Photographing UFOs in 2022

UfoScan

UFO scanner
As some of you know, I have been interested in UFOs since age 6 and got my first UFO book at age 8. Like many UFO books, it included some pictures of alleged UFOs that I found fascinating but at the same time, somewhat suspicious. Were these pictures real or fake ? Over the years, I found myself asking that question countless times.

At age thirteen, I decided to find out for myself, borrowed my father's Polaroid camera (this was back in 1967) and tested my skills at making UFO pictures using small models that I made. The results were quite convincing. If it was so easy, then many people must have tried to do the same and sent the pictures off to newspapers and magazines in the hope they would get published. All in good fun...

But we, as UFO researchers, end up having to try and figure out which are real and which are not. And frankly, most of the UFO pictures I have seen look very easy to fake. That is because pictures taken with forced perspective are very hard to distinguish from regular ones. That is to say that a small model at close range with a scenic background will look little different than if the object were a large one some distance away.

From this fact I reasoned that the characteristic that would help authenticate a UFO picture would be if the object were partially hidden by a branch of a tree or by part of a building which we could verify was some distance away.

Back in 1978, I came across such a picture - taken by one "Billy Meier". I was intrigued but I eventually learned that there was no such tree in that spot. It seems that Billy had used a small potted tree to create that effect. In other words, both the object and the tree were small and again, forced perspective was used to create the illusion of a large object circling a tree !

Other than that, I could never find a picture or clip where a UFO went behind something far away - other than when the object turned out to be a stray helium balloon...

Then the digital age came upon us and now, people can use software to create any effect they wish although, admittedly, these doctored pictures or videos are easy to spot.

So... what would really constitute a picture that convincingly shows an object some distance from the camera ? Well, very simply one where forced perspective is not possible.

To understand this, we need to backtrack to the 19th century, when stereoscopic photography was invented. Stereoscopic photography is a technique where two pictures are taken that are displaced laterally - usually an equal distance to the human eye separation. This allows one to recreate the third dimension and locate the position in space of every object in the scene. Using this technique, a small object close to the camera will look like.... a small object close to the camera !

As early as the turn of the twentieth century, stereoscopic cameras were available to the general public. However, in 1947 (amusing coincidence), a company by the name of David White introduced a stereo camera on the American market that was designed to use 35mm color slide film. It was called the Stereo Realist.

realist_ads_from_pinsky__starkman_collection_027_26245256371_o (Small).jpg

Within a few years, several other American and European manufacturers introduced their own stereoscopic cameras. Among them was Kodak that introduced its own version around 1951.

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It's a wonder nobody ever ended up taking UFO pictures with stereo cameras even though they were widely available right from the early fifties. I am especially thinking of the contactees of the fifties that claimed repeated contacts with extraterrestrials yet never cared to photograph their ships or, at best, offered very dubious images thereof. Would not a stereo camera have been the best way to document their claims ?

But this simply never happened...

Fast forward to the digital age. Back in 2009 and 2010, Fujifilm introduced two digital stereoscopic cameras: The W1 and the W3.

W3_Front.jpg

Many thousand of these cameras were sold and they are still widely available on the used market. So far, nobody has taken a picture of a UFO with such a camera. Will you be the first ?
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
The Montana footage might fit the bill:

I think it is important to interview witnesses to get some understanding of what was seen --and how the photograph(s) may fit into the overall UFO encounter. That is a big problem with Mick West and other debunkers --they refuse to listen to witness testimony --invalidating it a priori, and that is what makes them look so ridiculous to UFO witnesses, and will, at best, ultimately consign them to the dustbin of history, and at worst, make them a timeless example of species exceptionalism human close-mindedness and hubris.
Imagine if the prosecutor in a court case only relied on bad photos of the fleeing suspect to base their entire case on, never interviewing witnesses who had seen the suspect up close moments earlier and had a good look at the suspects face and saw he had a gun!
UFOs don't want to hang around for selfies --that is usually not part of the algorithm of contact, though there are exceptions as needed or can't be helped.
 

UfoScan

UFO scanner
> I think it is important to interview witnesses to get some understanding of what was seen --and how the photograph(s) may fit into the overall UFO encounter.


Of course, that can help. But people are very good at lying while sounding sincere. So if pictures or clips are supplied as proof of an encounter, then those should take precedence over the witness account. There have been too many cases where the apparent sincerity of a witness overshadowed the low credibility value of the photographs. Take for example Madeleine Rodeffer whom I personally knew for many decades and sounded incredibly sincere. Yet her film of a "Venusian Scout Ship" turned out to be bogus. Same with Ed Walters who, in interviews always sounded quite down to Earth, yet he faked his pictures.



Yes, I agree that the Nick Mariana as well as the Leland Hanson (Catalina Island) footage look authentic. The problem there is that the behavior of the objects in those clips looks completely normal. There is nothing about those UFOs that suggests unusual flight patterns and the resolution is so poor that we cannot tell if those are know aerial objects or not.


> That is a big problem with Mick West and other debunkers


I definitely don't consider Mick West a "debunker". He is a rational thinker and we need more of these in the UFO study department. His approach is to ask "What are we really looking at here ?" It is a much better approach than to start with a conclusion that the object is a true UFO.


> they refuse to listen to witness testimony


In this respect, I agree that he has a tendency to dismiss witness testimony outright. But his specialty has always been to evaluate UFO clips or pictures on their own merit and, in this respect, he is excellent at demystifying a lot of bogus imagery.

The problem we have had over all these decades is that UFO footage and pictures have always been hard to evaluate due to the difficulty in determining distances. This is why I propose the use of stereoscopic photography.
 

UfoScan

UFO scanner
And since this thread is about "photographing UFOs in 2022", I would like to bring up something else where current technology could enable us to try and record events in a way that was not possible not that long ago.

I am referring to the abductee phenomenon. Abductee accounts have an interesting history. In the fifties and sixties, they were rarely heard of. However in the seventies, with the arrival of Budd Hopkins on the UFO scene, abductee accounts multiplied like little rabbits ! And the narrative for abduction incidents also changed radically. Initially, abductions (as in the Antonio Villa-Boas and the Barney & Betty Hill case) were isolated events. Later abduction accounts, however, often involved lifelong repeated incidents.

It seemed to me this was a unique opportunity to document such accounts using security cameras. However, back in the seventies and eighties, such cameras were quite expensive and had low image quality. Well, no more. There are now security cameras outfitted with IR lighting that are tiny and inexpensive.

Yet I am surprised to find that very few abductees have attempted to document their experiences using such cameras. I had a discussion with a claimed abductee on another forum just a few years ago and he seemed to have every excuse in the world not to do so. In fact he was so upset at the suggestion that he try and use security cameras to add substance to his claims that he eventually deleted the entire thread where we discussed this !

Well, be that as it may, here are a couple of pictures of such security cameras easily found on eBay and similar online websites:

First is the XD camera, available in a regular or WiFi model for under twenty bucks postpaid !

XD WiFi 08 crp (Small).jpg

Not only is it tiny, but it features two IR lamps for night vision up to 15 feet and it also features motion detection. It records 1080p video that is stored on a micro SD card at the back. Power is via USB, which means that it can be on 24 hours a day.

Next is this nameless model that features four IR lamps as well as a built-in microphone. This one is a little more expensive at... around twenty five bucks !

WiFi with IR 02 crp (Small).jpg

This too is powered via USB, which means that it can be connected either to a wall charger or to a power bank.

Of course the question arises: Would the aliens try to disable such cameras before an abduction? Well, if the accounts are real, that is indeed a possibility. However, there are ways to verify how such a camera would be disabled. For example, if such a camera were sealed in a tamper proof box that the alleged abductee could not access, then should the camera fail to record an abduction, there would be signs of tampering that only could be done by an alien presence.

My point here is that the cost of such cameras is so low that it seems worth trying to use them in such circumstances. Abductees - like the contactees of the fifties - seem to shy away from anything that would add substance to their claims.

Well, here is a golden opportunity to try and change that !
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
Very good points! I am not sure the abduction phenomenon isn't some kind of psychotronic metaphoric hallucination caused by UFOs. A lot of people report abduction experiences --and though I am open-minded about them, I am where some skeptical folks are with UFOs --with abduction accounts. Biologically, beings that look so much like us from elsewhere seem quite improbable, unless there is some kind of contiguous universe stuck to ours --as was discussed in the leaked Podesta emails. Though I have recently seen some scientists suggest that aliens everywhere might have a humanoid appearance based on the conditions for life and similar selective pressures, I don't think even in that scenario that they would look a lot like us.
From my experience and the experiences of other witnesses, I would suggest that UFOs are a non-human advanced technology; the "devices" of the Wilbur Smith memo...
In fact, there are almost no historical accounts of occupants that match what is being described by UFO abductees today.
 

UfoScan

UFO scanner
My thoughts are very much along the same lines as yours. I use to believe that abduction stories were quite plausible until I started delving into them a little deeper and, especially, delving into the methods used to retrieve these abduction narratives. I found that many abduction stories started out as dreams. But people like Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs argued that "if you dream about being abducted, you were abducted" !

I remember one alleged abductee introduced as such by Budd Hopkins who insisted that she really was not and that these were dreams she had had. And then suddenly, on the old show "Unsolved Mysteries" she was telling her story as a true abduction account.

I also noted that many abductees appear to copy each other's story lines. In fact I was amused when one alleged abductee described experiences that were clearly patterned after scenes from the movie "Fire in the Sky" that actually were not in Travis Walton's actual account. They were Hollywood fiction !

However, I can't say for sure that no real abductions have ever taken place nor can I say for sure that nobody has ever been directly contacted by alien intelligences in a way that resembles contactee accounts.

All I am proposing here is that people making claims of repeated encounters should try and document their accounts using the technology that is available to us now - given that it is easily accessible and inexpensive.
 

michael59

Celestial
Loads of abductees have tried using security cameras as well as other systems such as flood lights, setting traps, etc.

It has been my lifetimes worth of experience that ET shuts down the power where ever it goes. Although, I have seen video on youtube where people have successfully videoed ET, there is no way of knowing if it is real or an elaborate hoax.

I can tell you one thing for sure. I was not dreaming.
 

michael59

Celestial
There was one more thing I wanted to add. With the exception of Grey's and the Mantis type, I have never seen another picture or heard of anyone else describing the same beings that I have seen. Not even in movies.

I have seen what I would perceive to be Pleiades or Nordic but they didn't look like the ones I have seen in pictures or heard people describe as perfect specimens of human beings. I suppose it would depend on what you consider perfection in a man or woman. lol

I have seen many different type of ET in the past 50+ years and usually in the same room so, I could not tell you if they are from different places or races or if they all live in harmony on one planet or just work together. Maybe we don't all look the same to them either? lol

In the same vein as trying to capture ET on camera or video. I too have often wondered why we don't see more craft out there because we certainly have CCTV pretty much everywhere around the world.
 

UfoScan

UFO scanner
Again, I am not here to judge anyone's claims of repeated alien contact. I am just here to propose simple ways one can try and document them.

The problem that I see with abduction accounts is that they seem to take place mainly in the bedroom at night. They are a different category than the UFO phenomenon which, basically is about normal everyday people observing an unidentified object in full consciousness outside the home during the day or at night.

> Loads of abductees have tried using security cameras

I am not aware of any. If that is so, then it would be worthwhile making a list of them and checking out their methodology. It's very easy for the alleged abductee to say "I tried, it didn't work so I gave up."

What is needed is to establish a methodology involving outside investigators that can confirm those attempts and failures. Right now, we only have the abductee's word for it. As I described earlier, if such security cameras are mounted in tamper-proof boxes that exclude any possibility that the alleged abductee could tamper with it, then, should the camera fail to work during the abduction, we would at least have some indication that something unusual did happen.

> It has been my lifetimes worth of experience that ET shuts down the power where ever it goes

The cameras I mentioned can be connected to power banks. If the power bank is sealed with the camera in a tamper-proof box , then it can be verified that something unknown managed to shut down the power bank. Right now what we have again is the abductee's own insistence that it cannot be done. But there are ways to verify this.

> I can tell you one thing for sure. I was not dreaming.

Well, having had "awakened" dreams myself on a few occasions, I can say for sure it is very hard to tell the difference. I also know people who have had very elaborate night terrors that involved alien creatures - but not of the ET kind. Again, those look quite real but they are a phenomenon of the subconscious mind. Of course, I don't know what y0u saw. But when there are absolutely no witnesses in spite of repeated experiences over a lifetime, it leaves all this subject to various interpretations.

> I have seen what I would perceive to be Pleiades or Nordic

The whole mythology of Pleiadians was started by the notorious hoaxer Billy Meier. I would suggest staying away from such descriptions !

> I have seen many different type of ET in the past 50+ years and usually in the same room

Even though I respect your claims, they remain just that. People are free to believe them or not. What I am trying to do is find ways to document such claims so that we have a bit more than someone's word for it.
 

michael59

Celestial
If they are capable of shutting down an entire missile sight, I'm sure they can figure out how to open a tamper proof box. Yes, it may be able to tell you the box was tampered with but, what does that prove. Certainly not that it was tampered with by ET. They may have even been the ones that gave us the technology in the first place.

I see where you are going and the point you are trying to make and believe it or not I do appreciate what you are saying and what you are trying to do. I hope you can come up with something that has not been tried yet. Because I'll try it. :)
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
@UfoScan I agree. We literally festoon our homes inside and out with relatively inexpensive technology with amazing capability and yet somehow when it comes to these types of nocturnal intruders none of that applies. If it were the kids down the block the response would be different.

I had something damned weird happen a couple of years ago that just sounds petty and ridiculous to describe, but really happened. My glasses went missing for three days and reappeared right out in the open in an obvious place covered with tons of dust. As if they'd been sitting there for a year. I have been wearing glasses for like, 50 years and am very careful about how I deal with them. I have never, ever lost a pair. My immediate response was a Wyze v2 camera with an internal 32Gb SD card - left it pointed at that one corner for a year or more and nothing else ever happened. It's now in my garage keeping an eye on things for more prosaic reasons. If the presence of a camera somehow inhibited the phenomenon, with abduction wouldn't that be some peace of mind?

Tech that fails suddenly and then comes back on. I beat this drum quite a bit: how come we don't seem to get very many 'UFO kills car engine' reports anymore? I can recall one in my area within the last ten years. As I've said here ad nauseum - if your modern car fails usually the first thing a mechanic will do is jam a scanner in it's OBD2 port and pull the codes. How verbose the information is and how easily interpreted it is in another matter, but there are differences between them. An experienced mechanic with a dealership scanner is a whole different story than you doing it with an inexpensive unit you bought from AutoZone. Point is, like a doorbell camera there is some record of the event and I am wondering if the 'events' have fallen off as a result. Cars are just different now but you'd think more vulnerable to external interference.

Assuming you do catch something on camera the other issue is that it probably won't be accepted. Digital imagery is easy to manipulate so no matter what you have a pic or video of the believers will believe the debunkers will dismiss. You state that a UFO stopped you car and the Ford mechanic verifies the incident, OK, then what?

I hate to use the term 'trickster' but there does seem to be some mercurial aspect to a lot of this. It's as if when you try to hold up a ruler against something it'll likely just poke you in the eye.
 

UfoScan

UFO scanner
> If they are capable of shutting down an entire missile sight, I'm sure they can figure out how to open a tamper proof box.

You're missing my point. The idea here is for the ET's to disable the power bank without opening the tamper-proof box. The "tamper-proof" box is for the investigator to ascertain that the alleged abductee did not tamper with it. As you say, if the aliens are capable of shutting down an entire missile site (without physically entering the site), then they most likely could shut off a power bank without tampering with the box. That itself would be an indication that something odd has happened.
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
After 2010, when I was forced to realize UFOs were real and was no longer on the fence about them, I began searching through all available historic newspaper databases looking for old accounts that would help me understand the nature of the phenomenon. I spent years executing every kind of search I could think of that would bring back accounts of old sightings and I found a lot, some of it apparently not seen in recent times. I was looking for flying object accounts, but I also ran some searches for occupants and alien beings to see if I could find some accounts beyond the known "airship" occupant accounts that we are all familiar with. There was almost nothing, except for the Mysterious Apparition.
But I did run across an interesting piece of creative writing from an Australian girl that was apparently submitted for a contest. It has a number of features similar to those in modern abduction reports and it is also interesting that the girl calls the moon at her window "a moon". Strange little story, but fun to read:

Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Sunday 3 July 1932, page 3

Queen of the Moon.jpg
 

UfoScan

UFO scanner
I had some fun watching B sci-fi movies on YouTube a while ago and stumbled upon a movie called "Killers from Space" starring a young Peter Graves. The movie dates from 1953 yet has all the elements of typical abduction accounts including missing time, bug-eyed aliens and the inevitable operating table.

Killers-from-Space-1953-4 (Small).jpg

Strange that such poor movies managed to foresee the alien abduction phenomenon !
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
I had some fun watching B sci-fi movies on YouTube a while ago and stumbled upon a movie called "Killers from Space" starring a young Peter Graves. The movie dates from 1953 yet has all the elements of typical abduction accounts including missing time, bug-eyed aliens and the inevitable operating table.

View attachment 15700

Strange that such poor movies managed to foresee the alien abduction phenomenon !
Ha! I LOVE it! Those alien costumes would be great for Halloween at work... Almost like alien Ooompa Loompas.. Beats Dalek costumes, for comfort..
Though I think this one would be super for a reference desk librarian costume:
latest



Too bad that picture you posted isn't on a meme generator!
I'd love to caption it "You're going to do WHAT with that probe?!"

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Rick Hunter

Celestial
As I recall, when NIDS did their big investigation at Skinwalker, they used what was at that time state of the art surveillance equipment. They found that something would invariably tamper with the equipment, often by simply pulling out wires. The trickster didn't leave footprints or other signs of having been there, nor did it cause unnecessary damage to the equipment. It just neatly did whatever it took to disable the camera or sensor.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Strange that such poor movies managed to foresee the alien abduction phenomenon !

Strange coincidences in similar ways always crop up, its really not proof of anything either way...

...
 

UfoScan

UFO scanner
> They found that something would invariably tamper with the equipment, often by simply pulling out wires.

Pulling out wires is something any human can do. Nowadays it would be possible to have these mini surveillance devices fully self contained in a tamper-proof box. So long as the box is tampered with in a way that a human could have done it, it leaves us not only with nothing to confirm an alien intervention but something to suggest that a human may have done the tampering.

Furthermore, nowadays, if such equipment were tampered with, it would be possible to check for DNA.
 
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