearly no free fall.

    I think it is interesting to analyse this clip. When I find time. I want to overlap the 2 images taken with screen dumps. See if the lights do match, timing of object, angle of filmed scene. Seems like digitally added and most probably the shake was added afterwards. I could fake it with the stuff I have right here.

  • jw

    It never ceases to amaze me how arrogant humans are, especially the ones we consider the intelligent ones. It is the height of human arrogance and ego that we think we are “all that” and because we can’t travel between stars, then it must be impossible for any other civilization. But it goes even further, as not only do they not think aliens can do it because we can’t but they don’t even believe there are any…or at least not withing a billion light years.

    Why? Because of this idea that we are so special there is no possible way there could be anything more intelligent. That is quite a level of arrogance, especially considering we know so little in the grand scheme of things.

    We often look back at people of the past and laugh at their ignorance but the same closed minded and unintelligent thinking that caused these people to be ignorant is still strongly present today. That is proven every single time an astronomer or some other scientist proclaims it’s all impossible because we can’t do it or we can’t understand it. Well you know what, people said the same thing not that long ago about so many things today we think are common knowledge. What makes you think you are any different?

    Humans are an arrogant, egotistical, and closed minded species. There is no question about that and it’s sad and frustrating that our supposedly brightest minds are some of the worst.

    • Olaf

      @JW, I have absolutely no doubt that there is alien life out there but this video is another video that cries fake big time.

      Where is the sonic boom when the object accelerates clearly faster than the speed of sound?

      Why does the flash at 0:55 light the camera but not the bystanders or the surrounding as it were digitally added?

      Why are there missing light in the front near the blue light like it was taped on 2 different times? Yes I used Photoshop to lay both images on top of each other and check the position if the lights.

  • reym

    @ jw

    You are right there. Humans are indeed an arrogant, egotistical, and closed minded species but that’s the limit our design :) . We were built this way so we can’t easily notice the truth – I’d rather say we have been designed to be handicapped in a way.

    As an example, lets imagine a human would be born both blind and deaf, what remains is the sense of touch – well except breathing of course. This handicapped human will adjust accordingly to what he/she has at their disposal of course and at some point of their life, lets say in their mid 30′s, modern medicine found a solution to their disabilties – the sense of hearing and seeing would probably make this human crazy :) – it’s overwhelming enough not knowing since birth what hearing and seeing can offer – to be able to understand (if capable of understanding) many truths that surrounds us….

    This is where we humans are at. We have been designed to be handicapped. We thought we have it all but no, there’s more. We just don’t know it yet or maybe never will. Who knows what other sensory parts humans can have which will enable us to understand the truth better.

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