Catalogue
What it can do.
Seventeen reconstructions. None of them is a video: each is computed while you watch it, from a real date, a real hour and a real place — press play on whichever interests you.
Real sightings#
Four documented cases, each replayed in the sky of its own reported date, time and place.
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Chiles & Whitted, 1948#
Night over Alabama, 02:45. Two airline pilots described the same phenomenon differently — open it full size to switch witness.
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Valensole, 1965#
Dawn on the plateau, 05:45, the Sun still below the horizon — and the real relief of that field under the witness's feet.
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Socorro, 1964#
Low sun, 17:50, New Mexico. The case people argue about the phenomenon's size in — and where the reconstruction refuses to state one.
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Wilcox, 1964#
Broad daylight, 10:00, New York State, with a cloud deck lifting from 800 m to 913 m across the two hours the record covers.
What the sky can hold#
These hold no recorded phenomenon at all. They are skies set up with the conditions one sight needs, for looking at that sight — because most of them need three or four conditions at once, and knowing which is exactly what separates “there was no Milky Way” from “I could not have seen it”.
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Ice haloes and sundogs#
A cirrus veil, a Sun 20° up, crystals falling level. Nothing is placed: a hexagonal ice prism and Snell's law give every angle.
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Rainbow#
Rain, a Sun 9° up, a gap in the cloud, a witness facing away from it — all four, or nothing. Primary, secondary reversed, Alexander's band between.
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Moonbow#
The same geometry under a full Moon 22° up. Too faint for colour vision, so the eye sees a white arc — which is what witnesses describe.
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The Milky Way#
New Moon, Sun 65° down, galactic centre 81° up over the Atacama. Integrated through a real dust model, so the dark rift falls out of the calculation.
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Zodiacal light#
Sun 16° down, a steep ecliptic, no Moon: a leaning cone with no edge, gone within the hour.
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A comet#
Hale-Bopp at dusk on 1 April 1997, magnitude −0.8, 30° up to the north-west with a 20° tail. The orbit is propagated from that apparition's own elements.
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A meteor shower#
Perseids, 13 August 2018, 03:30, radiant high and no Moon — over the sporadic background that falls every night of the year.
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Could a satellite have been lit?#
No pass is drawn — no historical orbital elements are reachable. What is computed is the height of the Earth's shadow, which settles the question.
One sighting, three instruments#
The same account, the same second, the same sky — changed in one field. What an observation was made THROUGH decides the geometry of every frame, and the three below differ in nothing else. Note also what each one lets you set: an Instamatic's owner had one aperture and one shutter speed, so the editor offers them nothing to choose. A reconstruction can only be as rational as the settings it permits.
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Seen with the naked eye#
An eye perceives an angle as an angle wherever it falls, so the image is equidistant and a ruler held to the screen means something. 60° tall, and no frame at all: an eye has no rectangle.
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On 126 film, 1964#
A SQUARE frame 36° on a side — 28 mm of image behind a 43 mm lens. One aperture, one shutter speed, one focal length, all fixed: nothing to set, and nothing offered.
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Through a 50 mm lens#
27° tall, which is why a photographed light so often has nothing recognisable beside it. A lens maps f·tan θ: everything off-axis is stretched, 42% at 33° from the centre.
Weather, and the instrument#
The two things that most often turn an ordinary object into an extraordinary account.
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A thunderstorm#
Cloud base at 600 m, heavy rain drifting on a real 14 m/s wind, lightning lighting the scene's haze, thunder arriving late. Pause it: all of it stops.
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An airliner on a 20-second exposure#
No phenomenon is drawn here — there isn't one. Steady lamps draw lines, flashing ones drop dots, and their spacing is the flash rate times the angular speed.
What is not here yet#
Atmospheric re-entries, a satellite pass actually computed for recent dates, volumetric clouds, observing from an aircraft, radar propagation anomalies. What each one is waiting on is on the roadmap.