The theme of a recent episode of this programme celebrated the centennial of flight. Three teams from the UK, the USA, and France were challenged to build airplanes of the Wright Brothers era using only materials and technology available in the early 1900s. During this programme, which is filmed almost entirely out of doors, the two hosts were acting out a comedy routine loosely based on a fictitious argument between Wilbur and Orville Wright. As the two men were making jokes, something passed behind the British host in the distance. Some might say this object was an ordinary 21st Century aircraft. However, it's distance, and speed in the real time video are not consistent with anything known to this writer. Look at the animated GIFs,and blow-ups from still frames, below and decide for yourself. Keep an eye on your local TV listings for a repeat of this episode of Scrapheap Challenge. You might get a chance to see the object in the original programme. Watch closely...
GIF © 2003 Jeff Challender
Object seen on Scrapheap Challenge passing left to right behind host. This is the original animated GIF composed in early 2003 for this page. It gives us the entire sequence in one. Now we'll break the event into two separate parts to explore each section from before, and after the anomaly passes behind the actor.
GIF © 2005 Jeff Challender
Part one of the event. This is before the object passes behind the man's head.
GIF © 2005 Jeff Challender
Part two of the event, after the object comes our from behind the man's head. It's closer now, and we get a better view. IF it's an airplane, then we should see features identifying it as such. If it's too far away to make out details like tail, engines and wings, then it's moving at supersonic speeds, something illegal over inhabited regions of the USA. We simply can't have it both ways.
© 2005 Jeff Challender
This picture is a 250% enlargement of the object from frame 13 of the series used in the part two animated GIF. We can make out a shadow on the underside of the object here.
© 2005 Jeff Challender
This is a 250% enlargement of frame 17 from the part two animated GIF. Again, there is a hint of a shadow on the underside of the object, but no trace of a tail, wings, or engines. Were this a blimp or balloon, there is no way it would move as fast as it does.
GIF © 2005 Jeff Challender
A second GIF of part two, this one slowed down for detail examination. Please note that the object is rather cigar shaped. It strongly resembles an object I Saw For Myself on 31 December 1974. It that instance, it was menacing a Boeing 747 passenger liner flying over the San Francisco Bay Area. It is also very similar to an object flying over preparations for Chuck Yeager's first supersonic flight in the X-1.
At the end of the day, it's up to YOU to draw your own conclusions.
© 2003 Jeff Challender
Revised 2005
