Medical helicopters have flown over my home before. One made a coming and going flight over head that very day, but they make a lot of noise and have flashing lights. They are heard long before they are seen. Planes have flashing lights too. The problem with my UFO observation is distance and size. I really don't know how far away it was and that relates to size. Hard to judge those things at night without a frame of reference. The "low altitude" is also difficult to judge. My home is on a lower bench so looking directly west from the back door, the view is already higher than the valley floor. Thinking back, I wasn't looking "up,", but almost "straight ahead." Based on that, a guess of an altiude between 500 and 1000 feet is reasonable. 45 seconds seemed like a long time to observe, but it speeds by when you are thinking - Hmmm firework, no not, wonder what it is, it could be, no it's not that, what's it shape? Hmm definitely a straight line, hmm grey/silver tips, could be..., no can't see a canopy, hmmm. now its gone. Wonder what kind of witness I would make in a court of law :) The quadcopter theory has me on board, but with two questions. (1) Why did I see the tips of the blade and not the whole blade and (2) why the two red lights? Well maybe three questions, would anyone really fly a quadcopter at 11:00 at night? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Hards" <chuck.hards@gmail.com> To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 7:28:04 AM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] UFO Low altitude by itself does not discount crewed aircraft. Medical helicopters (air ambulances) fly at extremely low altitudes in the valley, sometimes skimming the treetops. Fire patrol aircraft also fly under the pattern close to those holidays that employ fireworks. On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 11:46 PM, CenturyLink Customer <jcarman6@q.com> wrote:
Altitude was low, so as to not be a plane, nor a helicopter. There were no flashing lights.
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