UFO "Hunting" - What do I need?

Hi, I was wondering, what is the best equipment to bring
sky-watching if you are looking for UFOs.

Is it worth it to buy a camera capable of recording infrared
or ultraviolet light?

Sorry if these are stupid questions or if they have been
answered before.

Thanks,
Alien42

I would suggest some sort of recording equipment, like a video recorder... preferably digital. You might want to bring along some sort of protection, and I've heard through works such as "The Mothman Prophecies" by John Keel (the good book, not the bad movie) that UFOs and subjects of the paranormal are attracted to women who are menstruating. But so are bears. So be careful, and carry a large stick.


PS. THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTION!!!!!! ^_^;;

After watching countless videos I would like to submit that the single most important piece of equipment might be a TRIPOD. Even if you see something totally alien to your experience, it isn't enough to have your camera ready to go and your "evidence" will be slaughtered.

With a tripod though, at least no one will get sick to their stomach trying to debunk it...

May I suggest a very open mind and be prepared for anything! Once you sit for an extended period of time, you'll be amazed at all the things that are moving around. Quite sirene too, well depending on where you are!
One word of caution too, not any and everything that moves, flickers, strobes, etc.. is a UFO or aliens. Then again, maybe it is and they could be sneaking up on you right now!

And oh, by the way..here's a related thread that may be of interest to you!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Tally Ho, good hunting.....Peace, Mondo

[edit on 22-3-2007 by Mondogiwa]

Go UV..IR is a disinfo campaign ...just my opinion

iS tHERE a telescope lens that can be fitted to a cam corder?????
That would be nice....

Anybody know who sells really long telescopic lenses like those ones that sports photographers have but for cam corders? or maybe even one of those "stubby" telescopes that can accept a camccorder input???????

That way you may get more than a six pixel blob for the debunkers to look at....
Though lugging it around will be fun....

Also i agree with the tripod....

I like using the JohnBro technique. It is when you aim your camcorder toward the rays of the Sun, Not directly at the Sun. You will need to block the Sun out with the awning of your house or garage and only tape into the rays of the Sun. I found my first UFO taping that way.

Here is a link to JohnBro's website. It will help to explain how to use this technique.

johnbro.com...

Good Luck.

Telescope Lens is too strange ~it is not a good option to look at UFO~ becoz you can not easy to get the tiny point of light into your telescope (if you have a star finder beside~ may be better)~ if the light is staible~ it might be a little chance to see it in the telescope~ if you wanna see moving object. I dont think it is easy~
I prefer to use Zoon Lens~ when you catch the object in cam~ zoom in slowly is better~

Tripod, one of these babies:


image source: http://www.dropshippernetwork.com/assets/images/sony-alpha100-300.jpg

I would avoid a telephoto lens for moving UFOs — telephoto will drive you crazy unless the target object is stationary, hovering. I mean, keep a telephoto setup nearby, but don't depend on it.

You're going to hate hearing this, but avoid using a digital camera. Digital images are wide-open to hoaxing, and you'll have a lot of trouble convincing anyone that your digital images aren't retouched.

Avoid using cameras with automatic focus features. I think manual focus and manual aperatures are more reliable.

I would recommend a 35mm Single Lens Reflex (SLR) film camera with a tripod and remote shutter release. Use high-speed, low-light film.

And, if you can afford some serious hardware, you should take a look at Stereo Cameras, which expose 2 photos of the same image simultaneously from slightly different angles — which is incredibly hard to retouch after the fact.

Serious Stereo Cameras

Anyway, that's my 2¢

— Doc Velocity

As long as you keep the raw data on the memory stick after transfering the image to the computer, digital cameras are fine.

If anyone claims fake, you can offer the raw footage on the memory stick...which can't be faked.

Makes no difference — as soon as your audience hears the word "digital," they're going to suspect a fake, which leads down a long, long path of authentication, with repeated claims that the photo is hoaxed. Even a "raw digital image" can be successfully hoaxed, right down to its EXIF information, which is supposedly inextricable from the image itself.

Hidden Data in JPEG Files

I believe that SLR film camera technology is superior for this kind of "hunting" simply because it's more difficult to hoax these days. I mean, you can bypass a lot of skepticism by submitting a film negative of your sighting, as opposed to a digital image.

— Doc Velocity

I agree with Doc here, you may want to dig around for your old high school hobby Nikon or perhaps go out to one of the few (At least in my area) photo stores and buy yourself a decent one.

It truly is a shame that there are so many reports of UFOs from Tampa to Chile with the majority (and damn good majority I might add from what I've seen in descriptions on YouTube and ATS alone) have been taken with either a digital camera, or one of those new camera phones, which in return produce grainy, pixel-clustered and often debunkable material due to the fact it is so easy to hoax.

Mind you, film can still be hoaxed and has been for decades before digital photography was even considered common. In the early 90's I remember from a television show that a man who had taken quite a large number of UFO photographs was given a camera that was sealed with wax so he couldn't tamper with the film inside.

By and by, being old school myself, I'd go with a tripod, a video camera, a decent shutter-style camera, a keen eye, perhaps night-vision, and please, please, please get a point of reference.I'll stress that point. Get a point of reference so we can see without a doubt that it isn't shaky camera work that's producing the movement you see on video. I've seen myself quite a few times filming a object and the first thing I look for is a point of reference, so when I'm questioned later, I can point to a street lamp, a roof, a antenna, anything.

This better help someone in the future. I wish you the best of luck.

I meant the actual memory stick can be handed over as proof, not just the raw data.
For instance, someone comes to ATS and presents a digital image of a UFO.
We say fake... they say they have it still on the memory stick, and offer to send the actual memory stick to JRitzman or Springer...someone trustworthy.

As far as I know you cannot put pictures onto the standard digitalSLR memory sticks... any picture on them are from the original capture.

Therefore the only possible way of debunking it, is it's either dust/dirt on the sensor or the object in question isn't what it was claimed to be.

[edit on 23/3/07 by Navieko]

Navieko

I wish it were as simple as you say. Putting aside the fact that anyone hearing digital will roll their eyes and walk away, digital storage can be messed with.

Ok firstly you can put images onto the sticks without being from the camera. Second if you know how to mess around with digital tags (the small pieces of data which are on the sticks to organise images) then you can fake it and make it seem like it's the original image. Surprisingly this is harder with camera phones but can still be done.

Stick to film, there are good techniques for determining fakes and once it's gone through it all then no one will argue with whatever you caught.

Good luck, hope you get something to prove it all.

Just curious, do you mean memory sticks as in ones you plug into usb ports? Because I'm talking about the little chip type ones that can only go into Digital Camera sockets. I guess it might be possible for someone skilled to playa round with the chip...but I'd find that HIGHLY unlikely, and even then, I'm sure that could be checked by the person validating the memory chip.

But as far as being able to put raw data onto the memory chip via another means, please fill me in. If you're not sure as to what memory chip I'm talking about, here's a picture.

www.eriding.net...

That was the Ed Walters case in Gulf Breeze, Florida. In the late 80s, Ed was churning out UFO photos like nobody's business, using a few different cameras. When MUFON got involved, they supplied Ed with a Nimslo 3D camera — a quadrascopic camera with 4 lenses, that exposed 4 frames simultaneously when the shutter was released. Each lens captured the same image from a slightly different angle.

MUFON sealed the camera with wax to prevent tampering with the film, but the multiple simultaneous exposures were foolproof, in my opinion. A short time thereafter, Ed returned the unopened camera and film to MUFON, who found that the Nimslo 3D contained more UFO photos.

This didn't prove that Ed's UFOs were real, but it did prove that he wasn't using darkroom techniques to manipulate the film. I mean, trying to hoax these stereoscopic images in the darkroom would've been beyond mortal means. In other words, it moved the whole investigation out of the darkroom and into another direction — to this day, most investigators are convinced that Ed Walters used external UFO models hanging from tree limbs or something, but they don't suspect him of tampering with the film.

And that's the beauty part of film in general and stereoscopy in particular. The fact that tampering with stereoscopic filmed images is such an impossible challenge makes it the ideal medium for shooting UFOs, in my opinion.

— Doc Velocity

You're talking about compact flash cards. Yeah, you can put anything you want on them — it's just another method of storage, nothing magic about it. Take a picture, upload it to your computer, manipulate your image however you wish, use a hex editor to doctor up phony EXIF information, make sure your Type & Creator fields are correct, then save it back to your compact flash. Voila...

Damn, I make it sound easy, don't I?

— Doc Velocity

[edit on 3/23/2007 by Doc Velocity]

Navieko

Yes i meant both memory sticks and flash memory cards, there are specific writers for the cards you are talking about. You can op down your local pc world and get one for about 4 pounds. This is one of the easier forms of data fraud, so for me digital = no proof. At least most of the time anyway, film can be verified very easily by experts. They know all the tricks out there and have the equipment and expertise to test it until they know it's real.

Always use film i say.

EDIT

Oh and doc, it isn't just the embedded EXIF data in the image , it's the tags or headers the flash drive uses to organise data that need manipulating, it's time consuming but can be done by a determined hoaxer.


[edit on 23-3-2007 by ImaginaryReality1984]

I'm so glad you mentioned this as it was something I was going to mention - far far more important than the equipment you use in my opinion. No doubt you'll want to zoom in to get a close-up of the object, but make sure you get some wides for a point of reference too.

Also be wary of digital zoom. Many digital cameras will skip to digital zoom once the analogue zoom is exhausted. We can always zoom in on the image later digitally, but if it is recorded that way we can't zoom out.