One of the most important tasks in any UFO investigation is to check that whatever has been reported as a UFO isn’t just a misidentification of something more mundane. In the case of UFO sightings at night, you need to be able to eliminate things such as planets, bright stars, meteors and satellites as being the source of the ‘UFO’. Therefore, it is vital for any serious UFO investigator to be familiar with the night sky and everything that can be seen in it.
Traditionally, the best way of doing this was to go out and observe the night sky for yourself, armed with a good star atlas and a torch fitted with a red filter or, for the more fiscally challenged, a red sweet wrapper wrapped around the head of the torch, held in place with an elastic band. Much detective work was necessary to successfully match the star maps with what you could see in the sky, as you gradually got to grips with the shapes of the constellations and the locations of the brightest stars etc. All in all, this was hard, but rewarding work for those who persevered night after night, often undertaken in freezing temperatures.
However, the traditional methods are fast becoming obsolete thanks to the development of highly portable Astronomy software (Called Applications, or Apps for short) which have been developed for the latest generation of smart phones.
The principle behind most of these apps is brilliantly simple – just point the phone in the direction of anything you see in the sky, and the phone displays a map of the heavens in that particular direction, giving you the names of the stars, planets, constellations, nebulas etc you are looking at, along with information on which direction you are facing and how high up (in degrees) any given object is. In no time at all, it will teach you in a more dynamic and, more importantly, fun way all about the night sky and what you can expect to see in it.
In recent months there has been a veritable flood of different Astronomy Apps made available for smart phones…… but which ones, if any, are the most useful for the budding UFO Investigator? In an attempt to answer that question I decided to download a few of them onto my smart phone to give them a quick field test.
Before I dive in and start talking technical, there are a few things that need to be considered. Currently, there are three main types of smart phone out there, the Apple iPhone, Windows phones and Android platforms. Within the latter two, there are quite a few different makes and models of phone, with variable processing power and capability. As well as the Platform and the make and model of your phone, the performance of any App that requires web access will obviously vary dependent upon the speed of the phone’s network and amount of coverage it has. Because of the differences in phone platform, model, network speed etc, the field testing I conducted concentrated more on the various App features, not speed of performance. For the purposes of my tests, I used a San Francisco 2.1 Android phone on the Orange network.
The Apps
As previously stated, there are dozens of Astronomy Apps currently available for smart phones. I decided to try out three of the more popular ones: Google Sky Map, Space Junk and Iridium Flares.
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Google Sky Map – Google Inc
Cost: Free
This is a truly amazing App. Within seconds of launching, the App displays an accurate map of the sky in the direction you point your phone. The display is clear to read, and you have the ability to switch the labels on or off for Star names, constellations, nebulas, planets etc depending upon what you wish to view. It has a search facility that allows you to type in the name of a particular night sky object you are looking for, and the on screen display guides you to its current location.
Although the App is fairly accurate in determining your location and direction via the phones 3G connection, switching on the phones Global Positioning System (GPS) facility makes the phone astonishingly accurate.
There are two very useful features in this App for budding UFO investigators. The first is the ability to switch the display to ‘Night Mode’, which changes all objects on screen to a dull red, preserving your night vision. This allows you to observe the sky with fewer breaks needed to acclimatise your eyes to the dark, which would occur if having to look at a brightly lit display screen. This is a feature which is currently lacking on the viewfinders of digital cameras or night vision camcorders, which destroy your night vision in microseconds (Manufacturers please note!).
The second invaluable feature is the ‘Time Travel’ mode, which gives you the ability to view the night sky at any given date and time, both past and future. This is a fantastic feature to have, especially when conducting field investigations, where the ability to ‘crank’ the stars and planets back to their positions at the time of the sighting, whilst at the actual location, allows you to accurately check what was visible from that location at the time of the sighting (especially useful in built up areas). If the witness has misidentified a planet or bright star, then this makes for a powerful demonstration to prove that what they have seen is something ordinary. Thank you, Google!
Space Junk – Cass Everitt
Cost: Free
Like Google Sky Map, Space Junk is mostly a ‘point and show’ Astronomy App. However, in addition to showing you the positions of stars and planets, this App also shows you the positions of satellites, larger space junk (spent booster rockets etc), the Hubble Space telescope and the International Space Station (ISS). These can be superimposed onto the sky map by tapping an on-screen icon, and all satellite movements are shown in real time, along with their projected orbital paths. For people conducting UFO skywatches, this is an invaluable feature, as satellites are often reported as UFOs by people who are not very familiar with the night sky.
When conducting sky watches, investigators are not only looking out for anomalous lights or objects, they are also familiarising themselves with what can be seen in the night sky, be it approaching aircraft which can appear to hover motionless in the sky for several minutes; bright stars and planets which can, on occasion, appear distorted through heat haze or low lying banks of mist/smog; to artificial satellites which appear as steady points of light that whiz across the sky in minutes, only to ‘mysteriously’ blink out of existence the instant they pass into the Earth’s shadow. By becoming familiar with the behaviour in the sky of known objects, chances are that you will be able to successfully determine what a witness has seen purely from their sighting account. This App allows you to add the experience of seeing satellites, the ISS and defunct booster rockets to your growing list of observed objects.
Space Junk also has a ‘Night Mode’, allowing you to preserve your night vision, and also a horizon/direction mode, allowing you to see which direction you are pointing the phone in. Of particular use to people on skywatches, is the Earth map facility which, on default mode, shows satellite paths over the whole of the UK, along with a handy ‘field of view’ indicator which allows you to orient yourself in the correct direction to see satellites as they pass. The advantage of this over the ‘point and show’ mode is that you have more advanced warning of approaching satellites than the small window of visibility available when using ‘point and show’.
Space Junk gets its satellite tracking data from NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) who, incidentally, also track Father Christmas’s journey around the globe every Christmas Eve. So I wouldn’t be too surprised if he popped up on this app if you happen to be using it over the festive season. All in all, it is a neat Astronomy App which, although not as good as Google Sky Maps on star/planet info, allows you to spot and identify satellites (and Santa) which may be misconstrued by others as UFOs.
Iridium Flares – Heliodor
Cost: free
There is a fleet of around 80 or so telecommunication satellites currently in low orbit around the Earth which are often reported as UFOs. Known as Iridium, each satellite possesses three huge door sized antennas which are highly reflective. Occasionally, they reflect sunlight down to Earth, which, on the ground, is seen as a bright flare in the sky which lasts for several seconds, leaving inexperienced skywatchers perplexed as to what they have witnessed. Iridium flares are almost as bright as the full Moon and can even be seen in broad daylight, if you know where to look, of course!
The Iridium Flares App is a very easy to use tool for helping you to be in the right place at the right time for observing Iridium flares. When loaded, the App automatically gives you a list of all passing Iridium flares for your current location for the next 5 days, showing Date, Time, Brightness (in magnitudes, -12 being as bright as the Full Moon), Elevation, Direction and Iridium Satellite number. By tapping on any item in the list, the app displays a ground map (which you can zoom into) which shows your current location and the path the satellite will take complete with its ground track (where you will be able see the flare at its brightest). It also allows you to set an alarm to remind you when the satellite is 5 minutes away. All in all, it is a handy little app which is invaluable in helping you to observe Iridium flares for yourself, giving you vital experience when trying to determine possible explanations for UFO sightings.
There are many more apps out there (and the list is growing all the time) that are very useful for all manner of Paranormal Investigations, which I will attempt to try out and write about in the coming months. In the meantime, why not try out the above three for yourself and get better acquainted with the night sky.
Good hunting.
