Did You See Anything Strange in the sky during the 2017 Westmoreland County (PA) Air Show?

From Researcher: Stan Gordon

Screen capture from video used with permission of the witness

The fantastic 2017 Westmoreland County (PA) Air Show took place on June 24-25^th at the Arnold Palmer Airport located in Latrobe. A few days later, I was contacted and shown a short video taken on Sunday afternoon during the airshow when the Blue Angels were doing their amazing demonstration. The witness had gone to the area to see the performance of the F-18 Hornets and was positioned near Whitney, just a short distance from the airport.

The witness video taped the F-18 demonstration and later went home to review what he had recorded. He recalled that four of the Blue Angels had flown over his head and he followed them until they went out of sight. He then focused on a single F-18 moving in the opposite direction. As he watched the video,

Something odd appeared that he did not see when he was recording the event. A short segment of the video footage shows a dark object in the vicinity of the single aircraft.

The device used to take the video was a trac phone with low resolution. The video and photo still captures from it were examined by researcher Jim Brown who has had a lot of experience working with photo analysis of other alleged UFO and Paranormal photos and videos.  http://www.jimsdestinations.com/

As determined in Jim’s report, the most likely explanation is that the object is some type of balloon. It is my understanding however that the airspace around the airport was restricted during the time that the airshow was active, and no aircraft or other devices should have been in the vicinity.

I would be interested to know if anyone else attending the airshow observed, photographed, or video taped anything unusual in the area that weekend. I can be contacted at 724-838-7768 or via email at: paufo@comcast.net.

Photo enhancements of object from Jim Brown analysis. Used with permission of witness and Jim Brown

The following is Jim Brown’s Report:

Analysis of Video of Unknown Airshow Object

The video was received as an MP4. It shows a plane passing in front of a

cloud. Near the plane is an unknown object that appears to fade into the

cloud as the plane passes. The object does not change position relative to

the cloud while the image follows the plane across the cloud.  Resolution

is low; no definitive detail can be observed in the original video clip.

A camera anomaly (dead pixels, etc.) can be ruled out since the object

follows the cloud as the camera is shifted.  This also applies to lens

flare as the object remains stationary with respect to the background even

as the camera pans across the cloud.

In an attempt to resolve detail I first applied an enlargement to three

screen (frame) captures.  This was done using the Weimer method to

minimize pixelization.  The detail appears to shift slightly, the first

image shows a darker area at the bottom of the object while later images

lose this effect becoming more uniform in nature.  Since resolution is low

this effect may be due to relative position of the object as it hits each

frame.  MP4 Compression of the image may account for the effect adjacent

pixels have on the image.

The triangular effect seen in the first screen capture is a result of the

low resolution.  This is common when pixels are triggered by surrounding

ones.  One can also see this effect when viewing the video and noting how

the object appears to change shape from frame to frame as it approaches

those adjacent pixels.

I also did a multi-frame overlay using a pixel weight scan in an attempt

to compensate for the low resolution issue.  The numeric value of each

pixel in the field containing the object was overlaid and averaged.  Nine

frames were used in this operation.  The result indicated a pattern that

would apply to a spherical shape, although no detail was resolved.  The

lower center of the sphere appears darker than the upper portion by 30%.

This would match what would expected based on an object in that position

illuminated by overhead sunlight. Coloration was neutral; the object appears to

be very dark or black based on pixel weighted values.

Conclusions based solely on the visual appearances in the video are

speculative at best.  The pattern matches what would be expected if the

object was a small balloon, although due to the airshow in progress

airspace was restricted.  Whether this is a possibility would need to be

verified by air traffic control at the show.

Jim Brown

Independent Research Associate

http://www.jimsdestinations.com/

Mysterious Smoke Ring over Greensburg, PA? (June 28, 2017)

Smoke Ring over Greensburg, PA
2017 copyright-Stan Gordon

 In past years residents of the state have reported on strange smoke rings that have been spotted at times. There are generally explanations for many of these cases. There is also an explanation for the large ring of smoke seen over Greensburg, PA on the evening of June 28, 2017. About 7:45 PM, a small aircraft was circling over the area, and emitted a black smoke trail that created the smoke ring. It was odd looking but there was an easy explanation.