Description

I stumbled on this video from a History Channel show on UFOs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsjUtp87gDQ

The original clip is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM3iX6z9T9U&t=127s

The show ruled out CGI and and said it probably wasn't satellites since there's a point when the objects move unlike typical satellites, and the explanation that the show went with was that these were migrating birds. However, if you do the calculations, you will find that it's not migrating birds (unless those birds are flying less than 5 mph at high altitude).

TLDR: Maybe Russia or another country was testing satellites that can move around so that they're harder to knock down if shot at or maybe these objects are slow-moving high-altitude drones, but the objects weren't migrating birds.

This analysis requires a little geometry, but it gets a ballpark estimate of the speed of the objects depending on your assumption of how high up the objects are.

https://preview.redd.it/2dyzrx1a38291.png?width=559&format=png&auto=w…

If you look at the video, the objects cross the diameter of the Moon somewhere between 40 to 80 seconds. This is a rough estimate, since it looks like the first three objects moved slower than the bulk of the objects). In those 40 - 80 seconds, how far do the objects have to travel? That depends on how high in the air you think they are. Call the distance between you and the birds 'x' (in km). We will see how estimates of the speed change, depending on the assumption you have about how high the objects are.

Using similar triangles, the distance these objects would travel in the time they cross the moon's diameter is about (2*1737.5/384000) * x kilometers.

https://preview.redd.it/z9vrnfs648291.png?width=573&format=png&auto=w…

Just to see why: Looking at the sketch above, the ratio of the green length to the red length is the same as the ratio between 1737.5 (the Moon's radius in km) and 384000 (distance to the Moon). So then the green length is (1737.5/384000) * x. The objects travel roughly twice that distance to travel across the entire face of the moon.

So the distance traveled is roughly (2*1737.5/384000) * x kilometers. The time was 40 - 80 seconds.

An estimate of the lower bound on the speed is (2*1737.5/384000) * x/80 kilometers/second. An estimate of the upper bound on the speed is (2*1737.5/384000) * x/40 kilometers/second.

Converting from km/s to mph is 1 km/s = 2236.94 mph. So speed of the object in mph is somewhere between (2*1737.5/384000) * x/80 * 2236.94 mph and (2*1737.5/384000) * x/40 * 2236.94 mph.

Simplifying, the average speed of the object is between 0.253 x and 0.506 x, where x was measured in kilometers.

Now you can play around with x. If these are migrating birds, then they'll migrate between 1000 feet to 30000 feet. Converting this to km, x ranges between 0.3 km (1000 feet) and 9.13 km (30000 feet). If you use x = 9.13 km, then the average speed of the objects is between 2.28 mph and 4.55 mph. That is well below what migrating birds typically fly at (15 - 55 mph). The slowest-recorded bird speed was 5 mph (American woodcock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_woodcock), but those are in the US and they fly at low altitudes.

What x would you need to get to the speed 15 mph? You need x to be about 30, so the bird would need to be at least 30 km up in the air to have the upper limit on its speed be about 15 mph. No birds fly at 30 km (almost 100,000 feet) in the air: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_by_flight_heights

TLDR: Maybe Russia or another country was testing satellites that can move around so that they're harder to knock down if shot at or maybe these objects are slow-moving high-altitude drones, but the objects weren't migrating birds.

Edit: Actually, great point by u/Arbiturrrr that the calculations above don't mean much without knowing the windspeed at 30,000 feet elevation. If the wind was going against the objects, then they would appear slower. It is plausible that these are birds if the windspeed at that elevation was 10-15 mph against their direction of flight: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/uzojcs/comment/iafs9fo/?utm_so…