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Comment by gregw134 | Hacker News Reader

These "UFOs" are in my opinion probably new type of drone.

Video of "UFO" over Poland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WZN0T_54xY

Pentagon video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6Wmap12xm0

Picture of crashed orb in Mexico: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmm7a/mysterious-metallic-o...

My theory is that these spheres are spinning and move using the Magnus effect (the effect that causes a spinning soccer ball to curve). Theoretically, if you have gyroscopes inside the sphere, and you can find a way to transfer the gyroscopes' spin to the sphere, the sphere will spin in a controllable direction and move where you want it to. Lift can be achieved by filling it with helium.

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"Almost certainly"?

We all have our hypotheses, and by all means promote yours, but do you really feel you have enough evidence to assign such a high confidence to yours? How do you reconcile it with statements like the following, made by the former director of National Intelligence?

"There are a lot more sightings than have been made public. Some of those have been declassified. And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain. Movements that are hard to replicate that we don’t have the technology for. Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom."

Ok, I changed the wording to "in my opinion". My main point is that it might be possible to build drones matching this description with existing technology. There is existing technology to induce controlled rotation in satellites, using control moment gyroscopes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_moment_gyroscope

Perhaps if you placed a control moment gyroscope inside a helium-filled sphere, an operator could generate a controlled rapid spin. I'm not an expert by any means, was hoping someone more knowledgable can evaluate the idea.

I have counter theory. It's a balloon.

The videos show the spheres moving quickly, often back and forth. Pilots have reported spheres hovering stationary over a spot during hurricane level winds. From all the reports it sounds like there is some kind of propulsion mechanism.

Wind?

Do you have any sources explaining this so called 'wind'?

Sources for what? The wind in a video that we don't even have a link to and can't watch?

You can't move a sphere around by spinning it. You can only change your direction.

Spinning around, moving uncontrollably inside a storm, with very variable speed are exactly things that lost balloons do.

There are whole ships powered by the magnus effect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship

They’re sails in this configuration—nothing more. They harness existing force of wind. They get spun up and if they spin the right way they produce a force perpendicular to the wind.

The magnus effect is a byproduct of laminar flow of fluid/air around a spinning object. Without laminar flow there is no force. So that is to say if you spin a sphere really fast and it’s hovering in air without gravity and without wind it will not move because there will be no laminar flow to produce the magnus effect. So in order for your spherical craft to actually harness the magnus effect you would need a separate means of propulsion to drive you in the primary direction and harness the magnus effect for thrust in a secondary direction, ie turn.

Did some more research, you seem to be right. Although the design I proposed could still be viable--when the wind is still the sphere would simply hover, and when the wind is blowing the sphere could move controllably, just not against the wind. At 10k feet there should be sufficient wind to control the sphere most of the time.

None of what are an sphere.

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