{"id":27112,"date":"2018-03-05T23:11:25","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T23:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=27112"},"modified":"2018-03-05T23:11:25","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T23:11:25","slug":"landslide-weirdness-ufo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2018\/03\/05\/landslide-weirdness-ufo\/","title":{"rendered":"Landslide weirdness &#8211; a landslide as a &#8220;crashed UFO&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Landslide weirdness &#8211; a landslide as a &#8220;crashed UFO&#8221;<\/h4>\n<p>Occasionally I like to feature items of landslide weirdness, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2015\/03\/24\/jesus-1\/\">face of Jesus in a landslide scars<\/a> or landslides being <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2017\/06\/01\/landslide-weirdness-sri-lanka\/\">caused by poleward shifts<\/a>.\u00a0 Today I think I may have found one that tops them all to date &#8211; a landslide that is interpreted as being a crashed UFO.\u00a0 The source is a Youtube video that appears to have gone viral.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nbzr13UeAZA\">Posted on Youtube<\/a> by &#8220;Secureteam10&#8221;, the video purports to show a crashed UFO on the island of South Georgia. At the time of writing it has been viewed over 700,000 times:-<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nbzr13UeAZA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>The core of the video is this object and its associated trail through the snow:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_27117\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27117\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27117\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2018\/03\/18_03-UFO-1-e1520289929166.jpg\" alt=\"UFO? No, a landslide\" width=\"640\" height=\"692\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-27117\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The apparent UFO (actually a long runout landslide) in South Georgia, via Google Earth<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>In the video this is interpreted as a UFO that has crash landed.\u00a0 The object is seen as being a 50 metre long alien space craft that has slid to a stop across the snow and ice, having first crashed into the mountain.<\/p>\n<p>However, the image above shows a different story (even if you discount the problems of the trajectory of the UFO before it struck the hillside).\u00a0 The image clearly shows that the trail extends from a landslide deposit.\u00a0 A closer view confirms this:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_27120\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27120\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27120\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2018\/03\/18_03-UFO-2-e1520290264215.jpg\" alt=\"UFO? No, a landslide\" width=\"640\" height=\"883\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-27120\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The landslide deposit, and above it the scar, for the apparent UFO, via Google Earth.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly evident is a comparatively recent (at the time of the image) landslide deposit.\u00a0 The trail extends high into this deposit.\u00a0 Upslope from the landslide mass are a series of scars &#8211; it is not possible to determine from which of these the landslide originated.<\/p>\n<p>Of course the runout trail is quite unusual.\u00a0 I am not sure if a block has detached from within the mass, and then moved downslope, or if it tumbled onto the mass from above, and then slid.\u00a0 If I was a betting man (and I am not) I might go for the latter explanation, but without a more detailed investigation I am speculating.\u00a0 But either way this is conventional landslide behaviour on snow and ice covered surfaces, and we have seen <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2014\/01\/29\/tramin-rockfall\/\">other large isolated boulders travel long distances<\/a>. In this case the elongate shape of the block favoured sliding rather than rolling, but as the friction of the substrate is low the distance travelled can be large.<\/p>\n<p>It is an interesting case study, and as such it is a good find by Secureteam10.\u00a0 But it is not a UFO.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A video has gone viral on Youtube, apparently showing a crashed UFO on South Georgia,. In reality it shows the runout path of an elongate boulder that was a part of landslide from a permafrost affected mountain<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[929],"tags":[596,469,12875,12870,5110],"class_list":["post-27112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humour","tag-antarctica","tag-featured","tag-south-georgia","tag-ufo","tag-weirdness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}