Photograph a UFO!

This got me thinking, more data might help clarify the situation more so here are some tips that might help you capture a UFO in a photograph.

If you have a decent digital camera, try this and maybe we can get some more UFO photos, maybe some closer that will provide more detail.

The two I have captured now were both apparently quite distant so good camera optics and a long lens is helpful. With a long lens a downside is that each photo covers less of the sky but take a lot and then review them.

Go out when it's clear and there are expanses of clear sky, or even when it's uniformly cloudy. Take pictures of the sky all around with your camera set to the lowest ASA setting (minimal noise). You may have to manually focus to infinity because a uniform background gives the camera nothing to work with.

Now, take these photographs, and if you don't see anything visually obvious in them already, load them into PaintShop Pro and use the "Clarify" function with a strength of 20 (maximum).

The Clarify function enhances contrast of uniform brightness areas, brings dark areas brighter, and generally helps bring out very low contrast detail.

If you don't see anything still you can try running Clarify one more time if the background is still relatively uniform. It will result in a highly unnatural shaded image but it may make detail stand out that you might otherwise pass over.

If you find something in the processed image, then go back and see if you can find it in the original. It also helps to zoom on the image and pan.

Take multiple pictures of each area separated by some small time. While digital artifacts from the camera itself will generally be one pixel, jpeg artifacts can be bigger, multiple pictures of the same object will not only eliminate that possibility but also show movement if there is any background reference at all.

If you have raw capability, shoot in raw mode. Else use the highest quality jpeg setting possible.

Another tip, it's a good idea to get background references so you can get some idea of how high, distant, and large the object might be.

Now, maybe just wild coincidence, but I find it highly coincidental that both objects, taken seven months apart, were almost in the exact same location and had the same visual appearance. Perhaps wild coincidence but perhaps whatever it is is a regular visitor or permanent resident of the area. I'll test the theory by continuing to photograph that area.

If you would like to and are in the Puget Sound, this is looking North from Edmonds or Richmond Beach. It is considerably closer in the picture taken from Edmonds but it appeared to be quite a distant north of Edmonds. I don't know what might be interesting to alien visitors farther north or if this is not something terrestrial in nature, weather balloons, some secret military technology being flown out of Whidbey Island naval airbase, or the air force airbase in Everett.

So more photos people! Get out there with your digital cameras and use them!

UFO Photos

I'd like to mention a few things about the UFO photographs I recently posted.

After considering the first photo, before having taken the second, I thought we were just pulling out of the dock, maybe the engines churned up enough froth to actually hurl a drop of water that high (we're talking 30 or 40 feet above the water level).

That, I thought, would explain the blurred appearance, if it were relatively close and I were focused on infinity. The part of the dock on the photo wasn't blurred so that didn't make total sense.

So yesterday on the way back from the bank I stopped at Richmond Beach and took some photos, and I get back and I'm processing those, and what do I see?

Another object that looks identical to the first except it is farther away and the sun is at a different angle. This would have placed the object in almost the same location as it was last August (Edmonds being farther north of Richmond Beach).

So now I thought of things like, could it be a plane or bird far enough away that it just wasn't sharp enough to discern?

This image was about six pixels wide but the previous image was more than double that. And yet, there are other objects that are visible that are only 1-2 pixels wide in the same photo, so the lens had sufficient resolving power to resolve something cleanly onto the sensor. The fuzzy appearance of the object appears to be a property largely of the object itself.

I also took some pictures of airplanes and helicopters and birds at the resolution limit of the camera and you can make out what they are down to the point where structure, wings, etc, are only one pixel wide and become unrecognizable or disappear.

With really high contrast items, like some of the things around the house and tree parts, near the limit of resolution chromatic aberration becomes an issue (but you don't see it much in those images because I cleaned it up with Paintshop Pro) but not with low contrast subjects.

So I use the term UFO in the most literal sense, I don't know what these objects are but I know reasonably well what they are not, not a plane, bird, helicopter, or a common form of balloon, (though I can't rule out some less common form, mylar weather balloon or something along those lines).

Whatever these things are they either match the color and brightness of the sky very closely, intentionally stealthy, or they are translucent or semi-transparent allowing the sky to be seen through them. If they were merely highly reflective their undersides would be dark reflecting the water beneath them but this is not the case.

Another Accidental UFO Photo!

Now this is high strangeness. Friday, I discovered a UFO in a photo I had taken last August that I hadn't noticed at the time.

Monday (today) three days later I took some photos down at Richmond Beach, and one I took looking north, past Edmonds, and again, I didn't see it when I was there, I just took a picture of some beach houses in the orange sky as the sun was heading down.

I get back, and after viewing them on the computer, what do I see? Another UFO that looks incredibly similar to the one I photographed last August in approximately the same location.

Like the one back in August, this has a roughly spherical appearance and was very close in color and brightness to the sky.

At first I thought this is probably just an ordinary airplane so far away that it's only exposing a couple of pixels and it's shape can't be made out. But then I compared similar sized features near and on the beach house and the resolution is good enough that it should have been possible to make out the shape of an airplane if that's what this was.

Click for higher resolution.


Full camera resolution of the UFO.

History Channel UFO Program on Myspace

This is an interesting video:

Black Box UFO Secrets Part I

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Black Box UFO Secrets Part II

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Format Change

I have widened the format of this blog to 1000 pixels in order to accommodate larger photographs without overwriting the sidebar.

You should your screen width to at least 1024x768 when viewing this blog.

I Inadvertently Photographed a UFO!

I discovered last night while processing some photos that I took last summer that I inadvertently captured a UFO in one of them.

We we were taking a trip to visit with some friends in Silverdale and took a ferry from Edmonds to Kingston. Just as we were leaving the Edmonds dock I snapped a photo with part of the dock structure in it and part of the water and sky as we were clearing it.

Click on the image below to see a full sized version of the photo.





I don't know what it but I feel reasonably confident it's not airplane, helicopter, or bird.

Fife Symington Admits Seeing Probable Alien Craft

Watch this video interview of former governor Fife Symington speaking about seeing a craft many have come to call the Phoenix lights. Former governor Symington believes the craft to most likely be an alien spaceship.

It's frustrating that when people of his stature see something like this they keep it a secret for a decade, or many times forever, because it detracts from the credibility of others who have seen things from other worlds.

Rods

I had mixed feelings about adding Roswell Rods to the side bar or posting regarding it because there isn't much evidence that this phenomena is extraterrestrial in origin, or that it is even anything terribly out of the ordinary. But it does appear to be an unidentified flying object of some sorts so I thought I'd post my speculations.

The objects themselves are interesting. Rod debunkers have suggested that they are nothing more mysterious than insects in flight motion blurred by video. Rod debunker debunkers have used highspeed video cameras, those with shutter speeds of 1/10,000th of a second, that would not be subject to the blur an ordinary video camera is, and the objects still appear the same.

I'm afraid I tend to fall into the skeptical category on this one because I see the primary promotor, a Mexican television producer by the name of Jose Escamilla, seems to be heavily into promoting DVD's of the phenomena for sale rather than making the videos and still available for free on the net.

Still I can't dismiss it outright either so it will just remain in my "unknown" bag until such time as more definitive evidence becomes available. I do quite a lot of outdoor photography myself and have never captured anything remotely resembling these "rods" an image in spite of being in a fairly insect rich environment. So if they were insects I'd expect to see them showing up in my photos some of which are taken at shutter speeds similar to video frame rates.

I'd be interested in hearing from others who have successfully photographed rods, what equipment you used in what setting, etc.

Area 51

I ran across this video that seems mostly sensationalist nothing.



However, I was curious what could be seen from the satellite images on Google. One of the things that is interesting is that you can readily see the nuclear test sites. Holes with roads leading up to them and huge radial stress fractures leading out in all directions for some distance. It gives you an idea of just how much energy was released in those nuclear explosions.

Then I stumbled across Nellis Air Force Base and something puzzling and out of ordinary on the base. Check out this link to a location on Nellis Air Force Range on Google maps. Just what are those five dark rectangular objects with the funky glowing stuff in them? I have never seen anything this dark on a satellite image on Google. Really fresh black top might look that dark, but then what of the weird colorful bright stuff in the middle?

Overall what is most interesting is how restricted this data is not. For the most part most of the area is covered by the second highest resolution satellite imagery that Google has anywhere. Seems kind of strange for what is supposed to be a super-secret base.

UFO Forum

I am always interested in finding UFO sites that contain relatively unedited personal accounts because it is my desire to better understand both my own personal experience, the phenomena in general, and the physics that make it possible. The very existence of the phenomena points to an incomplete understanding of physics as does the existence of contradictions and incompleteness in existing theories.

Today I ran across "The UFO Forum". It has a small number of personal accounts as well as more general information. Overall the site appears to be a very professionally designed site with a lot of material from more well known UFO researchers but I find the personal accounts most interesting.

Titan

You have probably heard or read about the lakes on Titan and thought perhaps Titan also might harbor life. Lakes on Titan are not water lakes, but rather liquid methane and ethane. Titan's surface temperature is about -290F (-178C) and any water would be frozen solid.


Click Image For Nasa Article
Titan's atmosphere also hints at something that might be hospitable to life in that like earth, it is about 90% nitrogen plus about 10% hydrocarbon compounds. Titan has an atmospheric pressure of 1.6 bar (60% greater than Earth's). But there again the temperatures are far too cold for liquid water to exist.

There is an article in the Christian Science Monitor that posits the possibility of life with methane serving as the solvent rather than water. If such life existed, I would expect it's functioning to be very slow given the temperatures involved but I suppose not entirely impossible.

We used to think it impossible for life to exist above the boiling point of water, but now we know there is a whole class of life that we've come to call thermophiles that exist near the black smoker mid-ocean rift vents that thrives in temperatures above the point of water at the surface (the great pressure at the depths involved prevent water from boiling at those temperatures).

So who really knows for sure. We really don't know just how adaptable life actually is.

Enceladus

Click here to read a NASA article about Enceladus.
One of Saturns Moons potentially harboring life.

Way Out

For me there is no question about the existence of intelligent life elsewhere. I sometimes do wonder about the existence of intelligent life here on earth. A conversation I had with my father over the weekend did highlight the fact that for others it is very much a question.

I've related my experience but, those who haven't experienced something similar only take that to mean that I'm out of touch with reality. I don't understand why some people have such a touch time with the possibility of life from elsewhere occasionally visiting earth.

The Royal Observatory in Greenwich provides an estimate of 7 x 10²² stars in the universe. That's 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars.

In our galaxy we've surveyed a number of stars in the local vicinity looking for planets. Planets are so small and so dim compared to a star that we are unable to detect them directly because they are lost in the glare of the parent star. Since we can't see them directly, we look for the wobble their gravity creates in the parent star. We can detect this by looking at the spectral lines shift in frequency in a periodic rate (as the planet orbits the star). One other method we can occasionally use is detecting momentary dimming of a stars light by a planetary transit.

The former method only works well if the plane of the orbit of the planet around the star is somewhat in our direction so the star gets pulled towards us and away from us. If it is not close to edge on the star gets pulled back and forth or up and down relative to us and we can't see that in a Doppler shift.

Additionally, our detection method only works well for massive planets orbiting relatively close to the star. So called "hot Jupiters" that are generally Jupiters mass or heavier orbiting close to the star.

If the orbit of a stars planet is exactly edge on relative to us and transits the star, we can detect somewhat smaller planets that way and planets that orbit more distant from the star but it is extremely rare for such an orbital configuration to line up just right for us to be able to detect a planet transiting a star.

We would not be able to detect any of the planets in our own solar system from another star with our current technology.

Even given these limitations in our ability to detect planets, half of the stars we look at have planetary systems. If our technology were advanced enough see smaller objects, earth sized planets, then there is a high probability we would see a planetary system around virtually every star around which a stable orbit exists.

Many of these stars may have multiple habitable planets. In our own solar system we know of only one planet that has life, but we know of others that may.

In particular, both methane and formaldehyde have been detected in Mars atmosphere. Methane, being the simplest hydrocarbon, is widely found in nature and can be produced by many abiotic processes. Formaldehyde can also be created by abiotic processes but is less common. However, on Mars it is particularly significant because the conditions in the Martian atmosphere gives formaldehyde a half-life measured in hours, so something has to be continuously replenishing it.

The probability that some bacteria or other primitive life forms, possibly lichens, existing on Mars today is fairly high. In addition to the fact that something is producing substantial quantities of methane and formaldehyde on an ongoing basis, the original experiments to look for life in the soil done by Vikings actually had some positive results that were dismissed as chemical reactions.

What we know about the Martian environment now suggests the tests were designed to look for the wrong kind of life and a new life seeking experiment will be launched towards Mars later this year.

We used to believe that life required oxygen. Then we discovered sulfur reducing bacteria that are in fact poisoned by oxygen. Then we discovered whole food chains based upon sulfur reduction around the so called black smokers, volcanic vents at the sea floor rifts.

The life forms we discovered around the black smokers also not only tolerated but actually thrived at temperatures considerably above the surface boiling point of water.

Another potential place where life may exist is on Jupiter's moon Europa. Europa's surface is covered with water ice and it is cracked and deformed in a way that suggests a liquid ocean underneath. The density of Europa suggests that an ocean approximately 800 miles deep may exist. Tidal energy resulting from Jupiter's deformation of Europa's crust, provides the heat that melts Europa's ice into an ocean. If liquid water is present, the potential for life forms which obtain their energy chemically as with the life forms surrounding the black smokers on earth, may exist there.

Saturn's moon Enceladus has water geysers on the south pole which were recently observed by the Cassini space craft. There is speculation that heat is provided by tidal forces and another group speculates by the decay of radioactive elements. Whatever the source, there is liquid water present and organic chemicals present which are necessary for life as we know it.

And then there is Jupiter's moon Calisto. Long thought to be dead with a surface a billion years old; measurement of Calisto's magnetic field shows that it changes as Jupiter rotates. The favored explanation is that a current is flowing within Calisto, and the surface ice is too poor of a conductor to allow for such a flow, but a liquid salt-water ocean underneath the ice would do the trick.

So in this Solar system you have one body that definitely has life, might have intelligent life (that's still open to debate in my book), and four bodies that may have life.

Now multiply that by 7 x 10²² stars or even half that, and you've got a lot of potential life harboring planets out there. How many of those will go on to develop tool using intelligent life? That's a harder question. In this solar system, only one planet has done so and it took it nearly 4.5 billion years. It took several billion just to get around to multi-cellular life.

What if it's one-in-one-billion? That's still 7 x 10¹² intelligent tool using life forms that will come into existence on various planets throughout the universe or an average of about 70 intelligent tool using species per average galaxy (the Milky Way is larger than average although there are giant ellipticals 1000 times larger).

I suspect the odds are likely to be better than 1-in-1 billion but even with those remote odds this universe is teaming with intelligent life. Then we get down to are they physically able to get here and if so would they come here, after all there are a lot of places they could go, they may be out there but Earth may just not be terribly interesting.

Right now our understanding of science isn't sufficient to know for sure one way or the other. I know, but my experience isn't enough to convince many people, so how can it be approached scientifically? Einsteins theory of general relativity makes it appear to be impossible to go faster than light. On the surface this makes it sound impossible because as you accelerate mass towards the speed of light, it's mass increases towards infinity thus requiring ever increasing amounts of energy. The bottom line is that taking the direct approach it appears that we can not do it.

However, there are several ways know to physicists to cheat, instead of traveling faster than light, compress space in front of you and expand it behind. And scientists know how to do this but it requires something known as exotic matter, and a tremendous supply of energy. Wormholes might be another way to cheat but we neither know how to create on that is stable for get to one that exists, so for us now that method is moot, but perhaps not for other civilizations.

This is one of my areas of interest, given the laws of physics, how might it be possible? The solution to this problem would not only allow us to become a truly space faring race but also solve many domestic problems. But this is a problem that is not solved yet.

And then why would they come here? Many people have speculated on this, the explosions of atomic weapons give off certain signatures such as gamma ray burst, that may have attracted attention. There are reports of UFO like sightings well before the explosion of the first atomic bomb.

Some people speculate that the Earth is a galactic watering hole. I see that is unlikely however because water is not uncommon in interstellar space.

I don't really know what their motive for coming here might be. I wonder if ants wonder why we do what we do, occasionally coming into their world.

Nasa Tether Experiment

In 1996, NASA performed an experiment with a tether attached to the shuttle. At the altitude the Shuttle flies at, the air is extremely rarefied but it is not a perfect vacuum. There is a voltage gradient with altitude and in addition, the shuttle is flying through Earth's magnetic field.

The combination of these two effects was expected to generate electricity. Now I will admit to not fully understanding the theory here because my understanding of electricity is that it requires a completed circuit for current to flow. Now on the other end of the tether there was a small satellite but still I don't understand what completes the circuit. If the circuit completed by ionic conduction in this rarefied atmosphere, then it's cutting across the same magnetic field lines and so no net voltage should be generated.

The only way I can see this working is by tapping the voltage gradient present in the atmosphere, but if that were the case, I'm surprised that enough current was generated to actually sever the tether given the rarefied nature of the atmosphere at that altitude.

Also it was theorized that electricity could be sent into the tether and act as a motor increasing the orbital height of as satellite without having to expend propellant. There again, without a completed circuit I don't understand how this would work.

O---------------o
Shuttle Satellite

At any rate; somehow this was supposed to generate electricity, and apparently generated a lot more electricity than expected severing the tether.



An interesting aspect of this video is that the astronaut explains the floating things as debris from the shuttle in the foreground, but if you watch these floating things you can clearly see them go behind the tether.

There are a number of things I find interesting about this video. The tether remains taught even when it's broken. I am unclear as to what force would keep it tight. I would have expected it to recoil when it broke, but clearly that is not the case in this video.

Then there is the question of the discrepancy between the amount of electricity expected and that actually generated. It would have made more sense to me to be measuring the current as you real the tether out so that if it expectantly approaches dangerous levels, you can stop before something catastrophic happens.

It is interesting to note that in eleven years they have not chosen to repeat this experiment.

Buzz Aldrin Talks About UFO on Apollo 11 Mission

This is an interesting video of Buzz Aldrin talking about a UFO observed 200,000 miles from earth on the way to the moon during the Apollo 11 mission.

What Is This?

What are we seeing in this attached video? The person making the recording initially assumes the bright object is Venus, until it fragments. Are we seeing a satellite re-enter? Whatever it is can't be too large or two far away for it to occur this rapidly.

T. Townsend Brown

I have decided to include a link on the sidebar to a website that revolves around T. Townsend Brown and the subject of controlling gravity. I don't know if there is any information of scientific merit on the site but at the very least it's interesting from a historical perspective.

I have related before my experience and details of the apparatus I saw. It is my believe that there exists some relationship between the electromagnetic force, inertia, gravity, and time. I'm always looking for clues that might help me to understand this relationship.

It is my belief that understanding the relationship between electromagnetism, inertia, gravity, and time would allow us to provide for our energy needs without creating global warming, producing nuclear waste, or releasing toxic substance into our environment. It would provide the means to eliminate poverty globally and allow us to become a space faring race.

T. Townsend Brown attempted to explore this relationship, however, I am at this point not certain whether he explored anything beyond simple ion wind.

If you take an asymmetrical capacitor, one in which one electrode is large and one is small, and you place a high voltage charge on this capacitor such that the positive charge is applied to the small electrode, and the voltage is around 10kv / cm, just short of breaking down the air between them, the device will generate thrust in the direction of the positive electrode.

This effect may be explained by simple ion wind. There is a high voltage gradient at the positive electrode. This causes electrons to be stripped from the atoms of air and makes them into positive ions. Given that they are now ions, they are attracted to the negative electrode and accelerated in that direction. The law of equal and opposite reactions then accelerates the device, the asymmetrical capacitor towards the positive electrode.

Certainly ion wind at least plays a part in the operation of this device. The question is whether or not it is the only source of thrust. There are at least two ways to test this. One is to enclose the entire apparatus in a plastic bag so that one can then determine if there is any net thrust on the entire system. The other method would be to test the device in a vacuum.

Many people have done both tests and the results of both have been inconclusive, there are people who claim successful operation in a vacuum and in a plastic bag. There are people who claim a plastic bag or a vacuum negates the effect. I haven't been able to find any solid credible references to either.

Was T. Townsend Brown on to anything important? I don't know. I do know he spent much of his life doing secret government research. Whether or not that involved any sort of gravity manipulation I do not know.

If anyone has been involved in any work that attempts to scientifically examine the Biefeld-Brown effect, I would be very much interested in hearing from you.

Strange E-Mail

I have started receiving e-mail from strange people and places at an address I don't normally give out that is centered around the topics of anti-gravity, time travel, and that sort of thing, and area in which I do have an intense interest.

I am particularly interested in understanding the principal behind the operation of the device I saw in my encounter when I was ten. It was presented in such a simple minimal form that I have to believe that was the intent.

So far what I've received has run the gamut between trying to affect space-time using high intensity light, to an experiment that attempts to prove the principal of retro-causality (and there the experiment was planned last November at the U-of-W by a professor Cramer there but I have not been able to find any word of the results), to more off the wall information suggesting that for some reason mold spores can have a gravity shielding effect similar to superconductors. Because of my allergies to half the known universe the latter is one that I am not going to try to reproduce.

I am not sure why I started receiving this e-mail or who is sending it. Mail headers are trivial to forge on the Internet.

I personally am convinced there is some relationship between electro-magnetism or perhaps more broadly between the electro-weak force and gravity in as much as diamagnetic materials and magnetic effects seem to be a common aspect of many UFO reports or crash debris and coincidentally many fringe science devices revolve around this subject, and some documented effects such as the Biefeld-Brown effects. Townsend Brown referred to them as "controlling gravity" rather than "anti-gravity".

At any rate; I don't know where it is going to lead if anywhere, but it's interesting, I've always wanted to be able to travel and interstellar travel has a particular appeal.