The Huffington Post Lee Speigel First Posted: 10/24/12 EDT Updated: 10/25/12 EDT
Several eyewitnesses in different areas of eastern Kentucky reported seeing a strange, cylindrical UFO hover for two hours in clear skies last week, but an amateur astronomer's striking video and images of the object are now coming to light.
Astronomer Allen Epling was at home on Oct. 16, when one of his visitors said there was a strange airplane in the sky, reports the Appalachian News-Express.
"It was just a very bright daylight star that was getting brighter, then getting dimmer, then getting brighter again," Epling said.
According to CBS affiliate WYMT-TV, Epling, pictured at right, said the object "looked like two fluorescent bulbs, side by side, parallel, shining very brightly. It would get so bright they would seem to merge, and you could see it very clearly with the naked eye. Then it would dim down almost invisible."
Watch part of the original UFO video taken by astronomer Allen Epling
On Epling's YouTube posting of his UFO video he wrote: "I want to emphasize that the object is NOT moving. The picture is unsteady because I had to hold the camera in hand while trying to video it through the eyepiece of the telescope."
He added that his sighting "was with clear, cloudless skies, no aircraft in sight, altitude unknown but definitely above airliner cruising altitude."
Here are some close-up images of the Kentucky UFO taken by Allen Epling
Kentucky State Police told the Appalachian News-Express that there were five calls about the object in Pikeville, which was also seen from other Kentucky towns.
The United States Department of Defense and Kentucky Air National Guard told the News-Express they weren't aware of any unidentified objects over Kentucky during the time of the sightings. And a local Pikeville-Pike County Regional Airport spokesman said he didn't know of anything unusual in the sky.
Epling speculates that the object might have been some kind of balloon, but "if it's a balloon, how could it maintain its structure at that altitude? It wasn't anything I recognized. Definitely not an airplane, and I've never seen a helicopter that looked like that."
Check out this news report on the Kentucky UFO
I found it, its a balloon drone.
or its this type of weather balloon
http://www.uapreporting.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/weatherballoon2.jpg
Let me make a wild assumption and claim I could probably find one for sale on the internet
We'll know in a couple of centuries...
"Captain, There be whales here!!!"
1. As already mentioned, why would an astromomer just turn off the camera after a few minuntes of the most important thing he has ever seen?
2. The video is "unsteady" because he was holding the camera up to the telescope. Most astronomers with equipment as sophisticated as that telescope have special mounts that accept a camera.
3. Why not some video that zooms in, so we can see more detail? A telescope like that would certainly be able to magnify the image more than this video shows.
4. How is he able to tell if the object is above "airliner cruising altitude" if the size is not known?
5. Why no pics or vids from other people who saw the object?
Probably a refraction of clouds, contrails from over the horizon; often happens with clear, cold atmosphere.
...just saying
2. Not all telescopes come with a camera mount and not all cameras could be attached with a given mount. The camera he chose to use was a consumer-grade lightweight point-and-shoot type which was obvious if you bothered to pay attention to any of the other news reports of this sighting by this individual.
3. Astronomy telescopes do not 'zoom'. They are fixed focal length--variable only by replacing the eyepiece lens with a larger or smaller valued one.
4. A number of possibilities here, including the chance that such an aircraft may have passed by that location previously, giving him a point of reference to work from.
5. Hand held cameras--especially video camcorders--may have the zoom factor to move in more closely on an object, but only at the loss of image stability and resolution.
That said, I do agree that this was a combination of reflection and refraction probably of some metallic or glassy object on the ground since the largest image is quite detailed. As you say, events like this do happen with certain weather and atmospheric conditions.