I'm sure this photo is easy to explain...

originally posted by: CrawlingKingsnake

"More photos. Variables like speed and direction of travel of the second object, for start. Multiple angles, these types of information would be helpful in determining what the second object is and if it is even interacting with the helicopters in any way".

apparently I wasn't clear in my earlier posts. Not only did my friend not see this apparent object at the time he was taking the photo, but the helicopters DID NOT appear to notice it either. So it is not believed they were in pursuit of it.

The photo is what it is. There's no real "story" behind it to answer your questions. maybe you were saying there isn't enough information to speculate based on just looking at the photo, and you would be correct. But I posted more for people to play with and enhance the photo itself.

I wasn't asking questions. You asked me what kind of information would be helpful in determining what was going on here. I already know you don't have this information. I was just saying that the information would be helpful if there was any such information.

originally posted by: ArMaP
For those saying that all the helicopters have the rotors in the same position, only the first and the third have them in similar positions, as this animation shows.
The helicopters were numbered from 1 to 4 from left to right.

Thank You! I would have done something like this, but I don't know how, nor do I have the software. But it shouldn't take a .gif to be able to see this obvious fact. But, unfortunately, you have to go to great and unnecessary lengths to deny the ignorance of some.

You know damn well you just found this picture on the internet. This is the works of a skunk.

originally posted by: 3u40r15m
You know damn well you just found this picture on the internet. This is the works of a skunk.

is it? I wouldn't have found a better picture or put together a better story behind it if I were out to create this large deception? I'm sorry for whatever it is in your life now or in your past that causes you to have such contempt for someone who is simply posting a picture that I found to be interesting, if only because of the "backdrop" that was a part of something likely very normal.

originally posted by: CrawlingKingsnake

originally posted by: 3u40r15m
You know damn well you just found this picture on the internet. This is the works of a skunk.

is it? I wouldn't have found a better picture or put together a better story behind it if I were out to create this large deception? I'm sorry for whatever it is in your life now or in your past that causes you to have such contempt for someone who is simply posting a picture that I found to be interesting, if only because of the "backdrop" that was a part of something likely very normal.

I'm not sure what to say to that....... huh....

originally posted by: 3u40r15m

originally posted by: CrawlingKingsnake

originally posted by: 3u40r15m
You know damn well you just found this picture on the internet. This is the works of a skunk.

is it? I wouldn't have found a better picture or put together a better story behind it if I were out to create this large deception? I'm sorry for whatever it is in your life now or in your past that causes you to have such contempt for someone who is simply posting a picture that I found to be interesting, if only because of the "backdrop" that was a part of something likely very normal.

I'm not sure what to say to that....... huh....

maybe I misread your post somehow, but it appeared to me you were saying I pulled the picture off the internet with the intent to deceive. It's hard sometimes to infer tone or different writing styles, so I apologize if I was off base.

originally posted by: CrawlingKingsnake

originally posted by: 3u40r15m

originally posted by: CrawlingKingsnake

originally posted by: 3u40r15m
You know damn well you just found this picture on the internet. This is the works of a skunk.

is it? I wouldn't have found a better picture or put together a better story behind it if I were out to create this large deception? I'm sorry for whatever it is in your life now or in your past that causes you to have such contempt for someone who is simply posting a picture that I found to be interesting, if only because of the "backdrop" that was a part of something likely very normal.

I'm not sure what to say to that....... huh....

maybe I misread your post somehow, but it appeared to me you were saying I pulled the picture off the internet with the intent to deceive. It's hard sometimes to infer tone or different writing styles, so I apologize if I was off base.

Lol no you weren't off base, that is what I was implying, I was half joking. But I just didn't expect you're reply to be so serene... Stifled me

Oh come on, for real. You must know?!!!! This is precisely what you think it is, though even with those choppers, one can't be sure, are they confronting or guarding one of their own.

But it looks like confronting. However that craft can vanish in a nano flash.

originally posted by: 3u40r15m

originally posted by: CrawlingKingsnake

originally posted by: 3u40r15m

originally posted by: CrawlingKingsnake

originally posted by: 3u40r15m
You know damn well you just found this picture on the internet. This is the works of a skunk.

is it? I wouldn't have found a better picture or put together a better story behind it if I were out to create this large deception? I'm sorry for whatever it is in your life now or in your past that causes you to have such contempt for someone who is simply posting a picture that I found to be interesting, if only because of the "backdrop" that was a part of something likely very normal.

I'm not sure what to say to that....... huh....

maybe I misread your post somehow, but it appeared to me you were saying I pulled the picture off the internet with the intent to deceive. It's hard sometimes to infer tone or different writing styles, so I apologize if I was off base.

Lol no you weren't off base, that is what I was implying, I was half joking. But I just didn't expect you're reply to be so serene... Stifled me

Either way, I love this reply.

Very nice photo! Is it just me, or are the sightings picking up recently? There was another set of photos posted today that are also interesting.

I'm really curious as to what this is.

originally posted by: Rob48
a reply to: groingrinder

More like proved it's been JPEG compressed at some point.

Do people never blow up their own photos? If they did they'd see these artefacts all the time.

But do they see them with a perfect square around them? Look closer my friend and you will see the jagged edge of compression around the copters, but a perfect square around the object in question. This is indicative of a cut and paste.

a reply to: CrawlingKingsnake

I was wondering if your friend took this on a cell camera or a seperate camera? I don't know enough about photo enhancing or photoshop to help with details like that, but it might help some of the people here do a better analysis to have that info.
I love the pic. I'm headed to the desert SW soon and hope to see, and take blurry pics of, tons of aircraft.
The main reason I'm replying, though, is to tell you:
AWESOME thread title!
Too funny, I LOL'ed!
Thanks for sharing the pic.

originally posted by: groingrinder
But do they see them with a perfect square around them? Look closer my friend and you will see the jagged edge of compression around the copters, but a perfect square around the object in question. This is indicative of a cut and paste.

It's not a perfect square, but even if it was, if it's a 8 x 8 pixels square, with mixed shades of one colour, it's more likely to be a JPEG artefact than a sign of something that was copied and pasted (how many times do you make a perfectly square selection around an object you want to copy?)

In the image below (that was cropped from the image in the OP and had the levels changed to make de individual pixels more noticeable) you can see that the area where the "UFO" appears is made up of 8 x 8 pixels blocks.



The fact that there's an extra block to the right of the "UFO" because of just one pixel that was out of the previous (to the left) 8 x 8 square shows that this is a result of the JPEG compression, as even just one pixel has to be processed in an 8 x 8 pixels block.

originally posted by: anniquity
a reply to: CrawlingKingsnake

I was wondering if your friend took this on a cell camera or a seperate camera? I don't know enough about photo enhancing or photoshop to help with details like that, but it might help some of the people here do a better analysis to have that info.
I love the pic. I'm headed to the desert SW soon and hope to see, and take blurry pics of, tons of aircraft.

The main reason I'm replying, though, is to tell you:
AWESOME thread title!
Too funny, I LOL'ed!
Thanks for sharing the pic.

It was taken with a Nikon something...500 maybe? So a separate camera, which I believe is DSLR.

Thank you on the thread title compliment! It's my first thread, besides my introduction thread, so it's nice to have received a shout out.

originally posted by: ArMaP

originally posted by: groingrinder
But do they see them with a perfect square around them? Look closer my friend and you will see the jagged edge of compression around the copters, but a perfect square around the object in question. This is indicative of a cut and paste.

It's not a perfect square, but even if it was, if it's a 8 x 8 pixels square, with mixed shades of one colour, it's more likely to be a JPEG artefact than a sign of something that was copied and pasted (how many times do you make a perfectly square selection around an object you want to copy?)

In the image below (that was cropped from the image in the OP and had the levels changed to make de individual pixels more noticeable) you can see that the area where the "UFO" appears is made up of 8 x 8 pixels blocks.

The fact that there's an extra block to the right of the "UFO" because of just one pixel that was out of the previous (to the left) 8 x 8 square shows that this is a result of the JPEG compression, as even just one pixel has to be processed in an 8 x 8 pixels block.

OK SO IT IS NOT A SQUARE. [color=#CC0000]Notice the perfectly straight sides. Does that not scream something is amiss here?

originally posted by: groingrinder
OK SO IT IS NOT A SQUARE. [color=#CC0000]Notice the perfectly straight sides. Does that not scream something is amiss here?

Yes, something is amiss, your comprehension of what I wrote, maybe I used the wrong words in my explanation.

originally posted by: gavron
A quick look in photoshop shows a rather sloppy cut/paste job on the helicopters and especially the "ufo". This is just a fake, and a pretty bad one at that.

I use PS CS5 on a reg basis...Can you tell me how you came to this conclusion? Just curious as how you are able to determine the photo has been cut and pasted in PS. Thanks.

originally posted by: groingrinder
OK SO IT IS NOT A SQUARE. [color=#CC0000]Notice the perfectly straight sides. Does that not scream something is amiss here?

Nope, not at all. It scream jpeg compression.

Its really simple. If a jpeg pixel is the color blue and the pixel next to it is very close to the color blue, you decide that yes, both of the pixels are the same color blue. Congratulations, you just saved information. Its now 2xblue instead of blue #1 and blue #2. Then you run that algorithm a gazillion times. The reason the "ufo" (most likely a bird of bug) has sharp corners is because you *cannot* compress the data on these 8x8 grids. The colors differ too much. The rest of the 8x8 grids have "averaged" colors. IE close enough to what the original was, mostly just blue.

Imagine a 3x3 pixel image of the moon. Its going to be 8 black pixels and 1 grey pixel, right? No matter how you do, you're never going to get rid of that grey pixel. You cant compress it. If you did, it'd be an entirely black image and you lost all information. And no matter where you place that grey pixel, you're going to end up with sharp edges. Exact same thing as the zoom above.

Excuse my somewhat non-technical explanation, I honestly have no idea how jpeg algorithms look like in code, but I know what the final result look like, lol.

a reply to: merka

Yes, and here's a simple illustration.

On the left, a photo showing a bird silhouetted against the sky, as in the OP's pic. On the right, the same image saved as a JPEG with fairly heavy compression. No cutting, no pasting, just compression.



Note the tell-tale 8 x 8 blocks.

If you wanted to cut and paste the bird, you wouldn't do it as a series of squares, you'd just select it and paste it in. This was a quick rough-and-ready job, but you can see that you don't end up with 8 x 8 squares around it!

They say a picture says a thousand words... Ill let this speak for its self.



Just my humble opinion. Keep lookin up.