[freepersup]

There is a raging debate here as to whether what we are seeing is an aperture phenomenon (illusion) or the shuttle hurtling sideways. I don't think for one second that it is anything other than the shuttle hurtling across the sky in it's final seconds of being.

There is an obvious smoke and debris contrail, hyper flight speed is apparent, debris shedding can be seen, and the image resembles the shuttle albeit distorted.

Distortion causes: poor optics, mach 18 flight speed, subject is multiple miles away, subject is emitting a heat signature which distorts it's image (think of the mirage effect by the sun heating roads or earth- 140 degrees vs the shuttle surface of 2-3,000 degrees).

The example of the aperture image provided here, to convince us that we are seeing an illusion looks nothing like the shuttle capture image. It looks like an aperture.

The shuttle capture image looks a hell of a lot more like the shuttle than it does an aperture.

[snopercod]

It looks like the shuttle to me, too, with a couple of reservations and questions.

It has no vertical stabilizer, but the stab would certainly have broken off at that speed and attitude.

There are "things" up above the fuselage on either side where nothing should be.

Also, I am curious about whatever video equipment this "amateur" was using. Anything that could lock on to the shuttle at that speed and distance and focus that well was not "amateur" equipment.