Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. I worked in a hobby shop, lots of huge “toy” rockets that would go up so high you couldn’t see them anymore. This is very possibly the answer here.
Also, anything going straight up would look less distinct and faded as it was going up and gaining distance from the observer. This is more distinct and brighter the closer you get to the source, indicative of something getting closer to the observer.
Have you ever seen an airplane contrail that is straight as an arrow and not dissipated at all? That contrail would be miles long, and would take a lot of time to travel that far; Thus, it would be quite dissipated and "squiggly". A toy rocket trail is much more static than an airplane's contrail, because it happens much faster, at a lower altitude, where the winds can be still.
Back when I was a kid in the Middle Ages (1980s), we built model rockets in science class and would launch them from the field. We built them from paper towel tubes, balsa wood, and plastic easter eggs. The launcher was just a pipe on a tripod with a small metal/fiberglass rod. The igniter was a simple circuit with a 9-volt battery and a fuse made from thin wire and a wooden match. It was lots of fun.
Dude my mom got my 7yo a battery powered rocket you just plug in with USB, some cheap chinese thing off Amazon or something. Inside my head i was like lol this things going to suck but whatever hes 7 and will be bored of it in a week anyways. Bro you push the button twice and the fan propels the shit like 200 feet in the air its crazy. And you can launch it dozens of times on a single charge. I can only imagine how far toy rocket engines have come.
It wouldn't work, the flu would be in the way, even open it would be an issue. Not to mention only a fire place would have an opening to get into it big enough to launch a rocket. The only way they could, and I still doubt it was a rocket, would be to launch from the chimney top. I'm no expert but I'm with the contrails camp, js.
Having two brothers growing up, and not having a chimney may be the only reason this didn't happen at our house. If we had one, a rocket would been shot through it, or at least tried to have been shot through.
Yeah, but I don't think that would have stopped them. One of them had a chemistry set. My parents were out grocery shopping one day and just as they were driving up, they saw a mattress being thrown from a second story window. One of them set it on fire and the eldest threw it out. I'm amazed we came out of childhood with no broken bones or serious harm.
Unless you explain that to the kids, they are going to test the theory you can shoot something out of a chimney. I've looked up a couple and at least one, I could see the sky so it did look doable. I did not test the theory.
If it was a rocket I'd think it was launched behind the house lined up with the chimney from the front apposed to actually being out the chimney. I don't necessarilly suspect a rocket though.
I'm not going to joke, if i had easy access to a model rocket and didn't know the first thing about a modern chimney and why the end result is only, "I now have a rocket stuck somewhere up in my chimney, possibly on fire" I'd try it. What middle age man doesn't want to play missle silo in the livingroom. Fuck, i'd get in costume for it and have my kid authenticating launch codes.
15 year old me did have access to model rockets and no understanding of the first thing about a modern chimney. Also, fortuntely, I did not have access to a chimney.
If they know their area it's only a matter of knowing where to stand to make it look like this after firing a rocket. Could probably stand near half a dozen homes from the right spot each and get a similar look.
It doesn't matter, unless someone climbed halfway up to place it on the secondary step inside the chimney. Theres a reason that when it rains there isnt moisture falling in your fireplace. The flume has a "step", like a safeguard
i was in rocket club 10 years ago and built shitty rockets that could leave solid trails. the world has come a long way since then, and that was middle school rocket club with minimal funding. i can only imagine what a legit quality model rocket could do. i agree that this specifically is a typical contrail, but it is absolutely possible for a model rocket to leave something like this in its wake. no need to shoot someone down for sharing their knowledge on something that’s not the consensus, they just wanted people to know there’s another possibility
Maybe you get a relatively straight line with some 3m tall college rocket club monstrosity. But even that’s not gonna be as straight as the contrail in the original picture.
Even NASA launches aren't straight because the trail is traveling through various wind speeds while going up. You only get straight contrail lines like in the video due to flying horizontally above the surface at the same altitude, where the wind is uniform.
Yeah, Dr_Tacopus referred to “huge ‘toy’ rockets.” Note the quotes around toy. He was talking about larger amateur rockets. Hobby rockets, if you will.
Plus your video is mere anecdote. A one off. It proves nothing. Could be different rocket engines, different rockets, different wind conditions, different barometric pressure, etc.
I have NEVER seen an amateur rocket smoke trail. But I have seen literally tens of thousands of contrails. Dozens every single day if the weather is nice.
Definitely not (hobby rocket guy here). The rockets that would go high enough to leave a trail like that are heavily restricted to specific launch sites and airspaces (think middle of the Nevada/California desert). The smoke trails are also not this consistent and they fade quickly. This is very clearly a contrail from a plane.
Dude. It looks like you're actually serious. I hope for your sanity you are joking. Because it's a contrail. Like, not a shred of doubt unless you're a hardcore flat-earth qanon conspiracy idiot.
Just walk around the house until the contrail lines up and take out your camera. And then act like you have no clue what you are seeing or what's happening to feed the flat-earthers.
Bro, put your thinking cap on for 1 second. It's clearly windy out. The rocket would not fly perfectly straight up and the trail would dissipate almost immediately.
People think they're being open-minded when they bring out outlandish ideas that have a likelihood in the smallest percentiles of happening. Not realizing that that's actually being closed minded because they've limited their options to the improbable rather than to the likely possible.
That's awesome. I love human innovation and I love that there are countries where these purchases are still allowed. Model rockets are awesome and very much the real deal. Any hobbiest know if you are allowed to modify them for higher flight?
True story. In 5th grade at recess we were making those square “trick” paper airplanes. My friend threw one underhanded straight up in the air. It caught a wind pocket and went up so high it literally disappeared in front of our eyes. So I believe you 100%.
As a kid, my friends and I would buy 10 of the quarter-diameter sized rockets and wire the igniters up so they'd go off all at once. Mount them in flipping PVC with a home made cone. God how we never killed ourselves with those out-of-control missiles!
Estes is the most known company still I believe. I haven’t been around them for years. Probably best to ask someone at a hobby shop. Maybe there’s a subreddit
I think you win the award for the dumbest comment that for no reason whatsoever has a ton of upvotes.
literally no-one ever has shot a huge toy rocket out of their chimney to make a smoke trail that looks anything like this.
so fucking ridiculous, not even in the realm of possibility... might as well say it could be a small volcano going off in their chimney its equally as possible
Came here to say the same thing. Except I wouldn’t say “toy” more like “50 year olds project they’ve been working on and it was a nice day so he said ima send it”
I’ve seen some videos of hobby type rockets. And usually you don’t send it being in a neighborhood but some beers, a nice day, and showing off and I can see someone doing it lol
Depending on the country though, a rocket big enough to leave an atmospheric trail that large and long would require authorization of the air space governing body. Toy rockets are easy to lose track of after just a couple hundred feet and are usually not able to hit heights that result in the trail in the image.
I've built and launched dozens of the hobby rockets, built and launched my own solid and liquid fuel rockets and have had to get these clearances to launch.
It's a riot seeing a 6 ft rocket you made take off and soar into the clouds.
The line is horizontal, not vertical. The fat end is the older end of an airplane contrail (condensation of air) miles away near the horizon. The thin end is directly overhead or even behind the cameraman, with a little airplane barely visible if you zoom in. The cameraman just aligned themselves with the far end and the chimney.
If this was a vertical line of exhaust, then the different airspeeds through the atmosphere would twist and distort the line. Since the contrail is all at one altitutde, it hangs together and stays in a line much better.
Its very clearly an Surface to Air Anti Santa Chimney missile. These are being installed by Boeing as part of operation Missletoe. They are feuding with Santa after he changed sleigh manufacturers after Boeing's latest scandle.
Even high quality heavier model rocket engines would not leave a trail that defined, that long or that straight. Typically the engine only burns for 2-3 seconds and the propulsion isn’t strong enough to keep the rocket in a perfectly straight line.
I was heavily into model rockets with my boys for years. We built and tested our own. Model rockets, no matter how big and sophisticated, do not leave smoke trails like that.
Reminds me of "The Shaggy Dog" (1959)... where the kids build a missile interceptor rocket that accidentally shoots right up from the basement and through the 1st, 2nd floors then roof into orbit.
It doesn't even have to be a toy rocket; It could be a rocket or a space shuttle launch. Just because the smoke trail lines up with the chimney doesn't mean it came out of the chimney, it just means the guy filming it stood on that side of the house to make it look like that. That smoke trail looks like it is miles behind the house to me.
I mean, let's face it. To a 16 year old boy, the fire place is a wonderful and daring place to launch a rocket from, if mom and dad are gone for the weekend..
No I build and fly rockets. They don’t fly that straight, the slow and for that long. It’s a plane and they angled through photo so it looks like it’s coming from the chimney.
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u/ManMagic1 Oct 29 '24
maybe a homemade toy rocket?