@weef (weef) posted a new topic, subject "My UFO story". It read:

   My parents live very near one of the open pit copper mines south of Tucson, AZ and early one morning while it was still dark they were awoken by a sonic boom. They don't hear sonic booms on a regular basis at all but they do have an air force base in Tucson so they assumed the boom came from a plane from that base.
    
    Later that day the neighbors were all talking about the boom. One neighbor who lives closer to the mine had a private conversation with my dad and said he didn't want to tell anyone what he had seen but he told my dad.
    
    This guy typically goes out in his backyard at all various hours to have a smoke. That morning he was sitting in his backyard and the sky was perfectly clear (stars everywhere around there) when he saw some objects/lights hovering quietly over the mine. Hovering, not flying around. He had never seen this before but at first he too thought this was from the air force base. After seeing how the objects were just hovering above the mine, he knew the objects were not normal aircraft.
    
    Suddenly, and without making a sound, the hovering objects flew away with a burst of speed and created the sonic boom.
    
    What is the explanation for this? I'm assuming the guy's story was true because an easy explanation is the guy is lying and it was a normal air craft that caused the boom. According to my dad this guy has never told tall tales or lied about anything before. I also assume he was smoking just cigarettes.
    
    I bring this up because I stumbled across this recent article about a UFO over a Chilean copper mine:
    
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-kean/government-agency-in-chil_b_5558713.html

@Stranger_On_A_Train (Stranger On A Train) replied

    So what you are saying is that the aliens don't want our women; they want our copper?
    
    Stranger

To which @GusNSpot (GusNSpot) replied

    Stranger_On_A_Train:
    
    > So what you are saying is that the aliens don't want our women; they want our copper?
    > 
    > Stranger
    
    Aren't they supposed to be smarter than us just because they can get here?
    
    I bet they know something…

To which @lieu (lieu) replied

    Earth Copper is Easy

So @Amateur_Barbarian (Amateur Barbarian) replied

    Nearly all such UFO tales turn out to be utterly sincere witnesses who misinterpreted or misremembered what they saw.
    
    There are many cases where witnesses described shapes, windows, glowing undersides, zigzag motion, motionless followed by rapid motion, etc. only to have it conclusively proven they were looking at an ordinary meteor, helicopter, plane or rocket launch with none of those characteristics.
    
    People impose order on randomness, and remember things better than they first learned them. Combine that with, say, an unusually bright instance of Venus or Jupiter and a sonic boom from some smartass jet jockey, and voila - UFO.

To which @carnivorousplant (carnivorousplant) replied

    In Arizona, I would suggest a USAF plane.

After which, @Twoflower (Twoflower) added

    An ordinary aircraft flying directly toward you would appear to hover. Military aircraft flying toward you in formation would present a group of hovering objects. When they make an ordinary turn, they will appear to “suddenly fly away.”
    
    Of course they maneuvered “without a sound.” Since they're traveling at supersonic speed, you're not going to hear any sound from them until the sonic boom arrives. The timing of the arrival of the boom, relative to seeing the turn, is entirely coincidental.

@Knowed_Out (Knowed Out) replied

    Maybe the aliens are part of a copper theft ring.

After which, @Furious_Marmot (Furious_Marmot) added

    weef:
    
    > …I'm assuming the guy's story was true because an easy explanation is the guy is lying…
    
    That's a strange reason to assume a story is true.

Then @Hampshire (Hampshire) said

    Twoflower:
    
    > An ordinary aircraft flying directly toward you would appear to hover. Military aircraft flying toward you in formation would present a group of hovering objects. When they make an ordinary turn, they will appear to “suddenly fly away.”
    > 
    > Of course they maneuvered “without a sound.” Since they're traveling at supersonic speed, you're not going to hear any sound from them until the sonic boom arrives. The timing of the arrival of the boom, relative to seeing the turn, is entirely coincidental.
    
    Seems to make sense. Supersonic aircraft flying at you at a distance then banks and makes a fast 90 degree turn. You wouldn't get hit with any sound till it had already turned.

After which, @weef (weef) added

    Furious_Marmot:
    
    > That's a strange reason to assume a story is true.
    
    Yes, that was written awkwardly.
    
    _I'm assuming the guy's story was true because according to my dad this guy has never told tall tales or lied about anything before but the easy explanation is the guy is lying and it was a normal air craft that caused the boom._
    
    I'd also add another easy explanation - he may have just misinterpreted what he saw.

@Amateur_Barbarian (Amateur Barbarian) replied

    Twoflower:
    
    > Of course they maneuvered “without a sound.” Since they're traveling at supersonic speed, you're not going to hear any sound from them until the sonic boom arrives. The timing of the arrival of the boom, relative to seeing the turn, is entirely coincidental.
    
    Which is why, as Calvin pointed out, life is more fun with sound effects.

@weef (weef) replied

    Twoflower:
    
    > An ordinary aircraft flying directly toward you would appear to hover. Military aircraft flying toward you in formation would present a group of hovering objects. When they make an ordinary turn, they will appear to “suddenly fly away.”
    > 
    > Of course they maneuvered “without a sound.” Since they're traveling at supersonic speed, you're not going to hear any sound from them until the sonic boom arrives. The timing of the arrival of the boom, relative to seeing the turn, is entirely coincidental.
    
    Yes this seems the most plausible but they're right up against the side of the copper mine wall (more like a small mountain, I'm thinking 100' tall or more) and can't see the horizon on the other side. So sitting on their side you can't see incoming aircraft from the other side until they're right over the mine. I do like your explanation.

@Bozuit (Bozuit) replied

    **weef** , if I were you I would stay up for a few nights and see what I see. Not that I would expect to see real alien spaceships (as cool as it would be), but you might get an interesting aerial display, and if you're lucky you'll even come up with the real explanation and feel really smart.

So @Omar_Little (Omar Little) replied

    I met a guy once that was convinced that aliens regularly visited earth, but normally visited in the late summer of each year.
    
    His evidence, you could see their space ships late at night in the sky away from the cities usually during the month of August.

@dropzone (dropzone) replied

    And travelling from the constellation Perseus?

Then @DingoelGringo (DingoelGringo) said

    There are alien /UFO forums out there. Just look for them.

So @simster (simster) replied

    So - ‘your' UFO story is really a second hand account of something told to you by someone else.
    
    that means it must be true!

@Mangetout (Mangetout) replied

    Swamp gas from a weather balloon got trapped in a thermal pocket and refracted the light from Venus.
    
    Some people heard a boom that could have been anything.  
    Some guy apparently says he saw some lights in the sky that moved, and could have been anything.  
    Same guy also heard a boom which may or may not have been the same boom, but also may or may not have even been related to the lights.

So @GuanoLad (GuanoLad) replied

    simster:
    
    > So - ‘your' UFO story is really a second hand account of something told to you by someone else.
    
    That's the part that gets me. It's hard enough to hear a first hand account and really picture what it is they're describing, but adding extra degrees of separation makes it impossible to extract any reliable facts.
    
    However, there's a military air base nearby. Therefore it was military aircraft. The end.

( there was a missing post )


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