RARE microfilms of UFO documents now online – APRO, US Air Force etc (PDF archives)

a reply to: IsaacKoi

Just a tip for those looking at these files. If you find some of them are hard to read from being faded. Then copy the image into paint and then invert the colors. The text converted to white on a black background becomes much easier to read.

originally posted by: GrimReaper86
Just a tip for those looking at these files. If you find some of them are hard to read from being faded. Then copy the image into paint and then invert the colors. The text converted to white on a black background becomes much easier to read.

Interesting. I'll certainly give that a try.

Some of the images certainly need some enhancement to render them legible (particularly with images on the APRO Reel - but much less frequently on the US Air Force Varied UFO reel).

Thank you for the tip.

I'd like to know how these were converted from film to .pdf.

Were the documents on roll film scanned directly, or were hard copies made and then scanned?

Edit: Also, were these microfilm or microfiche?

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
I'd like to know how these were converted from film to .pdf.

Were the documents on roll film scanned directly, or were hard copies made and then scanned?

Edit: Also, were these microfilm or microfiche?

Steve Kaeser arranged for the material to be converted from microfilm using a commercial service which provided (1) image files and (2) unsearchable PDF versions of the images.

The searchable PDFs in this thread were created from the image files after enhancing the images. The precise enhancements varied from microfilm to microfilm depending on the quality of the scans and the steps that were necessary/possible to enhance the scanned images (e.g. resizing them, increasing contrast etc).

The enhanced images were then run through Adobe Acrobat's OCR function to render them searchable.

As I mentioned in my OP, Russian researcher Mikhail Gershtein provided very useful assistance in relation to enhancement of the images.

I hope this answers your questions. I can provide more technical details if anyone cares.

By the way, there are a lot more microfilms to be scanned - so any thoughts on improving the process would be welcome.

a reply to: IsaacKoi

Isaac , do you have a few pictures of the microfilm? its condition may be of significance as to why your having white out problems , asides from condition , each slide will have a different brightness/contrast/alteration given the varying conditions of their taking and reproduction , with worded documents this might be due to fading of text , many of them may have to be retouched in Photoshop, i.e. like I did poorly/ but quickly, to one of the documents in the posted slide show (rubbing soot into paper marks) it can be done more professionally than this but it is more time consuming and needs high degrees of accuracy and adjustments to achieve quality

I can help you with this , but that many documents is work

what software do you use to scan, resize?

funbox

originally posted by: funbox
Isaac , do you have a few pictures of the microfilm?

I'll have to raise some of these points with Steve Kaeser over the weekend.

I'll get back to you.

a reply to: IsaacKoi

no worries , in the meantime , ill take the very worst ,and apply some freshly squeezed gif juice , pixel manipulation is getting quite something these days see what I can rekindle

one from the Apro



files.abovetopsecret.com...



files.abovetopsecret.com...

funbox

a reply to: IsaacKoi

Thanks for the info mate.

IK you are my truest ATS crush. Steve Kaeser comes a distant second off in the distance for putting these files together.

Since the previous temporary links have lapsed, I've temporarily re-uploaded the material in the OP to the following links:

Parts 6 and 7 of the non-reduced version of APRO Microfilm Reel 1 are at:
we.tl...

I've uploaded the larger (non-reduced) version of the other Parts to:
we.tl...



For those less fanatical about getting the best possible copy, I've
re-uploaded the reduced-filesize version of APRO Microfilm Reel 1 to:
we.tl...



For good measure, I've re-uploaded the "Varied UFO" Reel to:
we.tl...

I've also re-uploaded the Canadian reel to:
we.tl...

Very interesting! Didn't really pay much attention to this thread until now..that'll be some nice lecture for these cold days

Very nice post IssacKoi, I can't wait till I can sit down in peace and read through these a little better. I'm not new to this site, but this is my first post. If you or anyone ever needs any help cleaning up images I'm a graphic artist. Just shoot me a message.

hi

this is somewhat related, but does anyone know if any data from Snowden come out.

Isaac, you are The Man! Im about to learn so much from this thread and your top 100 list, thank you for compiling this, and sharing your expertise. This is deep!

very informative , thanks

Nice find. Thanks.

Project Blue Book

The Inquisition.

Deep dive boys.

a reply to: IsaacKoi

Thanks for the tip. But is every other word a thick black marker line? lol.

Anyway, archive.org has a bunch of stuff released from the F_B_I and N_S_A. Here's an archive.org search for you to go through.