A mystery person who spies on theme parks from the sky | Hacker News Reader

A mystery person who spies on theme parks from the sky

boingboing.net

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Woah, surprised seeing bio on the front page of HN. I'm a massive theme park fan (which you can probably see from my comment history here) and I follow Orlando theme parks particularly closely. Bio is a huge asset to the community and their tweets are super widely spread on all of the forums that I visit.

Like the article says, we don't know much about them except that they likely do use one of those tourist helicop-tours that are all over Orlando. I personally don't think they're employed by the parks or anything, I think they're just a super fan like I am that has carved out their own niche in the fandom. I know that if I lived in Orlando, I'd likely do something similar.

In case anyone is interested, Bio has been covering the construction of the first ground up new theme park in Orlando in 20+ years: Epic Universe. It's been so much fun watching the park turn from an empty field to where it is now [1] and we know as much as we do thanks to Bio and others like them

[1] https://twitter.com/bioreconstruct/status/166406870175727206...

I didn’t realize that theme park fandom was a thing. I suppose it may be hard to articulate, but I’m curious if you can share what you find fascinating about them?

Like you said, it's difficult to articulate but let me try. Growing up in FL, my family would go a lot of parks even though I was deathly afraid of roller coasters and most rides to be honest (wish I could go back in time and tell myself that I'd regret not riding all these classic now removed Universal and Disney rides). In my early teen years that fear turned to obsession and I was devouring all the information about parks as I could get, especially fansites and Travel Channel specials since it was at the very early days of social media. I eventually got over the fear and the obsession has waxed and waned over the years but I still love the parks as much as ever.

For a while my fandom was driven by roller coasters and especially the forces and feelings you get on them (the acceleration of a launched coaster and airtime in particular) but as I've matured a little, I think I find the escapism of the themed entertainment more and more appealing. The world is a complex and sometimes awful place. But in these parks I can forget all that, I can relax and watch other people's happiness or take part in epic stories on rides. It's hard to describe but they just feel like home. I was at Universal in FL a couple of weeks ago and I think I rode like 5 rides all weekend even though I had skip the line passes? I just enjoy being there and taking in the themeing and atmosphere.

Thanks, that's fascinating, and so different from my own experience. I'm driven by some similar forces towards nature and mountains and hadn't considered this perspective.

> wish I could go back in time and tell myself that I'd regret not riding all these classic now removed Universal and Disney rides

I'm with you there. I remember skipping riding Horizons on my last day in favour of Body Wars and Spaceship Earth. Little did I know a short 6 months later it would close for good.

I absolutely love Epcot but it does make me a bit sad that I didn't get to ride what many consider to be the best ride Disney have ever built.

Do you also like the themed hotel interiors in Vegas like Venetian, Paris, etc?

I do! And themed dining like Rainforest Cafes and the like. My previous job was famous for their elaborately themed offices (I worked in the Alice in Wonderland building). Wasn't a fan of the job, loved the office themeing.

Was that Epic systems? I worked there ages ago and had the same sentiment about their campus - very cool looking but terrible culture.

Yep, you got it! I concur with that.

You might've liked the now-closed themed Hotel Valdivia in Santiago:

https://www.google.com/search?q=valdivia+hotel+santiago&sour...

My now-wife and I stayed there almost 20 years ago, in the disco room: spa and waterfall, shower in an orange glass hexagon, a toilet room surrounded by mirrors. It was quite the experience.

On theme parks, I wonder if there's ever been research into serious fans of them, and if they have formative history in common, like first visiting one at a key age, or similar. I can appreciate the experience, but I'm personally baffled by people who just keep returning to the exclusion of other opportunities around the country or world. Each to their own though!

That hotel looks awesome! I wish I could've stayed there.

And I wonder the same. My family moved around a lot growing up and one of the few constants was a visit to a specific theme park every year. It seemed to be one of the few constants in my life when I was younger. I'm sure that certainly influenced the way that I feel about them. I bet a surprising amount of other enthusiasts would have similar stories.

You should check out love hotels in Asia (Japan, Thailand).

Thanks for the insight!

If I had a few days, which parks in Florida, or really anywhere, would you say are the highest priority to experience for the kind of theming you enjoy?

I'd say the first one you need to visit is Islands of Adventure in Orlando. When it opened in 1999, it really invented the idea of the IP land, a themed area dedicated to 1 IP as opposed to the standard of multiple IPs in one land (like how Tomorrowland might have Buzz Lightyear and Tron and Star Wars). IOA still has what many consider a top 5 dark ride in the world in Spiderman. And the Harry Potter area which opened in 2010 was the first what I'd call hyper immersive land where great pains are taken to make every aspect of the experience immersive, from the food (the food is all British food and not regular theme park fare), drink (butterbeer is great), environment (even though it limits the amount of people in the area, the paths are very narrow since that's how the area is in JK Rowling's world) to even the bathrooms (Moaning Myrtle makes appearances). Most new modern lands built by Universal or Disney follow this blueprint. Velocicoaster in IOA is also widely considered a top 10 coaster in the country so if that's your thing IOA has a great one.

If you had a few more days after that, I'd probably pick out a Disney park or two. It probably depends on which IPs you're interested in. Hollywood Studios has Tower of Terror and Star Wars so that would be my choice (Rise of the Resistance is the best ride I've been on in the world) but I've heard good things about the latest Guardians of the Galaxy Ride at Epcot.

Have you been to DisneySea?

I've been trying to make my way out to Japan for the last couple of years but Covid has gotten in my way. Looks like it's finally going to happen later this year. And I'm so excited for it!

Yep theme park fandom is massive. For places like Epcot especially as it holds a lot of nostalgic value to many.

Surprisingly a lot of the fandom isn't anything to do with IP like shoehorning in Disney characters, but more about atmosphere and architecture. Myself like many others find places like Epcot a very relaxing place that does wonders for mental health. Being able to pop in and sit with a drink and chat with friends and just soaking up the atmoshere is very cathartic.

For me it probably started around middle school when I first discovered roller coasters, while simultaneously playing the game Theme Park[0], and later Roller Coaster Tycoon. One of my childhood best friends and I would get our parents to drive to Six Flags Magic Mountain as often as we could.

Many years later I still check in on https://screamscape.com from time to time to see what the latest coaster news is. It's always refreshing considering the daily struggle against doom scrolling and regular news one contends with.

I enjoy reading about what makers of coasters are up to, what they're engineering and how they're innovating.

Riding Wonder Woman: Flight of Courage[1](probably best/craziest coaster I've ever been on) and Twisted Colossus[2](also great) got me to discover a tiny company called Rocky Mountain Construction[3] based in Northern Idaho, who've been innovating by taking existing wooden coasters and revamping them with steel track, among other things. There's a real culture of engineering and innovation that I think many of the HN crowd would appreciate. Also discovered a company called S&S in Utah innovating with a new axial rotating design[4]. Many other companies such as B&M and Intamin are constantly building cool stuff too.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_Park_(video_game)

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeKaiP7F48I

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL9L-U-AKFs

3: https://vimeo.com/259906484 https://www.rockymtnconstruction.com

4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3czHe2gZ-k0

Have you been up to California's Great America to ride Railblazer, another RMC? Seems like you're based in SoCal so it might be accessible to you at some point. Railblazer in the back row is, bar none, the most intense roller coaster I've ever been on.

Just looked it up, awesome, didn't realize they had another single-rail coaster in CA. I've been to Silverwood Theme Park in Idaho, close to their HQ but they hadn't built Stunt Pilot yet. Wonder Woman is essentially a bigger version of those two, and by pure chance I happened to be in the very back like you. Wildest ride I've ever been on, must be similar experience.

Will be interesting to see if they come out with the rumored t-rex track at some point.

If the internet has thought me one thing it is that there is a fandom for everything

If there is a fandom for buying someone's bathwater, a theme park fandom doesn't sound really that out there!

I'm a big bioreconstruct fan as well. For me, theme parks are an amalgam of nearly every technical and creative discipline in the pursuit of telling some sort of story that you can walk through and explore yourself. Watching that all come together and seeing all the behind the scenes work is fascinating, particularly when we are almost always kept in the dark about details until opening.

1. I like some of the IP, and being immersed in experiences is fun

2. They are one-of-a-kind. It's rare to see something made that isn't mass produced, and I have a similar appreciation for other things that don't come out of a factory.

3. There is interesting engineering involved.

Gosh, I couldn't imagine not being a theme park fan!

EPCOT for example is such a classic piece of America to me. Like most classic American ideas, it ended up way different than expected for better or worse. But tracking every bit of every ride/attractions evolution over thelast 40 years is one of my favorite hobbies. You'd never guess but there's more documented history behind the Imaginarium at Epcot than most several hundred year old buildings.

Do theme park fans write Theme Park Fan Fiction about what they would do if they could sneak in at night?

We definitely like to trade stories of the days where the parks were so empty that we might as well be in there alone!

It's such a big fandom there are many completely independent from each other sub fandoms

Oh no, don't spoil it. Too much attention is just gonna turn loose a bunch of sleuths who will reverse-engineer the time the photos were taken, cross it against ADS-B tracks, and put an end to the fun.

Their most recent images were taken at Universal's Epic Universe, and a quick glance at the recordings from the previous day on Flightradar24 reveals that one helicopter has been repeatedly circling this location over the past few days while doing nothing else. At least two other helicopters I noticed did this as well, but not as frequently. (I'm not saying that this must be this person, but it could be very likely)

It isn't difficult to discover this, so Universal Studios probably would have done something about it by now (I guess?).

EDIT: The helicopter seems to be owned by a company that does tours of all the theme parks there: https://www.orlandohelitours.com/

What could universal do about it? I don't think they could easily get a restricted airspace above their parks, even if under construction.

And why would they want to? This is free marketing/advertising for them.

The way it's going, DeInsanetis is probably going to order F15's to fly sorties over and B52's to drop bombs on Disney World.

DeSantis Looks to Punish Disney World Guests in Latest Retaliatory Move Against Disney:

https://blogmickey.com/2023/04/desantis-looks-to-punish-disn...

Ron DeSantis threatens to build prison next to Disney World as he continues vendetta against company:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

This isn't reddit.

I am not an appeal to elders? kinda guy, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Hopkins

Look at his awesome post history.

Wow, great to see boingboing is still around.

Anyway, based on some research, it looks like the person takes pictures from helicopter tour around the premise.

Correct. https://twitter.com/bioreconstruct/status/112740656406999040...

boingboing sending life signals is for me the real story.

I can see why they don't want to be known. The parks would probably have a field day with their lawyers. Not to mention the FAA, since it looks like they are most likely violating line of site drone rules, unless they are doing it in a helicopter or plane.

If the parks wanted to find out and take action I think they already would have.

As noted elsewhere it wouldn’t be hard to figure this one out.

As far as I can tell this guy is a pretty benign actor.

It’s more likely they are still utilizing the tourist helicopters that fly near the park daily. Drones would stand out near the parks.

How does it hurt the interest of the parks? Doesn't it ultimatley draw the attention to new, upcoming rides and attractions?

It ruins the surprise. If they wanted people to see it they wouldn’t put up facades to block the construction.

Facades are also for preventing passersby from seeing an eyesore. I am sure they know about this, and if they really wanted it to stop they would send one of their umptillion lawyers after them.

I think the people who run the parks know that super fans are a big part of the theme park world and that you can’t keep everything from them. In fact they seem to embrace the super fans and even their rumors.

> I asked them if they are a helicopter or plane pilot, and they replied simply: "A very good customer."

What I would say if I were a stealthy droner.

FWIW a lot of helecopters fly over WDW these days. Having just returned last week I'd see a good 5 or so helecopters flying over and around the parks every day. It is a tad annoying at this point but given there are no restrictions on doing so there's little Disney could do to stop it.

To me it looks like they work for the parks. Both controlling and a good Twitter advertisement.

All of them?

Parks or accounts? There's only two parks and one person in question.

I have been to Orlando a few times. There is a helicopter tour that flies over the parks every hour or so. Him saying he's a very good customer means he probably gets a discount for flying with them so much and just brings a good camera and zoom lens.

Yeah ok, why not just go there when it opens. It’s like sneaking at plots and sets in a new movie, a great way to spoil it

It's a sign of maturity to come to the understanding that different people like different things for different reasons and sometimes even the same things for different reasons.

You can go to a theme park and enjoy the experience and let that be the end of it and that's perfectly fine and valid. Or you can follow the design and construction of attractions at dozens of theme parks, deeply immerse yourself in the history of it and the people involved and analyze aerial pictures on a near-daily basis. Neither way is "doing it wrong" and both can happily coexist alongside each other as long as there's an understanding that they're interested in theme parks for different reasons. It's like complaining about literary studies being a thing because you prefer reading books for the experience.

Of course there are less reputable sites which abuse the information generated by these people to produce clickbait speculation aimed at "casual" theme park goers but that isn't the fault of those generating that information, that's the fault of the sites trying to turn a buck with it.

Some people are interested in how things are built and work, not just the black box that does stuff for them.

This reminds me of when I first realized some people would genuinely get upset if I tried to understand how magic tricks were performed. It was completely unfathomable to me that some people would prefer not to understand it and genuinely enjoyed a trick less if someone had "ruined the magic" for them.

On the other hand I very much enjoyed shows like Penn & Teller's Fool Us, which were based around the idea that there are known ways to perform the various tricks but the real art was in doing it in such a way you genuinely couldn't tell even when you knew (or in order to win the show: finding a new way to do it and then performing it in such a way that experienced magicians still couldn't tell).

I very much fall in to that category having been a "Texas Tank Watcher" (the self-appropriated nickname given to those keeping a close eye on the SpaceX development in Boca Chica) for the past 4 years or so.

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