I'm not a UFO

[plasmid]

Floating about in this sunless dark sky

With hope on the natives to cloy

Once safety's assured with no need to standby

Sextuple projections deploy

Cautiously venture at ponderous pace

And not without being relieved

For I cannot linger in this inner space

The atmosphere's not fit to breathe

Drifting back off I come under attack

Take nary a second to mull

My several devices all quickly retract

And pray they don't penetrate hull

[Guest]

a statellite?

Floating about in this sunless dark sky

With hope on the natives to cloy

Once safety's assured with no need to standby

Sextuple projections deploy

Cautiously venture at ponderous pace

And not without being relieved

For I cannot linger in this inner space

The atmosphere's not fit to breathe

Drifting back off I come under attack

Take nary a second to mull

My several devices all quickly retract

And pray they don't penetrate hull

[plasmid]

Hi mangamathsfreak. I typically write riddles in such a way that they initially sound like they're describing one thing, but are actually describing something else completely different. Then I title the riddle "I'm not a ..." whatever the first thing was so people will know to try to look along completely different lines.

So in this case, the title tells you that the real answer is nothing at all like a UFO. And I would consider a satellite to be pretty close to a UFO and therefore excluded by the title. But I guess I'll take that response as a sign that I've made a good "decoy" answer for this riddle.

If it helps, links to all my prior "I'm not a ..." riddles are on my profile page and should give a good idea of how different the "real" and "decoy" answers usually are, as well as examples of the types of imagery and clue placement I tend to use.

[Guest]

Hi mangamathsfreak. I typically write riddles in such a way that they initially sound like they're describing one thing, but are actually describing something else completely different. Then I title the riddle "I'm not a ..." whatever the first thing was so people will know to try to look along completely different lines.

So in this case, the title tells you that the real answer is nothing at all like a UFO. And I would consider a satellite to be pretty close to a UFO and therefore excluded by the title. But I guess I'll take that response as a sign that I've made a good "decoy" answer for this riddle.

If it helps, links to all my prior "I'm not a ..." riddles are on my profile page and should give a good idea of how different the "real" and "decoy" answers usually are, as well as examples of the types of imagery and clue placement I tend to use.

Actually a satellite pretty far from a UFO as UFO stands for unidentified flying object and satellites are almost always identified.

[EDM]

star or sun...???

[Thalia]

an astronaut in a space shuttle?

[plasmid]

Not a sun or star, as there are clues about not being able to linger in the atmosphere due to inability to breathe, and the bit about projections that get retracted during an attack. Perhaps that could refer to a star's arms becoming invisible when the sun rises, but the part about penetrating a hull would be tough to factor in.

As far as space shuttles and satellites and the like, even though they're not actually UFOs, I would still consider them to be too similar to the decoy answer. If I were to say "I'm not a bull" and went on to say that I had four legs and horns and people occasionally ride me and go to great lengths to avoid falling off, then I'm probably not looking for a cow (I think some types of female cows have horns). It just wouldn't make for a very clever sort of riddle. I would more likely be looking for something very different that would still fit all the clues, like a bicycle with training wheels.

[Wilson]

Turtle?

[plasmid]

Turtle?

Indeed I am, this one goes to Wilson.

[Guest]

what is this.