Live data from Hacker News

Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

petapixel.com

241–250 of 401 posts

Re: Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

#241
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He says literally the opposite thing, and at great, tedious length.

He says that it is glare, at tedious length. As of last year he thought it was the exhaust of another aircraft[1], plus he has stated his goal is to debunk UFO videos. He could have spent some of his tedious length and extensive reconstruction demonstrating the apparent position and velocity of that other plane, but he chose to spend it going on about what he should think is an inconsequential detail. [ 1 https://www…

He says it is glare, yes, but he also references other IR camera footage to provide other examples of glare. And in each of the examples there is an object that is the source of the heat glare (e.g. a burning car).

I had also never heard of this incident before. My takeaway from the video: There's a camera glare artifact around an object; the motion of the object has to be understood while taking the camera gimbal system's actions into account. The next step would be to model the object's motion while doing so and checking if it's doing anything interesting.

I agree the video would be better if it made any effort to get into that. It's like Part I to a two-part story!

Re: Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

#242
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have what appears to be a shiny floating object. What data do we have that can't be explained by a shiny balloon?

I might be overly pedantic with this point but saying a shiny balloon fits the limited data we have, doesn't mean it was a shiny balloon. The thing that bothers me the most about this sort of discussions is that it's all done on "paper"[1]. It would be helpful to actually release a balloon, or whatever object you think it was, and check if you can reproduce the glare and other sensor data. If it's very easy to reprod…

Of course being consistent with an explanation doesn't mean it definitely is that thing. But being consistent with a mundane thing means it looks the way it would look if it was the mundane thing.

It's very normal to not be able to prove what caused an event. This morning I heard a sound, it sounded pretty much exactly like a car horn, but maybe it was something else. We'll probably never know.

It's an excellent point that any organization serious about determining the cause would be conducting experiments, I can go honk some car horns and see if I find one that sounds similar. It doesn't seem like that happens with "UAP research", or the US Navy

Re: Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

#243
post #171

Isn't he only debunking the image that appeared on the video as being glare as opposed to the actual object? So the object is real, but what appeared in the video is glare, not an actual representation of the object? West contends that what is being seen in the video is actually infrared glare that hides a hot object behind it and only rotates in the way it does because the camera rotates when tracking the target fro…

UFO-ers were using things like the rotation speed as definitive evidence of some like other-worldly advanced technology. Demonstrating that it was the glare/gimble brings it back into the realm of just a normal far-away plane. It also casts doubt on the expertise of the pilots/military who didn't realize what happened.

Except they had RADAR locks, experienced jamming, and had visual identification in some cases.

The whole “lens flare from a far away plane” hypothesis has been throughly debunked. You have to ignore evidence to reach that conclusion.

Re: Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

#244
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mick West is a buffoon, and his “debunking” videos intentionally mislead his audience. I say this because he has had this explained to him again and again but he still ignores evidence. When you have infrared, multiple radar, and visual observations simultaneously of an object and pretend all you have is a grainy infrared video REPEATEDLY it goes beyond skepticism into deceit.

We have a grainy infrared video, and claims of other infrared, radar and visual observations. Claims are easy to make and hard to analyze. Video is all we can analyze, and the video is unconvincing. Why then should we believe the claims?

We have incredibly strong claims that lead to congressional hearings and classified reports to Congress. The public videos are heavily redacted and lower quality than the classified ones.

So is your claim that they’re all lying? Is Congress in on it?

Re: Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

#245
post #92
post #63

Sitting here knowing we have a helicopter and a land rover on Mars it doesn't feel like it's entirely impossible for an alien craft to be here, looking at us. I can't make the leap to believe without doubt there is, or even to believe there probably is. But it is not impossible. We've already proved it's not, and we're not really all that smart.

Yup, that's kind of where I am at. I think I lean more towards "this definitely isn't aliens", but if it's aliens then I definitely think these are unmanned drones keeping an eye on us.

Von Neumann probes is the most likely explanation IMO.

Re: Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

#246

Lens glare tracked by radar. That's a new one.

The claim isn't that there is no flying object. The glare accounts for its appearance.

So when the pilot says “it’s rotating!” And the lens flare rotates with it, that’s just a coincidence? The far-away-plane hypothesis would have the exhaust as a point source. The lens flare would maintain it’s orientation as the plane rolled.

Re: Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about this whole story (I'm not a UFO person) and am learning most of what I know about it from this video and this thread, but: the people saying that this video depicts an actual object rotating in the sky appear to be making the extraordinary claim here: the connection between the rotation and the camera system seems compelling. The horizon is moving as the camera/plane moves; the object is not m…

> The shape we're looking at is, in part, an artifact of the camera, unless the aliens are somehow reprogramming the camera to fuck with us. It's possible the IR glare is an intentional countermeasure produced by the craft. It might sound far-fetched, but the military can already jam some cameras already, and they apparently license this technology too: https://techlinkcenter.org/technologies/selective-camera-jam...…

It would have to be a countermeasure that not only produces glare, but does so in a way that precisely tracks the orientation of the rotating camera on the F18. Again: an extraordinary claim; it's not impossible, but you'd need evidence to make it persuasive.

Re: Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

#248

It is bewildering that they expect people to actually believe intelligent people to discount the IR footage from the F-18 just based on this article that reads like the "it was a weather balloon" trope we often get whenever we ask questions. edit: holy crap, there are actually lot of people on HN buying it!

I for one get really annoyed with the people who go “it’s aliens!” every time, but the cynical “debooonkers” that will seemingly go to any length to say it’s _not_ aliens bother me even more.

We simply need more information.

Re: Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

#249
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He says literally the opposite thing, and at great, tedious length.

He says that it is glare, at tedious length. As of last year he thought it was the exhaust of another aircraft[1], plus he has stated his goal is to debunk UFO videos. He could have spent some of his tedious length and extensive reconstruction demonstrating the apparent position and velocity of that other plane, but he chose to spend it going on about what he should think is an inconsequential detail. [ 1 https://www…

He says that it's glare produced by an object that the plane is tracking. He does not say that the entire phenomenon is glare; he says the opposite of that. The level of parsing you're doing here dwarfs whatever tone you picked up from the video itself.

Re: Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

#250
post #2

So the anomaly that the carrier group tracked, then scrambled fighter jets for. The object that four different pilots saw visually, and was confirmed on multiple different sensors. That was camera glare? The video is only one piece of the evidence. The pilots are trained, and other sensor systems confirmed what the camera was showing. This analysis is pretty flimsy.

^This is the key point. These objects have been tracked on radar, FLIR, and multiple pilot witness testimony off both coasts for decades now. Attempting to debunk a single one of these three leaked videos is pointless because they do not show the entire context of the events happening. I implore everyone to watch these two interviews with Christopher Melon, the former Deputy Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. And…

“Christopher Mellon served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. He is a private equity investor and an adviser to the To the Stars Academy for Arts and Science”

Equity investor. No conflicts there!

“in our restricted military airspace”

In fact, they’re actually the most heavily instrumented research, development, test and training areas on the planet. Let me repeat that: research, development and test.

https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrsw/installations/navbas...

What an incredible coincidence. Alien trolls or Occam’s razor?

And with all that, all we get are appeals to authority and fuzzy pics.

It’s akin to “Air Force pilots bewildered by objects over Area 51, must be aliens!”

Post reply on HN