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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 20
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    Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Cory Doctorow #BLM (AFK until Jan 4 2021)

    So... late the other night I saw what seemed like a satellite passing overhead (unblinking point-like dot) and tracked it with 15x binoculars... it seemed to be a large fixed-wing airplane flying pretty high. It had no lights but appeared ghostly white... reflected light?https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1296473268908707843 …

    Venkatesh Rao added,

    Cory Doctorow #BLM (AFK until Jan 4 2021)Verified account @doctorow
    http://Skycircl.es  is a project of @lemonodor, a furloughed Disney Imagineer who became obsessed with mysterious overhead aircraft and decided to monitor them, discovering (among other things) a massive, covert FBI aerial surveillance program. 1/ pic.twitter.com/jRzaiF5QMl
    Show this thread
    8:58 AM - 20 Aug 2020
    • 4 Retweets
    • 18 Likes
    • foo __moral_hazard Arlyn Culwick Divia Eden B. Luke phil Zhan Li 🇪🇺🇬🇧 Mhacha 🌨
    2 replies 4 retweets 18 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 20
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        Not an airliner... the wings were not swept like almost all airliners. Also all airliners have clear red/green position lights.

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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      3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 20
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        It was late and I was sleepy (I think it was the night I was up trying to catch Perseids). I’d estimate the thing was maybe 20 arc minutes (a 747 cruising at ~9000m would be about 25, the moon is about 32).

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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      4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 20
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        Wings were unswept like I said, but wider than the global hawk, non tapering, and square at ends. That’s all I got. Silhouette was actually like a small plane. And it must have been light colored (white or beige)

        3 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 20
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        That’s all I got. I remember thinking at the time “spy plane?” But might have been some other weird aircraft. Initially due to sleepiness I thought it was actually solar panels on a large low-flying satellite before remembering nothing in orbit can appear that huge from earth.

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
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      6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 20
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        AFAIK all normal aircraft must have visible red/green navigation lights. You do occassionally see weird shit you can’t identify if you look up at the sky a lot. It’s not very frequent, but it’s not super rare either. I don’t mean UFOs or weird phenomena. Presumed military.

        1 reply 1 retweet 4 likes
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      7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 20
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        It was either high enough or silent enough to make no sound. I’m guessing it was large and fairly high and silent.

        1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
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      8. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. bigWombat‏ @bigPenguin18 Aug 20
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        Replying to @vgr

        Do you think that what you saw was part of the FBI's aerosurveillance program?

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 20
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        Replying to @bigPenguin18

        No clue. Couldn’t identify it.

        2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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