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More tales from my surveillance camera

See the bright spot? At first I thought it was a flashlight. It twinkled a bit and bobbled up and down slightly, but it really isn’t in a place a person with a flashlight could be, unless it was someone rising out of the irrigation ditch. Then it began to drift and move oddly and I thought it must be a ghost, naturally.

It is, in fact, a very tiny spider rappelling down a strand of web right in front of the lens, out of focus and in full light. I am desperately disappointed in all the interesting things I haven’t seen on my surveillance camera.

Oh, and the Irish Aviation Authority is investigating a UFO spotted by several commercial flights last night. If you open this guy’s tweet and click his link, you can hear the pilots chatter about it.

The relevant bit is between 17:54 and about 20:00. Nothing terribly interesting, except the pilot who gives a nervous laugh and says, “I’m glad I’m not the only one who saw that.”

Surely I can find an Irish Aviation Authority joke in here somewhere.

Comments


Comment from Ric Fan
Time: November 13, 2018, 7:50 pm

Whiskey Painter’s Palette — ever hear of them? Me, neither. But they seem to be all the rage. So, I want one. All it is, is a small metal palette.

There’s also the http://www.whiskeypaintersofamerica.org/

“A genuine Whiskey Painting consists of painting a miniature piece of art no larger than 4 X 5″ with watercolor by dipping your brush in some form of alcoholic spirits,…. then possibly sipping the alcohol, thereby enhancing the painting experience.”

Sounds right up Stoaty’s alley. 🙂


Comment from DurnedYankee
Time: November 13, 2018, 8:22 pm

I heard they planned to travel to the sun, and were going to land at night to avoid the high temperature problems.

Already explained to be meteors you know, reflecting weather balloon swamp gas off of Venus no doubt.


Comment from ExpressoBold
Time: November 13, 2018, 10:52 pm

How did you discern that the eerie artifact was really a tiny spider? visual inspection of the premises?


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: November 14, 2018, 1:11 pm

Aurora? Is that you? How far were they from Machrihanish?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 14, 2018, 1:45 pm

Expresso: I watched until I managed to make out a couple of articulated legs.

Spiders and spider webs are a common thing I pick up on the cameras, and very weird they can look sometimes. Depending on how close they are to the camera, etc. Slugs and snails are common, too — they’re just a cloudy occlusion.

The weirdest thing is just moisture. The IR greatly exaggerates the appearance of water droplets in the air. Sometimes it looks like a raging blizzard, and you go outside and it’s really nothing but fog. Sometimes swirling water droplets make weird patterns, like a flock of starlings.

I can certainly see how people mistake things they see on IR cameras. Animal eyes and points of light reflection are very bright and can easily be mistaken for each other. I watched something the other day that I thought was a small animal moving in a very bizarre way near the ground. On examination, it was a plastic flower pot rocking in the wind — light reflections on the side looked just like animal eyes.


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: November 14, 2018, 2:27 pm

“Jameson’s Irish Whiskey: The official spirit of the Irish Aviation Authority.”


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: November 14, 2018, 3:02 pm

Whiskey Painters you say. Hmph. There’s a fifth of Everclear in the pantry, going on eight years. A long story—and no, I’m not going to drink it. But I’d definitely consider mixing it with water colors on paper while I sip some Jack.


Comment from Steve Skubinna
Time: November 14, 2018, 5:03 pm

Venus was at its peak brilliance last night. You probably thought you saw something up in the sky other than Venus, but I assure you, it was Venus.


Comment from ExpressoBold
Time: November 14, 2018, 7:06 pm

The only Aviation Authority humor I can remember is:
“Ho Lee Fuk!”
“Sum Ting Wong…”
“Wi Tu Lo!”


Comment from platypuss
Time: November 16, 2018, 1:55 pm

There is no cannibalism in the Irish Aviation Authority…

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