UPDATE (7/17/2010): Below is my post about the China UFO that’s been in the news. The video in the post is now known to *not* be of the July 7 China UFO. The story got conflated in some news sources and picked up by bloggers (me included). Thanks to readers for the correction! Here some links provided by one reader:
Heres the Peoples Daily July 6 report on the missile.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/7054799.html
This is the Daily Mail article that I suspect started the conflation of the two reports.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1293395/UFO-China-closes-Xiaoshan-Airport-spotted-flying-city.html
Kento Mori has an explanation of some of the images and correctly identifies the source of the missile video.
http://forgetomori.com/2010/ufos/ufo-over-hangzhou-china-a-long-expos/
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This UFO in China has been big news since it was sighted on July7, when it forced Xiaoshan Airport in Hangzhou, China, to cease operations. The still photos at the above news report make this appear more spectacular than the video. Why? The stills simply show something that isn’t a conventional plane beaming a light to the ground. But the video (below) clearly shows that the craft is *burning* something to be propelled. Last time I checked, internal combustion engines were not sufficient for deep space travel. I doubt very much if this is therefore anything alien. More likely some sort of military or experimental craft.
Dr. Heiser,
You have perfect timing. I’m finishing up a post for my website and this is one of the topics I was posting about. I’ll definitely add a link to your blog so people can check out the video. This is the first time I’ve seen anything other than pics. I think we are definitely getting closer to something big, when an event like this happens and everyone around the world knows. Thanks for posting.
Cool special effects.
Which show is this? 🙂
I shared this on Facebook where I commented that I always wondered why UFO’s run ‘running lights’. I supposed they don’t want a repeat of the Roswell crash. Seriously though, I wonder if this could be a test of one of those craft where the fuel burns on the skin of the craft. Anyone heard of the estimated speed?
I haven’t heard anything about speed.
Apparently that video is actually of the Soyuz rocket blasting off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the international space station earlier this month, it’s misidentified as the Xiaoshan rocket (and actually looks very different from the photo in the news article).
http://www.ufo-blogger.com/2010/07/china-airport-ufo-footage.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snrEVgf7BQA
thanks!
re: “burning”
Nice to see someone use critical thinking about this event. Thank you, doctor.
I’d like to make a further point:
The video of the craft burning through the air is not from the airport incident, it is from a sighting June 30 that was reported by the People’s Daily on July 6, the day before the UFO at Xiaoshan (see picture and article “‘UFO’ in skies over Urumqi suspected to be American guided missile”). In the article, the Xinjiang Astronomy Society claimed it was an American missile.
I’m not sure how the two separate incidents got conflated into one. The Chinese sources I’ve seen (I’m limited to the English ones) do not make this mistake. One of the British dailies (the Mail, I think), had an unsigned staff report with pictures from both sightings, claiming they were both sighted at the airport. The blogs seem to have picked up the mistake from them and — copy and past but don’t verify times 100 blogs — the streaking missile from June 30 is magically turned into the July 7 UFO.
great update – thanks for the correction!
Here’s the People’s Daily July 6 report on the missile.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/7054799.html
This is the Daily Mail article that I suspect started the conflation of the two reports.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1293395/UFO-China-closes-Xiaoshan-Airport-spotted-flying-city.html
Kento Mori has an explanation of some of the images and correctly identifies the source of the missile video.
http://forgetomori.com/2010/ufos/ufo-over-hangzhou-china-a-long-expos/