[extropy-chat] UFO on satellite photo.

[Keith Henson]

At 07:22 AM 07/08/05 -0700, you wrote:
>The Avantguardian wrote:
>>http://maps.google.com/maps?q=33409&ll=26.748651,-80.074550&spn=0.005622,0.007875&t=k&hl=en
>>So what is this? If it's a hoax then how?
>
>I hate to say this, it being so terribly cliched and all, but have you 
>considered that it might be a weather balloon?

Whatever it is, it is subtending about 200 feet on the ground.  Weather 
balloons are typically 2 feet, so if it is a weather balloon, it is 100 
times as close to the camera as the ground.  These maps are from both 
aircraft and satellites.  If this was from an aircraft and it was at 10,000 
feet, the balloon would be 100 feet away from the camera.  Would the object 
be that out of focus under those conditions?

The other possibility for the focus problem would be if the photo was taken 
by one of those strip cameras that moves the film backwards in synch with 
the aircraft's forward motion and exposes through a slit (nowadays a CCD 
one dimension sensor.)

Or some joker could have just photoshopped it in.  Good job if so because 
the sun angle looks right.

Keith Henson