Spring Break
NT professor explains alien sightings
Taylor Short
Issue date: 1/29/08 Section: NEWS
NT's Ron DiIulio has some explanations for the recent swarm of UFO's around Stephenville and said he wants to teach students how not to be fooled.
DiIulio, director of astronomy lab programs for NT, was not surprised by the photo taken near Cisco on Jan. 8 by Sean Kiel, a truck driver, who claimed the object "looked like a meteor or a fireball entering the atmosphere. It had a long tail and it was extremely bright."
It didn't take long for DiIulio to identify the image.
"Once I saw the photo, I thought, 'It's a classic sun-dog,'" DiIulio said, "which can easily be mistaken as something else."
A sun-dog is an optical phenomenon which is primarily caused by the reflection of sunlight on small ice crystals in cirrus clouds, typically displaying two bright spots on either side of the sun.
Apart from this image, several more were taken later that week of what appears to be long, neon lines swirling in the sky. At the moment, DiIulio suspends his conclusion on what they are, but said he has a few ideas.
"It is possible that they were either looking at the full moon or Sirius, the brightest star in the sky," DiIulio said. "While holding a camera phone, your hand may tend to shake, which can produce such images."
The military entered late on the issue by announcing Wednesday that fighter jets were training in the area at that time.
"That night, 10 F-16's took off right over my offices in Fort Worth," DiIulio said. "I hear them all the time."
DiIulio said the jets were performing war games near Dublin, which is on the southwest corner of the military's training zone. However, he said this does not explain the flashing lights people saw.
"We have to suppose one of them deployed some sort of defensive weapon, such as flares or chaff, which are used in real life to divert heat-seeking missiles," DiIulio said.
DiIulio, along with Michael Hibbs, Tarleton State University's associate professor of engineering and physics, plans to gain more information in a couple weeks by triangulating data from several sources who claim to have seen the lights.
DiIulio, director of astronomy lab programs for NT, was not surprised by the photo taken near Cisco on Jan. 8 by Sean Kiel, a truck driver, who claimed the object "looked like a meteor or a fireball entering the atmosphere. It had a long tail and it was extremely bright."
It didn't take long for DiIulio to identify the image.
"Once I saw the photo, I thought, 'It's a classic sun-dog,'" DiIulio said, "which can easily be mistaken as something else."
A sun-dog is an optical phenomenon which is primarily caused by the reflection of sunlight on small ice crystals in cirrus clouds, typically displaying two bright spots on either side of the sun.
Apart from this image, several more were taken later that week of what appears to be long, neon lines swirling in the sky. At the moment, DiIulio suspends his conclusion on what they are, but said he has a few ideas.
"It is possible that they were either looking at the full moon or Sirius, the brightest star in the sky," DiIulio said. "While holding a camera phone, your hand may tend to shake, which can produce such images."
The military entered late on the issue by announcing Wednesday that fighter jets were training in the area at that time.
"That night, 10 F-16's took off right over my offices in Fort Worth," DiIulio said. "I hear them all the time."
DiIulio said the jets were performing war games near Dublin, which is on the southwest corner of the military's training zone. However, he said this does not explain the flashing lights people saw.
"We have to suppose one of them deployed some sort of defensive weapon, such as flares or chaff, which are used in real life to divert heat-seeking missiles," DiIulio said.
DiIulio, along with Michael Hibbs, Tarleton State University's associate professor of engineering and physics, plans to gain more information in a couple weeks by triangulating data from several sources who claim to have seen the lights.
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