Anyone here ever heard of Occam's Razor?

Paraphrasing:

"All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best."

IE, Take your camcorder and go outside at night. Point it at a star or other bright point of light and try to zoom in as close as you can.

When you play the tape back, you will see blurry, jumping, color-changing lights. The light images on these pics look exactly like an out of focus camcorder with amplified movements, like you would have when zoomed in to a point in low light conditions.

I find the video on the Stephenville page more compelling. There is a short snippet in there where there is a video of a triangle of non-moving lights.

This to me looks like the famous giant flying triangle that has been seen all over the country.

The latest pics on stephenvillelights.com look like DNA strands to me. They could be communicating their DNA or knowledge of our DNA as a symbol of "life". A geneticist could look at that and render an opinion.

ok, i'll bite.

as a noob, would someone post a link to dark knight's thread that has been referenced a few times?

My two cents...

If the video was on a tripod, and not zoomed in so much, then I might believe that the lights were jumping all over as seen in the pictures. But, I believe a lot, if not all, of the swirling movement was due to "camera jiggle".

The video links that show true 3D laser projection on page one of this thread are enough proof to me to believe that someone is playing with people's minds. Finally - holographic projection using air as the medium. But it's not really holographic as it is extremely hot plasma being created in the air using high output lasers. In any case, to anyone that hasn't seen this technology, their minds will fill in the blanks and create an object where there are only lights. I've never seen mention of these huge ships appearing in daylight, nor have I seen pictures of them.

I'd like to see somebody shine a laser pointer on one of these craft. ThinkGeek.com has a green pointer with a range of 20,000 feet. I'm trying to convince my wife to get me one of these for my birthday. Unlike the red pointers, you can see laser line at night with the green pointer. Somewhere on ATS I read that current light bending technology works only with light in waves, not with light beams. If I'm reading this right, and all my assumptions are correct, then we could see an imaginary (holographic) craft, but we would be able to shoot a laser right through it.

Another thought. If the lights are so bright, how can you see the craft emitting the light? When I look in the sky at night, I see jets flying over. But I don't really. I see the lights of jets, and my mind connects the dots to allow me to see the shape of a jet. The lights are too bright and are pointed away from the aircraft, so all I really see is the lights themselves.

And lastly, why would the military fly aircraft over the general population? That's an easy answer. To see what the general population thinks. "Look, it's an aircraft, but it's too big and too quiet, so it must be an alien craft. Run for your lives!" If I was the military, and someone in the general public told me that they saw it and considered shooting it down, then I would want to talk to that person to understand their reasoning. If I was a military person, then I would want to create an object that would scare the pants off the enemy, not make them want to shoot at it.

As to whether we have the technology to create such a craft, or the illusion of a craft, you need to realize this: The first jets were built and tested in the 40's. That was 60 years ago. In 1990, I graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering, and worked with computers that ran at 8 MHz with a maximum of 640K of ram. 18 years later, my daughters mp3 player is a fraction of the size, runs a lot faster, and has an enormous amount of ram. That's just 18 years. Do we have the technology? You better believe it! (Just don't let the bad guys know)

Originally posted by WingNutEE
Do we have the technology? You better believe it! (Just don't let the bad guys know)

I agree we probably have the technology, but the next question to ask is who in Stephenville, TX has the technology. Obviously its not cheap, so who would spend an enourmous amount of money to play an elaborate hoax, and why. I highly doubt the military would, so it must be a civilian. Perhaps someone with extensive experience in what could create these lights could research into who sells the parts for the equipment and so forth.

Alright guys, I have been a long time reader of ATS, but never posted or even registered an account.

I am about 80 or so miles from Stephenville...I may have to make a weekend trip up there so I can see what the fuss is about. If I do go, I won't forget plenty of cameras and the dvrs. I am very skilled at taking low light photos, mainly lightning and fireworks.

Maybe we should organize a camp out for all those in driving distance...

Originally posted by WingNutEE

I'd like to see somebody shine a laser pointer on one of these craft. ThinkGeek.com has a green pointer with a range of 20,000 feet. I'm trying to convince my wife to get me one of these for my birthday. Unlike the red pointers, you can see laser line at night with the green pointer. Somewhere on ATS I read that current light bending technology works only with light in waves, not with light beams. If I'm reading this right, and all my assumptions are correct, then we could see an imaginary (holographic) craft, but we would be able to shoot a laser right through it.

Try wickedlasers.com or the likes.. Reason I say that is that last time I looked at thinkgeek the prices vs power were pretty high and rip-offish. Have a look around at green DPSS (diode-pumped solid-state) lasers and look for one 100mW plus, they now range over 500mW from what I've seen from various sites.
I had a green DPSS 100mW from wicked (one of the original range they have since re-branded). It was capable turning things green from an insane distance... over a few kilometres under city lighting conditions. It made a solid green beam pointing up into the sky then a massive green 'cylinder' into the cloud as it was (refracted??) by the water molecules.
I once used it at an outdoors public symphony/laser show while the shows DPSS lasers stopped briefly... thousands of people turned around to look at me - hahaha!

From a nicely focused 15mW you'll be able to pop balloons... and higher outputs will burnt tape, trashbags, light matches etc. Something more grunty (400mW plus) would be a pure hand cannon alright... darn.

Another thing you must consider when purchasing a laser of around 15mW and over (typically... not all cases are the same as it pays to have them all the time really...) would be laser goggles which block out the green light spectrum that the laser operates in. For sky pointing and the like it's okay to use without but using it around windows and other reflective surfaces or with the 'dot' in close proximity to your eyes can be pretty dangerous, just a 100mW can induce temporary blindness at over 200m and destroy your sight at closer ranges.

If these sightings are holograms (and USA etc had the tech to do that) I'm sure a laser of that type could 'confirm' it... hahahaha! If someone got that on video the US would have a lot of explaining to do. But we'll never know until it is tried... it may not be powerful enough to do it.

edit: 20,000ft is highly unlikely. Often they'll use a formula to work out theoretical maximum distance in a vacuum or something like that... it won't do 20,000ft in atmosphere that you can see from 20,000ft away hehehe. Read reviews on enthusiast sites like candlepowerforums and lasercommunity to see how far they may typically go and pics of what they look like in action.

edit2:
Another snippet of information... down in New Zealand a friend of mine had about 4 different friends who do not know each other spot (and three took photos) of ufo's around the time of the original Stephensville sightings. I have one photo on me taken at low quality settings on a 14mp canon camera. IF ONLY THEY HAD IT ON FULL QUALITY. It was a ufo of some sort in the background of a single photo of a set of 4 photos taken in about 4 seconds.. I'm currently emailing the owner of the camera to get the other 3 photos with no ufo incase they are needed for verification etc. U2U me for more info.
Another photo my mate described was a big blue sphere which was not too good of a photo, and another was multiple blue spheres (not very good pic though either)but shot by another person.

I've also seen a ridiculous amount of shooting stars in jan/feb this year... every single night I've looked at the sky I have seen one where I looked and once or twice in the corner of my eye and I've just caught the final few moments of it. Weird huh...



[edit on 14-2-2008 by GhostR1der]

You have to remember we are all hallucinating we know anything by armchair debunking.

I'm ashamed that some of us assume these good regular people would be trying to fake anything. They would not know how to make a buck on this if they had to. No one would.

I think our character is more questionable then theirs. We have to give them a lot of credit for coming out to tell the truth of what they saw even in light of their culture there that they will take much flack from. You watch.

We know how armchair biblical thumpers will come out of the cracks to tell them it's Satan or evil Demons, while we on our end claim they are lairs and frauds and try to think of how they are faking it on our amateur experience with video and camera.

Some of you I would not trust by your accusatory tone. When you begin by disbelieving someone, you have already done harm to them and your own spirit.

How cynical and self important we are. I'm ashamed for us.

ZG

[edit on 2/15/2008 by ZeroGhost]

We where early adapters for the green lasers for astronomy. My astronomy mate and I got one of the first available several years ago to try one, and back then the battery life sucked, but is way better now.

The backscatter that type of laser has is perfect for pointing at constellations and astronomical pointing to discuss and guide others when observing.

The first year we had one, we where at the Riverside Telescope Conference in southern California at about 9000 feet in a forest camp with about 1500 other amateurs with telescopes and every type of optics you could imagine.

During the evening everyone walks camp to camp to see the home mades and modified telescopes, talk astronomy and such while looking through hundreds of telescopes.

While we where waiting our turn at the eyepiece at someones 24" scope we saw this bright weird structured UFO go across the camp about the speed of a light aircraft. No sound but highly strange.

It just so happened that the color this thing was glowing was the same saturated green light as the laser we had and few if any others in the conference had yet.

Everyone saw it, but no one but my wife and I had the asteroids to talk about it. My best friend, who I have climbed mountains with and been through highly dangerous events and who I trusted, said it was probably someone pulling a prank with a green laser.

It cost us $200 for ours, yet he suggested some idiot would think this was funny and somehow got it 500 feet in the air traveling at about 50 MPH.

All amateurs and professionals at this conference said NOTHING. Stone cold nothing.

I felt like I was at the Stepford Astronomy Conference and saw their secrets. Very uncomfortable. Some are real astronomers, guys from JPL and NASA and military, technical people who make optics and telescopes, software and innovate the art, and of course people like our neighbors with kids who just love watching the sky.

The object was very strange. I think that only a section of it was lit, adding to its strange shape where most was in the dark or shadow, no outline. My sketch and my wife’s where different enough to call into question what we saw. Strange.

But what the hell is with these UFO’s that they seem to do things or exhibit such characteristics actually lending them selves to such dismissive by the “way” they show themselves? It’s like they read our mind and show just enough to cast doubts. Are they separating us out for those who are more open minded? Make a leap of faith or something? I frankly have no idea. It’s just strange on so many levels we don’t know WHAT to think.

They must have known the green lasers where there is all I can think. No one ever said a word after. The website for the event did not even mention it that year. I haven’t been back since after going with my wife for 20 years.

ZG

The new images are interesting. I am not surprised at the jiggle, accounting for the adrenalin and lack of a good mount. What I find strange is the color changes in a fraction of a second, depending on his camera or video. it may record at 24fps or 30fps if video or longer if still. We need the model number and his settings to know anything.

If video at 29. 967fps (Frames Per Second) pretty standard, the number of color changes in the light source is amazing in itself. Also unless the guy had a good professional tripod there would be all kinds of jiggle expected.

I used to do grip work (I lugged equipment and set up for professional video shoots) for a producer friend and we use very heavy 30-40 pound tripods for professional video to avoid any such vibration. Most if not all the cheap tripods you can get are only good for home video or shots of a vacation. For my digital video and still SLR and digital SLR camera I paid almost $500 dollars, and I could not even afford the best head.

For a good professional tripod you buy the tripod and the head separately. The fluid heads make for the best smoothness when panning and moving the camera live. They are expensive and few can afford them. The one I got was as good a professional head you can get for the performance without being a true fluid head.

I will bet this guy has a Walmart quality if that, and anything he does, even standing next to the tripod will jiggle the camera enough for what you see when at such a zoomed view. Especially if he had it against a poll, there are angles of unstationary fix that will express his respiration, heartbeat and autonomic movements. So the image is fairly expected except for the colors.

The colors alone, even in a 24fps camera would be amazing. Changing colors in thousandths of a second at such hard demarcations is impossible for anything but very high tech LED or similar technology I would expect, if even.

It is a very strange image for these reasons and worth careful study and not armchair science assumptions.

Pointing your video, at maximum at a star such as Sirius or Procyon, zoomed in could maybe cause such colors, but upper atmosphere would need to be very turbulent and the star would not move other than to progress as all the stars. Many times these stars are mistaken for UFOs because they flash with very bright colors and seem to strobe.

I have even had to look twice sometimes at stars when conditions made these and other stars so colorful and active. BTW, Planets don’t “twinkle” due to the light being closer more spread outand local to Earth also being reflected not emitted like stars. After traveling several miles through sometimes very active atmosphere, the light is distorted. You see that differently depending on conditions.

An astronomer knows the upper air conditions by looking at this. The Hubble sees stars without any twinkle at all, or if it does it is what is called a variable. Even those do not “twinkle” however.


I doubt this is a star by the way.

ZG


[edit on 2/15/2008 by ZeroGhost]

We had Steve Allen on our program last week, and believe me when I say what he reveled to us about the object being seen around the area still to this day is just the tip of the iceberg. I cant say exactly what it is that is going to be announced, (Not yet anyway)

The Air Force and the media have really bumbled this one and there will be some stuff that hits that is going to really show just how much.

You think with UFO hotspots, that people actually searching for these would come up with a better way to photograph, videotape these sightings.

If someone would capture pictures or footage that was on a tripod, image stabilization could open the gates of hell! So much footage with jumpiness, pictures out of focus, I mean let's get with it. How are we ever going to prove the government coverups when we can't even capture proof positive.

It gets annoying day after day to find reports with pictures that are so 1970's quality. It is almost embarrassing....come on people....spend some money on quality cameras!!!!!