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Is it or is it not? (a UFO)
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30-05-2011 9:35pm#1I think it would be a cool idea to have thread in which UFO pictures we come across can be put and discussed, rather than having multiple threads all over the place. (for my own benefit mostly, I don't want to start a new thread every time I see a picture online that is unusual) Particularly contentious ones could get their own threads, I'm sure Damo could preform some mod magic and siphon off lengthy discussion on a single pic to a separate thread if needs be.
I'll get us started anyway,
This is apparantly the oldest UFO picture taken, and it seems an apt one to begin with... Here is a bit of a blurb from ufocasebook:1870-Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. This photo is dubbed, "the oldest UFO photograph ever taken." This item was the subject of bidding at Ebay in 2002, when finally the photo was purchased for $385.00 by Samuel M. Sherman, who was the president of Independent-International Pictures Corp. This was originally a "stereo" photograph. Certainly it was difficult to manipulate photos at that time, and remember, there were no flying objects then; at least, not from this world.
Thanks to a reader, we now have the "stereo" photo.
And some more backround info taken from here.Background Information / Description:
This photograph depicts a cloud formation over the summit of Mt. Washington in the Winter of 1870 - 1871 - along with an added surprise! One can see a cigar shaped object. This could possibly be the earliest photograph of a UFO. The image is part of an antique stereoview. The description reads "SUMMIT Mt. Washington WINTER 1870-1871 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1871, by CLOGH & KIMBALL, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington." (UFOArtwork.com)
More information about this photograph from "Filer's Files", #10-2002:
At the end of the E-bay online auction of March 4, 2002, Independent-International Pictures Corp. president Samuel M.Sherman announced that his company had won at auction the oldest known UFO photograph. After several days of feverish bidding, Sherman won the photo for his company in the last 50 seconds of the auction with a final high bid of $385. The photograph is a winter 1870 stereo (3-D) view of clouds over Mount Washington in New Hampshire. Plainly and sharply visible in the photo is a long cigar-like object. Since this is before known manned flight (with the exception of balloons - which this is not) the object will have to be ruled as a solid Unidentified Flying Object. Structure to this solid object is clearly and sharply seen in some detail as is the reflection ofthe sun off the object. The stereo view presents two images (for right and left eye) which will be helpful in further analysis of it. Sherman reported that due to the sharpness of the image it will lend itself to further copying and enlargement for study. Sherman also stated that this photograph will not be locked up in some collection, but will be submitted to scientists for detailed analysis and the results made available to the public, which he says wants answers to the UFO mystery.
And the picture itself:
Here is a zoomed in one of the object:
And finally here is a link to a bigger version of the original.
So wow! We have a real cigar shaped UFO pictured in 1870!
Eh, maybe not!
Did some more digging and came across some counter arguments, which not only claim that the picture is not of a UFO but is not even of a cloud formation!THIS IS NOT AN IMAGE OF A UFO
I stumbled across this image and could not let the assertion that this is a UFO go unchallenged. I am probably uniquely qualified to debunk this as an expert on both Mt. Washington and stereoviews of the White Mountain region of New Hampshire. I'm also a climber who has summited Mt Washington many times in all seasons including winter.
BACKGROUND
1. The image is a heavily-cropped portion of a genuine stereoview taken during the winter of 1870-1871 by photographers A F. Clough and H.A. Kimball. Cropping has removed key contextual information, which would immediately disprove this as a UFO photo.
2. From Nov 1870 to May 1871, an expedition under the US Army Signal Corps spent the winter on Mt Washington making scientific observations. There was great public interest in this adventure and their exploits were telegraphed daily. Clough and Kimball were two NH photographers attached to the expedition who made many interesting images which were distributed widely.
3. This expedition was documented in a book called "Mount Washington in Winter". It describes their research and the difficult living conditions in one of the world's most extreme environments. No UFOs or paranormal events were documented. Read it yourself here: http://books.google.com/books?id=aLmHk2fFfbQC
4. There were a number of structures on the summit at this time including two hotels, and the train depot where the observers overwintered. No wooden fences as these would blow away
5. Mt Washington is famous for its ferocious weather especially wind which sculpts snow and ice creating strange and beautiful formations which were common subjects of White Mountain stereoviews. Rime ice forms on all vertical surfaces exposed to wind and can appear milky or cloud-like.
6. In wintry conditions, ground, sky, and clouds can all blend together creating a disorienting effect on observers and climbers and it can be difficult or impossible to scale objects properly. This is why viewing a cropped image might lead some people to think they are looking at clouds.
7. I own one of these images and have seen several others. The "mystery" object is present in the original photograph and has not been caused by retouching, camera trickery, or damage.
[THE ORIGINAL IMAGE]
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?
In the foreground are frost formations on Lizzie Bourne's cairn, just below the summit of Washington on a day with high overcast. (A cairn is a purpose-built pile of rocks). This is a very close photo. The "mystery" object is only a few inches long. There is a clear demarcation between ground and sky in the background on what was a rare winter day with moderate visibility. The background below the horizon line is wind-sculpted ice and snow, not clouds.
WHAT IS THE MYSTERY OBJECT?
Using a period stereoscope or magnifying glass and/or having some familiarity with the gear and/or process a scientist would use, it is perfectly clear that the object is a wooden "standard". That's just a fancy name for a ruler, in this case, a folding ruler. Expedition members carried them to make observations like snow depth, rime accumulation, etc. They even complained about losing or breaking them in poor weather. You are looking at a ruler placed on a snow-covered cairn to scale an object in featureless terrain. Yes, it is that boring. No mystery zeppelins here. Sorry believers, it's another hoax.
Here are a few examples of folding rulers from about this period:
CONCLUSION
This is not a UFO. What you have is a not-so-clever crop of a real image by an unscrupulous person perpetuating the UFO myth. The person who cropped it probably thought he was looking at something unique, but this photo is not even especially rare.
Hmm! Interesting, so what to believe? I came accross a photo of a document which if accurate supports the latter theory.
Check this out:
Apparently this is a full list of the stereoviews in this series. As you can see the names and details match those of the photo. Look at the underlined entry, number seventeen. Supposedly that describes the stereoview of the picture we have been looking at, it says "frost architecture". That lends weight to the theory that it is a picture of an ice covered pile of rocks rather than a cloud formation. Important to note that there is no proof that the picture of the "UFO" is in fact number 17 at all. (why oh why can't there be a number on the picture itself!) But I'm inclined to believe it. (I'm trusting what is said here...)
So what do I think? I want to believe it is a UFO, but in the face of the evidence against it I don't think I can. I can't be a 100% positive, but I think thats an ice covered pile of rocks with a ruler of some kind on it.
So, does anyone else have anything to say about this picture (if I missed anything or if there are other theories out there about it let me know!), or have any other pics we could look at and discuss?1
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Here is a very recent one which cropped up over on UFO casebook...
A man took a picture of an unidentified flying object (UFO) while holidaying in the outskirts of Kunming, China.
A MAN took a picture of an unidentified flying object (UFO) while holidaying in the outskirts of Kunming, China.
He did not notice anything strange in the sky until he looked at the photographs he took later.
'I took two pictures of the scenery. When I checked them later that night, I saw three black dots hovering above the Songhua dam in one of the photos. The biggest one looked like a butterfly,' he said.
Kunming UFO Research Society president Zhang Yifang said he ruled out the biggest black spot being a kite or a bird.
'It has the saucer-like shape of a UFO. I believe it is a UFO, but I can't confirm anything with just one photograph,' he said.
Looking I that I say thats not a UFO but a moth, pretty pathetic example I have to say, really annoying how websites put crap like this across as being UFOs when they are clearly not.0 -
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Lets look at something with a bit more meat on the bone shall we?
The Battle of Los Angeles, something which to the best of my knowledge has never been sufficiently explained.
A little background info. Lets read what the newspapers had to say about it first.
Chilly Throng Watches
Shells Bursting In Sky
By Marvin Miles
Explosions stabbing the darkness like tiny bursting stars... Searchlight beams poking long crisscross fingers across the night sky...Yells of wardens and the whistles of police and deputy sheriffs...The brief on-and-off flick of lights, telephone calls, snatches of conversation: 'Get the dirty...' That was Los Angeles under the rumble of gunfire yesterday.
RESIDENTS AWAKENED
Sleepy householders awoke to the dull thud of explosions... "Thunder? Can't be!" Then: "Air Raid! Come here quick! Look over there...those searchlights. They've got something...they are blasting in with anti-aircraft!" Father, mother, children all gathered on the front porch, congregated in small clusters in the blacked out streets -- against orders. Babies cried, dogs barked, doors slammed. But the object in the sky slowly moved on, caught in the center of the lights like the hub of a bicycle wheel surrounded by gleaming spokes.
SPECULATION RIFE
Speculation fell like rain. "It's a whole squadron." "No, it's a blimp. It must be because it's moving so slowly." "I hear planes." "No you don't. That's a truck up the street." "Where are the planes then?" "Dunno. They must be up there though." "Wonder why they picked such a clear night for a raid?" "They're probably from a carrier." "Naw, I'll bet they are from a secret air base down south somewhere." Still the firing continued. Like lethal firecrackers, the anti-aircraft rounds blasted above, below, seemingly right on the target fixed in the tenacious beams. Other shots fell short, exploding halfway up the long climb. Tracers sparked upward like roman candles. Metal fell. It fell in chunks, large and small; not enemy metal, but the whistling fragments of bursting ack-ack shells. The menacing thud and clank on streets and roof tops drove many spectators to shelter.
WARDENS DO GOOD JOB
Wardens were on the job, doing a good job of it. "Turn off your lights, please. Pull over to the curb and stop. Don't use your telephone. Take shelter. Take shelter." On every street brief glares of hooded flashlights cut the darkness, warning creeping drivers to stop. Police watched at main intersections. Sirens wailed enroute to and from blackout accidents. There came lulls in the firing. The search lights went out. (To allow the fighter planes to attack?). Angelinos breathed deeply and said, "I guess it's all over." But before they could tell their neighbors good night, the guns were blasting again, sighting up the long blue beams of the lights.
WATCHERS SHIVER
The fire seemed to burst in rings all around the target. But the eager watchers, shivering in the early morning cold, weren't rewarded by the sight of a falling plane. Nor were there any bombs dropped. "Maybe it's just a test," someone remarked. "Test, hell!" was the answer. "You don't throw that much metal in the air unless you're fixing on knocking something down." Still the firing continued, muttering angrily off toward the west like a distant thunderstorm. The targeted object inched along high, flanked by the cherry red explosions. And the householders shivered in their robes, their faces set, watching the awesome scene.
Army Says Alarm Real
Roaring Guns Mark Blackout
Identity of Aircraft Veiled in Mystery; No Bombs Dropped and
No Enemy Craft Hit; Civilians Reports Seeing Planes and Balloon
Overshadowing a nation-wide maelstrom of rumors and conflicting reports, the Army's Western Defense Command insisted that Los Angeles' early morning blackout and anti-aircraft action were the result of unidentified aircraft sighted over the beach area. In two official statements, issued while Secretary of the Navy Knox in Washington was attributing the activity to a false alarm and "jittery nerves," the command in San Francisco confirmed and reconfirmed the presence over the Southland of unidentified planes. Relayed by the Southern California sector office in Pasadena, the second statement read: "The aircraft which caused the blackout in the Los Angeles area for several hours this a.m. have not been identified." Insistence from official quarters that the alarm was real came as hundreds of thousands of citizens who heard and saw the activity spread countless varying stories of the episode. The spectacular anti-aircraft barrage came after the 14th Interceptor Command ordered the blackout when strange craft were reported over the coastline. Powerful searchlights from countless stations stabbed the sky with brilliant probing fingers while anti-aircraft batteries dotted the heavens with beautiful, if sinister, orange bursts of shrapnel.
City Blacked Out For Hours
The city was blacked out from 2:25 to 7:21 am after an earlier yellow alert at 7:18 pm was called off at 10:23 pm. The blackout was in effect from here to the Mexican border and inland to the San Joaquin Valley. No bombs were dropped and no airplanes shot down and, miraculously in terms of the tons of missiles hurled aloft, only two persons were reported wounded by falling shell fragments. Countless thousands of Southland residents, many of whom were late to work because of the traffic tie-up during the blackout, rubbed their eyes sleepily yesterday and agreed that regardless of the question of how "real" the air raid alarm may have been, it was "a great show" and "well worth losing a few hours' sleep." The blackout was not without its casualties, however. A State Guardsman died of a heart attack while driving an ammunition truck, heart failure also accounted for the death of an air raid warden on duty, a woman was killed in a car-truck collision in Arcadia, and a Long Beach policeman was killed in a traffic crash enroute to duty. Much of the firing appeared to come from the vicinity of aircraft plants along the coastal area of Santa Monica, Inglewood, Southwest Los Angeles, and Long Beach.
And of course we have a picture of the object in question:
This is the original unedited photo
Looking at the picture it is clear that there is something there which the beams are focused on. Proof of that is the fact that the beams don't continue on past the spot where they converge. They are illuminating something. You can see the shells that were fired in the picture too. The question is, what is it?
Here is an explanation from – The Army Air Forces in World War II, prepared under the editorship of Wesley Frank Craven, James Lea Cate. v.1, pp. 277-286, Washington, D.C. : Office of Air Force History : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 1983.
Get the full PDF here: http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/fulltext/aaf_wwii-v1.pdf"The Battle of Los Angeles" During the night of 24/25 February 1942, unidentified objects caused a succession of alerts in southern California. On the 24th, a warning issued by naval intelligence indicated that an attack could be expected within the next ten hours. That evening a large number of flares and blinking lights were reported from the vicinity of defense plants. An alert called at 1918 [7:18 p.m., Pacific time] was lifted at 2223, and the tension temporarily relaxed. But early in the morning of the 25th renewed activity began. Radars picked up an unidentified target 120 miles west of Los Angeles. Antiaircraft batteries were alerted at 0215 and were put on Green Alert—ready to fire—a few minutes later. The AAF kept its pursuit planes on the ground, preferring to await indications of the scale and direction of any attack before committing its limited fighter force. Radars tracked the approaching target to within a few miles of the coast, and at 0221 the regional controller ordered a blackout.
Thereafter the information center was flooded with reports of "enemy planes, " even though the mysterious object tracked in from sea seems to have vanished. At 0243, planes were reported near Long Beach, and a few minutes later a coast artillery colonel spotted "about 25 planes at 12,000 feet" over Los Angeles. At 0306 a balloon carrying a red flare was seen over Santa Monica and four batteries of anti-aircraft artillery opened fire, whereupon "the air over Los Angeles erupted like a volcano." From this point on reports were hopelessly at variance. Probably much of the confusion came from the fact that anti-aircraft shell bursts, caught by the searchlights, were themselves mistaken for enemy planes.
In any case, the next three hours produced some of the most imaginative reporting of the war: "swarms" of planes (or, sometimes, balloons) of all possible sizes, numbering from one to several hundred, traveling at altitudes which ranged from a few thousand feet to more than 20,000 and flying at speeds which were said to have varied from "very slow" to over 200 miles per hour, were observed to parade across the skies. These mysterious forces dropped no bombs and, despite the fact that 1,440 rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition were directed against them, suffered no losses.
There were reports, to be sure, that four enemy planes had been shot down, and one was supposed to have landed in flames at a Hollywood intersection. Residents in a forty-mile arc along the coast watched from hills or rooftops as the play of guns and searchlights provided the first real drama of the war for citizens of the mainland. The dawn, which ended the shooting and the fantasy, also proved that the only damage which resulted to the city was such as had been caused by the excitement (there was at least one death from heart failure), by traffic accidents in the blacked-out streets, or by shell fragments from the artillery barrage. Attempts to arrive at an explanation of the incident quickly became as involved and mysterious as the "battle" itself.
The Navy immediately insisted that there was no evidence of the presence of enemy planes, and [Secretary of the Navy], Frank Knox announced at a press conference on 25 February that the raid was just a false alarm. At the same conference he admitted that attacks were always possible and indicated that vital industries located along the coast ought to be moved inland. The Army had a hard time making up its mind on the cause of the alert. A report to Washington, made by the Western Defense Command shortly after the raid had ended, indicated that the credibility of reports of an attack had begun to be shaken before the blackout was lifted. This message predicted that developments would prove "that most previous reports had been greatly exaggerated." The Fourth Air Force had indicated its belief that there were no planes over Los Angeles. But the Army did not publish these initial conclusions. Instead, it waited a day, until after a thorough examination of witnesses had been finished. On the basis of these hearings, local commanders altered their verdict and indicated a belief that from one to five unidentified airplanes had been over Los Angeles. Secretary Stimson announced this conclusion as the War Department version of the incident, and he advanced two theories to account for the mysterious craft: either they were commercial planes operated by an enemy from secret fields in California or Mexico, or they were light planes launched from Japanese submarines. In either case, the enemy’s purpose must have been to locate anti-aircraft defenses in the area or to deliver a blow at civilian morale. The divergence of views between the War and Navy departments, and the unsatisfying conjectures advanced by the Army to explain the affair, touched off a vigorous public discussion. The Los Angeles Times, in a first-page editorial on 26 February, announced that "the considerable public excitement and confusion" caused by the alert, as well as its "spectacular official accompaniments," demanded a careful explanation. Fears were expressed lest a few phony raids undermine the confidence of civilian volunteers in the aircraft warning service. In Congress, Representative Leland Ford wanted to know whether the incident was "a practice raid, or a raid to throw a scare into 2,000,000 people, or a mistaken identity raid, or a raid to take away Southern California’s war industries."
Wendell Willkie, speaking in Los Angeles on 26 February, assured Californians on the basis of his experiences in England that when a real air raid began "you won’t have to argue about it—you’ll just know." He conceded that military authorities had been correct in calling a precautionary alert but deplored the lack of agreement between the Army and Navy. A strong editorial in the Washington Post on 27 February called the handling of the Los Angeles episode a "recipe for jitters," and censured the military authorities for what it called "stubborn silence" in the face of widespread uncertainty. The editorial suggested that the Army’s theory that commercial planes might have caused the alert "explains everything except where the planes came from, whither they were going, and why no American planes were sent in pursuit of them." The New York Times on 28 February expressed a belief that the more the incident was studied, the more incredible it became: "If the batteries were firing on nothing at all, as Secretary Knox implies, it is a sign of expensive incompetence and jitters. If the batteries were firing on real planes, some of them as low as 9,000 feet, as Secretary Stimson declares, why were they completely ineffective? Why did no American planes go up to engage them, or even to identify them?... What would have happened if this had been a real air raid?" These questions were appropriate, but for the War Department to have answered them in full frankness would have involved an even more complete revelation of the weakness of our air defenses.
At the end of the war, the Japanese stated that they did not send planes over the area at the time of this alert, although submarine-launched aircraft were subsequently used over Seattle. A careful study of the evidence suggests that meteorological balloons—known to have been released over Los Angeles —may well have caused the initial alarm. This theory is supported by the fact that anti-aircraft artillery units were officially criticized for having wasted ammunition on targets which moved too slowly to have been airplanes. After the firing started, careful observation was difficult because of drifting smoke from shell bursts. The acting commander of the anti-aircraft artillery brigade in the area testified that he had first been convinced that he had seen fifteen planes in the air, but had quickly decided that he was seeing smoke. Competent correspondents like Ernie Pyle and Bill Henry witnessed the shooting and wrote that they were never able to make out an airplane. It is hard to see, in any event, what enemy purpose would have been served by an attack in which no bombs were dropped, unless perhaps, as Mr. Stimson suggested, the purpose had been reconnaissance.
Meteorological or barrage balloons seem to be the popular arguments from skeptics and official sources. How on earth can so many rounds be fired at a balloon, travelling slowly, while illuminated by searchlights, without it being shot down?
I find that unlikely in the extreme.
Could it be that this was a mass sighting of an ET UFO? There are eyewitness accounts out there which support this theory.
Personally speaking I don't think it was a balloon. There is no way one could survive an hour of shelling. Is it a UFO? Most certainly, its unidentified. Is it aliens? Maybe.
If it was not a balloon, if it was not a Japanese plane, if it was not an American plane, what else could it have been?
For those interested here is a piece which analyses the photograph. I haven't read it all yet, but it takes a diligent approach to analyzing the photograph.
http://www.ufodigest.com/article/battle-los-angeles-photo-analysis-dr-bruce-maccabee-phd
Dr Bruce Maccabee contributes.
Some people even theorize that the UFO was shot down into the sea, subsequently recovered by the American government, and hidden away and examined and reverse engineered by scientists. A precursor to Roswell which helps explain how the Americans knew what they were dealing with and how they were able to react so quickly. They knew what to expect as they had dealt with it before.
I think this is a very hard case to debunk and seems to be a very important piece of evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial visits.
Does anybody have any theories or opinions?0 -
Theres a movie being released about that actual event this year, Not to be confused with the blockbuster "Battle: Los angeles" ,it's called "The battle of Los Angles"
Looks good can't wait.:D0 -
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This is a good "UFO" shot from the same site except that if you go to this site you find that the photo was simply a photomontage stuck in the Italian weekly L’Europeo on the supposition that someone saw something over the Vatican. This is on just about every ufo site on the net.0 -
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This is a good "UFO" shot from the same site except that if you go to this site you find that the photo was simply a photomontage stuck in the Italian weekly L’Europeo on the supposition that someone saw something over the Vatican. This is on just about every ufo site on the net.
Hi - welcome to the forum
As you may not have noticed, this thread is quite old, & all but one of its contributors have closed their accounts at this stage. To stimulate discussion more, it would be best if you create a new thread, as opposed to bumping one this old
Locked0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYRgaItP9gs
This discussion has been closed.
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