STS-48: Debunking Kasher's Five "It-Can't-Be-Ice" Proofs

The subject of STS-48 keeps coming up and a mainstay of the UFO claim is that a physics professor named Jack Kasher has proved mathematically that the dots cannot be ice. The following rough draft material is from a 1999 Purdue U forum at which I argued these 'five proofs' are all bogus [with comments from Jeff Sainio added]. My entire paper is at www.jamesoberg.com...

Kasher’s Five Proofs

Kasher’s 1994 paper presented five “proofs” that the video could not be showing small close objects. Each one of the proofs can be shown to be erroneous.

Proof 1: During the approximately one second interval when the object’s horizontal motion is changing from leftwards to rightwards, it stops for a few tenths of a second before resuming the change in motion. It is two or three pixels off from where a smooth curve would have moved it. This, Kasher argues, must be deliberate and cannot be natural.

Disproof: Setting aside Kasher’s presumption that the object was able to deliberately align its stopping in precisely the vertical axis of the Orbiter TV camera’s field of view, the measurements of vertical screen position elsewhere on the chart show a random scatter of several pixels. By placing a properly-sized error bar on each raw reading, a smooth curve would easily pass through the sequence of points with no zero-motion except instantaneously. The ‘stopping’ is an illusion of over-accurate data points.

Sainio: “The data shown are very noisy.... The expected curve for an accelerated ice particle would be a parabolic path. The initial part of a parabola is quite flat, and the data are not shown to be significantly different than the expected parabola.”

Kasher claims he corrected for the camera orientation by solving.... (quote TBS). But Sainio (footnote TBS) wrotes: "Unfounded math is used to come to this conclusion. Two equations in one variable reduces to another equation, not a unique solution.”



Proof 2: The two fast-moving particles must have been traveling directly away from the RCS thruster. Their motion is linear – “If a rocket did the firing, the lines MUST meet” – and Kasher claims they don’t. Kasher’s ‘Appendix J’ asserted that only the left-firing left pod vernier jet (L5L) could possible affect the particle motion – “This is crucial when we examine the trajectories of the objects more carefully.”

Disproof: Even theoretically, the lines would only meet IF all the objects were originally at rest. Kasher tacitly ASSUMES this must be the case even though video shows all nearby objects are actually in motion. Any post-plume velocity will be the vector sum of plume impulse AND previous motion, which Kasher incorrectly assumes was zero.

Kasher also incorrectly ASSUMES that all thruster plume force is linearly directed away from the thruster. But he misidentified the thruster responsible for the plume puff – it was actually L5D, the down-firing vernier jet, as shown by telemetry records. He was also unaware of the propensity of aft-mounted down-firing thrusters to generate plume flows which significantly impinged on Orbiter structure and thus bounced off in new directions, including into areas previously out of direct ;sight’ of the thruster – such as the region the particles presumably were drifting.

Proof 3: Any particle in the thruster plume would be accelerated nearly to plume velocity, at least 96%. Kasher’s ‘Appendix B’ (see below) proves this, and since the main object was NOT accelerated to this speed by the thruster firing (which Kasher claims lasted 0.4 seconds, as measured by the duration of the pulse), it could not have been a particle.

Disproof: I’ll deal in detail with Kasher’s ‘Appendix B’ shortly, but in general the velocity induced on drifting particles depends on how far off the plume centerline they are, and how long the thruster fires. Since the low limit for particle acceleration is clearly zero (as seen by several particles in the video), there must be a range of from zero up to full plume velocity, dependent on factors not measured by Kasher.

In an email to Kasher , Sainio made this observation: “Although you don’t state it directly, you appear to base your argument on the correctness of the exhaust-acceleration theory. But this contradicts your conclusion that ‘they were spacecraft out in space away from the shuttle'’ and obviously not accelerated by a mere thruster. This appears to be an inadvertent reductio ad absurdum argument. If it is exhaust-acceleration, your conclusion is wrong. If not, then the arguments leading up to your conclusion are wrong, and your conclusion is unsupported. No conclusion can be inconsistent with the arguments leading up to it.” In other words, Kasher claimed to prove that the motion could not be caused by thruster exhaust, but the proof required assuming that it WAS caused by thruster exhaust.

Proof 4: The main object remained at rest for about half a second during the period of the main flash (following a shorter pre-flash earlier), and then accelerated sharply. “Presumably this was the time the rocket exhaust was moving through vacuum up to the ‘ice particle’”. If it were ice, it would have been a lot closer to the thruster, so the half second delay is too long for the fast-moving exhaust, and it must have been much farther away.

Disproof: This argument is based on Kasher’s misunderstanding of the nature of the flash, which he assumed was the entire thruster firing. Actually, the flashes were brief interludes within the full thruster firing of about 1.2 seconds when throat-clearing or brief propellant ratio mismatch led to a visible flow in the normally invisible plume.

Sainio agrees: “Presumptions are dangerous to proofs. As the flash is known not to correspond to the thruster firing, this proof fails.”

Proof 5: Since any particle hit by a thruster exhaust would have to reach a speed of 8300 ft/sec, it would be too far away at the end of the thruster firing to be visible.

Disproof: This depends on ‘Appendix B’, where Kasher attempts to prove that a particle entrained in a thruster plume will be accelerated to nearly the full plume velocity. He uses mathematics to show that this is exactly what happened with the main object in the video.
Kasher seems to have made a math error in which the acceleration is independent of the mass of the particle and the density of the plume [which varies with the angle off centerline] – a grade-school howler so obviously at variance with reality that no real physics expert would even imagine it could be true..

Sainio: “The 1.7 second acceleration time is flatly contradicted by the raw data it is based on.... [It] is not shown to be anything more than an artifact of the heavy smoothing used in the curve-fit, and is not shown to be a better fit than a simple 1-second linear acceleration due to a 1-second vernier firing which occurred at the time of the event. Practically any curve-fit of a sloped line connected to a flat line will ‘round out’ the end of the slope and make the slope resemble an exponential curve.”

reply to post by JimOberg


I am sorry but both the "proofs" and "disproofs" are heavily flawed here. And while the proofs are at least logical assumptions, the disproofs are just legerdemain, slyly constructed by someone with an agenda. This fact alone makes me actually believe this to be real, although i did not before. Why waste resources to come up with disproof like this?

Originally posted by NeoVain
Why waste resources to come up with disproof like this?

Probably because when there was no response, it was touted as 'proof' the claims were irrefutable.

And replying to mathematical arguments with name-calling is not an effective counter-stroke.

I recommend you go to the link given and read the entire paper, to see which side of this argument has the facts and logic, and which, the hand-waving and blind guessing.

Hi Jim

Yes we have seen many claims on here re these objects around the shuttle, on one recent thread one of the videos was looked at by ufo hunters iirc what I really like is when they see an object on video of which they have no idea of size or distance from the camera, doesn't stop they quoting a velocity that is something many members on here are guilty of as well.

Originally posted by NeoVain
"...legerdemain, slyly constructed by someone with an agenda...."

NeoVain, that perfectly sums up a lot of Jim Oberg's writings.

The sad thing is that, though Jim is extremely knowledgeable about certain topics, even when he is almost certainly right on a given point one must seriously question that point if only because his extreme positions elsewhere have hurt his credibility and exposed his severe biases.

For instance... the fact that he slammed Keane's book in his msnbc "review" without even ONCE mentioning that strong radar data existed was proof enough to me that he is too far gone (or too *something*?) to be trusted as an objective source. And I'm sincere when I say that's a real shame. But that msnbc piece of his was titled "UFO Book Based on Questionable Foundation (Eyewitness Accounts Require Hard Look, Even if Witness is a Pilot)" ... as if THAT is actually "the foundation" of Keane's book?!? Unbelievable. Do a CTRL-F (find) on his article's page, and search for the word "radar." It's simply not there. (I believe I've seen him deny even this simple fact elsewhere.)

So, I'm left with... why? Why does he not wish to address the strongest data? Why was he so eager, on msnbc, to encourage people not to even bother reading a book that clearly offers some very compelling evidence, even if (as it admits) that evidence falls short of providing the "proof" we'd all like? That is not skepticism; that is an agenda. Absolutely. He's too smart and has proven himself too aware of blind-spots for it all to be anything other than calculated. Sorry Jim, but that's how I see it....

So, on this NASA stuff... I must admit that a year or two ago I'd probably be inclined to trust Jim's views the most. But now... well, see the above paragraph. Jim may very well be right here on this particular issue. It's just that I can barely read his words without wondering if I'm being misled and what the motivations behind them are.

Originally posted by TeaAndStrumpets
So, on this NASA stuff... I must admit that a year or two ago I'd probably be inclined to trust Jim's views the most. But now... well, see the above paragraph. Jim may very well be right here on this particular issue. It's just that I can barely read his words without wondering if I'm being misled and what the motivations behind them are.

I'd be happy to discuss the Kean stuff elsewhere, because I still think the 'elephant in the room' is really, what kind of misperceptions CAN pilots make -- not that they all do, all the time, but sometimes they do?

The perfect 'controlled experiment' is to examine cases in which an unrecognized space or missile event was the true stimulus -- a stimulus that MOST people DO indeed recognize correctly. But SOME pilots [and non-pilots] in such cases -- and my msnbc article linked to ten specific examples -- report the perceptions in terms they are accustomed to seeing, and that DOES include radar/instrumentation anomalies, although I'm sorry T&S didn't read that closely enough to notice.

Now here's the slippery slope that most ufologists perceive and fear: since a lot of these cases are 'solvable' only by lucky breaks and accidental access to military secrets, it is reasonable to expect that many OTHER cases of the same origin remain unsolved merely because the private, part-time amateur investigators [if ANY really tried] don't have that accidental access, those lucky breaks.

And if those fortunately solved cases of that ONE category of stimulus present testimonial evidence -- anecdotal, including reports of EMI effects -- that are of the same content of other stories that haven't had their stimuli uncovered, does this indicate that the OTHER stories MIGHT also have the same type of stimulus?

It cannot be proven that they do. You can't prove 'UFOs don't exist'.

But more importantly, it cannot be proven they do NOT. And there's where the burden of proof lies -- advocates of the unavoidable necessity of adding a NEW class of phenomena to human experience need to be able to show that the existing plethora of phenomena CANNOT in any stretch of the imagination, account for such testimony.

I'm the guy saying, whoa, let's look at the perceptual process as uniquely revealed to us fortuitously by these space/missile events and consequent 'UFO [U-faux] reports'. Does us give us better insight into what kinds of perceptions can be generated by non-extraordinary phenomena? I suggest it does, BUT...

The overwhelming answer from the UFO community is NO, we don't want to look closer at this gift of opportunity, this accidental 'control experiment', we DON'T want to learn any more about stuff that might bring some of our current convenient assumptions into better focus -- or require they be modified or abandoned.

I do want to write more on this theme, in more careful explanations, since when even obviously intelligent and sincere folks such as T&S so lamentably miss the point I'm trying to make, I need to try harder -- because I really intend to revolutionize [and deepen] our understanding of this fascinating phenomenon, which is worthy of serious attention for a number of good reasons whether or NOT 'ETI' is involved..

After all, on the current cultural approach, how many are really satisfied that we've gotten anywhere after so many decades?

The astronaut cases are an opportunity for learning something else. Because they exist in an extremely LIMITED venue with well documented contexts, actors, and instrumentation, they can be meticulously dissected to determine what room there is for genuinely anomalous stimuli. There is NO HOPE that this could be done for the much wider range of human experiences of the UFO type.

But the potential insights are equally terrifying to the 'UFO culture'. If such a subset of UFO lore really is entirely bogus -- which I think is a defensible hypothesis -- how could everybody have so unanimously come to such erroneous evaluations of it? That heretical thought naturally elicits the most extreme emotional counter arguments -- but tyhere are plenty of intelligent people fascinated by this subject who have started really thinking about it, and want to find out where genuine investigation and analysis -- not dogmatic groupthink -- might lead.

T&S, take a few steps along this trail with me. Whatever ultimate choices you come to, this will help strengthen your mind and your arguments.

Sorry but when objects display intelligent signs of independent movement ,stop , acceleration ,reverse and then shoot off, one is left to really wonder if certain nations countries restricted air spaces are in the capable hands of trained experienced military pilots who can differentiate between a known object and one displaying genuine advanced technological capabilities;If these pilots cannot differentiate between the two then are they fit to defend our air spaces; This question cannot be brushed aside ,i merely raised it because the reliance or testimony of terrestrial pilots who have observed such objects was mentioned;Keeans book purely demonstrates that genuine unknown objects have been observed by experienced and reliable military pilots and i for one trust their observations as i would trust their defence of my countries air space.

reply to post by JimOberg


Would you agree that if the shuttle thruster did fire, as alleged and produced the flash one sees, that the attitude of the shuttle would have changed as a result and this change would have been visible in the video by a change in the video image, up/down, right/left? According to Newton's laws of motion - "To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction."

(In the following paragraph I'm going to describe the white "orb" that drifts and then hauls away as an "object" and "fired upon" because that is the popular view and ice crystal is rejected based on common sense and reason, MINE!) And if the "object" that is "fired upon" hauls away because it is the result of a shuttle thruster, then why weren't all of the objects near the "fired upon" "object" also affected? They were at the same distance, it is supposed. Additionally, the "fired upon" "object" materialized out of the atmosphere while the other similar looking objects were visible and slow drifitng. Ice particles don't drift slowly, they are loosened from the shuttle and go their separate ways mostly tumbling and they don't come to a pause and just hang around.

Finally, I do not accept the flash as the result of shuttle thruster firing particularly since no movement is visible via the recording camera.

And last but not least, it's been expressed by some who don't accept the ice crystal explanation that the drifting object that hauled was fired upon by a secre installation in Australia testing a "rail gun". I don't know anything about this but since the ice crystal explanation fails to some of us, one never knows what's real and what isn't.

Shrike, thanks for taking the time and effort to explicitly explain the basis for your conclusions about my prosaic explanation for the STS-48 video. By being so clear, you have allowed me to pinpoint exactly those assumptions -- just 'guesses', really -- that are factually flawed, and to provide verifiable evidence that your trust in those assumptions is indefensible. This in turn allows you, and those who have subscribed to your argument, to recognize and correct these erroneous ideas and get closer to reality -- a goal I hope you subscribe to.

Originally posted by The Shrike
reply to post by JimOberg

 

Would you agree that if the shuttle thruster did fire, as alleged and produced the flash one sees, that the attitude of the shuttle would have changed as a result and this change would have been visible in the video by a change in the video image, up/down, right/left? According to Newton's laws of motion - "To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction."

Absolutely not, and here, from my draft "99 FAQs About Space UFOs" report, is why you are factually wrong and reality offers undeniable proof of it:

67 Q: If the dots change motion due to thruster firing, how come the background earth/stars don’t shift as the shuttle’s orientation responds to the rotational impulse? Many observers confidently claim that the absence of any perceived motion is proof positive that no thruster could have fired.

A: This is a very common argument but it fails because nobody has actually ‘run the numbers’ on how MUCH the scene should shift due to a thruster firing. While it’s true that the shuttle can turn on its thrusters to achieve a rotation rate of up to two degrees per second or even more, in order to make major changes to its orientation, the far most common thruster firing is merely to trim its orientation against slow drift out of the allowable ‘deadband’ – usually several degrees wide. And such firings impart rotation rates far too gentle to be noticeable on the camera’s field of view.

Flight data shows how gentle such firings are. See www.jamesoberg.com... for the actual orientation angles of the shuttle during the famous STS-48 zig-zag video. The thruster firing that occurred at precisely the time of the lower-left screen ‘flash’ was triggered by the autopilot sensing a pitch error exceeding the allowable range and pulsing the jet to correct it. The imparted rotation rate change was about one one hundredth of a degree per second [about half a degree per minute], which is so miniscule it obviously wouldn’t register on the field of view. This data has been posted on the Internet for many years but apparently people who still cling to the ‘angle-would-change-too-much’ excuse haven’t read it or understood it.

That tiny angular rate can be verified arithmetically. Just get the thrust of a vernier jet, assume a one-second pulse, place it the proper distance from the center of mass of the shuttle, assume uniform mass density for convenience, and use simple physics to determine the imparted angular rate. It will be reasonably close to the value readable off the telemetry stripcharts.

more to come

more

Originally posted by The Shrike
Additionally, the "fired upon" "object" materialized out of the atmosphere while the other similar looking objects were visible and slow drifitng.

You are only justified in saying that the image first appeared against a cloud background -- the explanation you offer, that it popped up from inside or behind the cloud, is the theory to be proved, NOT the assumption to START the argument with.

Because this video was made at precisely the time of shuttle 'sunrise' [a fact that proponents of the UFO theory refuse to acknowledge and try to keep secret], the sudden appearance can be explained by an interesting phenomenon often observed on the TV downlink to the front screens in Mission Control.

74 Q: What unusual features of sunlight illumination in space contribute to artificially creating ‘space UFO’ videos?

A: The best example of such unearthly and unfamiliar conditions is what I call “twilight shadowing”, which can make small nearby sunlit particles appear to suddenly ‘appear’ or ‘disappear’ in the camera field of view. Normally, in daylight the shuttle is bathed in direct sunlight as well as reflected sunlight from Earth’s surface, which backlights the vehicle diffusely, filling in the down-sun shadows. But in the brief periods after orbital sunrise and before sunset, the shuttle is passing over a swath of the Earth that is still in darkness – and not reflecting any ‘back lighting’. This is the period when people down in those regions, whose skies are still dark, can see sunlit satellites passing hundreds of miles overhead. For several minutes at the end of Each night pass, a camera aimed in accordance with the sprite search experiment will see any nearby particles suddenly ‘appear’ at sunrise, and more may appear as they drift randomly out of the shuttle’s invisible shadow.


75 Q: What does this have to do with ‘space shuttle UFOs”.

A: The connection is striking and the implications are profound. The BEST images of the most famous ‘space UFOs’ were seen during these rare, brief intervals of ‘twilight shadowing’. Far from being an unbelievable sequence of freak coincidences, this correlation is clearly a reflection of ‘cause and effect’. It shows that the lighting conditions most suited to observing sunlit near-shuttle small objects are exactly the conditions under which “UFOs” appear.

and this draft paragraph,

66 Q: How can different dots appear at different times in the camera view?

A: Usually there is a short period during sunrise when many nearby objects ‘fade in’ simultaneously, and with the Earth horizon moving through inertial space at 4 degrees per minute [one full rotation every 90 minutes], the half-degree-wide solar disc takes 7-8 seconds to fully ‘rise’. This period can be followed by the random ‘fade in’ of singletons, presumably as they drift aimlessly out of the shuttle’s shadow [the speed at which they appear depends on how fast they cross the shadow boundary]. A good circumstantial argument that this shadow zone is the cause for the ‘fade ins’ is that rarely if ever does a video show a ‘fade OUT’ – which would require a dot to return into the shuttle’s shadow. Since the observed motion of most ‘dandruff’ shed by the shuttle was AWAY from it, this is completely consistent with the hypothesis of small shadowed objects randomly emerging into sunlight AFTER the shuttle itself has emerged from EARTH’S shadow.

Please help me make these arguments more believable by advising on words or pictures that would make them more clear and more persuasive to you.

Originally posted by The Shrike
Finally, I do not accept the flash as the result of shuttle thruster firing particularly since no movement is visible via the recording camera.

I have tried to explain to you that your unspoken assumption -- "the shuttle MUST turn noticeably IF any thruster is fired" -- is the basis for your incorrect conclusion. The actual turn rates in such firings is less than a degree per minute -- totally undetectable to the eye, but clearly visible on telemetry records of the actual thruster firing.

What further proof can I show you -- or tell you how to find on your own -- to get you to correct this erroneous assumption which you dreamed up out of space vacuum?

...and then, perhaps, to modify the conclusion you've built upon such a grievous -- but easily refuted -- factual flaw?

reply to post by TeaAndStrumpets
You are so right about Jim cherry picking his case studies..he won't address many NASA UFO clips I have seen on You Tube's massive NASA UFO site.. the secretnasaman channel...

such as the super fast, so called 2nd space phenomena... that dash across NASA screens via every mission's CCD camera. Freezing them at 1/60th of a second (a single scan or 'field frame') is the only way to see them.

I respect Oberg's super technical blab re STS-48 but it is a tough slog...been there & done that, & "blinding us with science" does not leave any room for additional conversation.

Originally posted by buzzEmiller
reply to post by TeaAndStrumpets

 

You are so right about Jim cherry picking his case studies..he won't address many NASA UFO clips I have seen on You Tube's massive NASA UFO site.. the secretnasaman channel....

Baloney. I tackled the top promoted mystery videos. They took a lot of work. If my results find acceptance, I can spare time on the secondary cases. Otherwise it's just a plot to waste my time fruitlessly.

The only 'blinding' going on around here is the handwaving of the assume-the-consequent promoters. My stuff provides more illumination of these cases than ever provided by anybody else. If your eyes are dazzled shut, it's because you've golemed in the dark caverns too long to endure sunlight.

The joke is -- one of the key issues of these videos is indeed whether they are in daylight or darkness. People who champion them don't even seem to know -- or care.

I should be sorry that reality was a 'hard slog' for you and it's certainly understandable if you cringe back from mental effort. But I don't care. Lots of other folks are really happy to get this bright light poured into the shadows that youtube and Challender and unsecret-unNASAman and others enshrouded it.

Originally posted by buzzEmiller
reply to post by TeaAndStrumpets

 

You are so right about Jim cherry picking his case studies..he won't address many NASA UFO clips I have seen on You Tube's massive NASA UFO site.. the secretnasaman channel...

such as the super fast, so called 2nd space phenomena... that dash across NASA screens via every mission's CCD camera. Freezing them at 1/60th of a second (a single scan or 'field frame') is the only way to see them.

I respect Oberg's super technical blab re STS-48 but it is a tough slog...been there & done that, & "blinding us with science" does not leave any room for additional conversation.

I acquired "THE SECRET NASA TRANSMISSIONS: THE SMOKING GUN" in 2001 direct from the U.K. I watched it a ton of times and played a lot of it in slow motion and frame-by-frame. There is nothing about the "2nd space phenomena" that merits the attention it has gotten. It's not UFOs, it's not aliens, it's more like catching cosmic rays. Seeing them in the video may have been interesting upon first viewing but it was the footage of the UFO-like white objects that most everyone bought the tape for. No satisfaction comes from seeing the "2nd space phenomena" whatever it is.

At least I'm not one of the many outspoken detractors for I have too much respect for Jim Oberg. The old saying that one should not dispute over matters of taste seems to apply here. Oberg presents material that is the result of his hard work with the subject at hand and he has been and is in a superior position data-wise. However, for me it is difficult to accept what technically-wise should be the explanations offered by Oberg. His brain processes information in a way that I cannot fathom. In his mind he is right because he has the support of the creators of the data that he depends on and garnered by him after much hard work and the rest of us that disagree with him are supposedly wrong.

I'm not alone in my heretical views about STS-48, STS-80 and the many other missions from which video footage has been shown that contain anomalous objects that we think are not the results of prosaic explanations. I have to come to one conclusion; either Oberg/NASA is correct or we are. We have nothing to support us except our brain processes from simply watching videos and making assumptions from what we see based on the way we have experienced life. Very few of us, I'm assuming, have the kind of intelligence that Oberg has developed and it is surprising that he spends time here trying to educate us which is not appreciated by all who read and/or listen.

However, I'm not speaking for anyone but myself and I realize that not everyone finishes high school, not everyone finishes college, but are still pretty smart cookies that could have genius IQs. Some things are lost on some geniuses.

Oberg's explanations are lost on me and I cannot say I'm sorry they are for I feel more comfotable accepting my point of view over his. There is something wrong with the laws of physics in space.

Originally by The Shrike
Finally, I do not accept the flash as the result of shuttle thruster firing particularly since no movement is visible via the recording camera.

Originally by JimOberg
I have tried to explain to you that your unspoken assumption -- "the shuttle MUST turn noticeably IF any thruster is fired" -- is the basis for your incorrect conclusion. The actual turn rates in such firings is less than a degree per minute -- totally undetectable to the eye, but clearly visible on telemetry records of the actual thruster firing.

What further proof can I show you -- or tell you how to find on your own -- to get you to correct this erroneous assumption which you dreamed up out of space vacuum?

I want to help a little with this issue.. these kind of RCS firings have little (almost unnoticeable) effects in movements seen by the camera..so you can't say "no firings because no motion". With some analysis, you can see these very little movements actually happens...

The example is from STS-75 video...

Trick number 1: accelerate the video and overlay the frames - trajectories and small and slow movements are much easier to be seen

This is done by LunaCognita in his analysys of the "ufo's flight path", showing the trajectories of the objects (actually debris/ice/whatever particles generated by the shuttle itself) from which i overlayed with 5 colors the marks of "sudden" changes in trajectories as proof for RCS firings effects:

Originally posted by depthoffield
Studying more those strange "maneuveurs", i propose one animation taken from one stable sequence of LunarCognita.

I've marked on the sequence, 5 moments in time when there are discernable those misterious maneuvers.
These moments, called by me "changes", are marked by me with colors and numbers, in order:

CHANGE1 red
CHANGE2 green
CHANGE3 blue
[color=Gray]CHANGE4 gray
CHANGE5 yellow


Also, when one namely change appears, i'll marked on the frame the position of all objects of which i can detect some changes in motion, using the corresponding colour of that namely change.

Here is the animation:





What we see here?

That it happens that all the "misterious" maneuvers of the objects are taking place in the same time, the moment of the "change"!
More, we can see that different objects with the same speed and appearance, appear to do exactly the same kind of motion/speed change (maneuver), for example those 3 bright objects in the bottom left corner.


What does this means?

It means two posibilities:

a) the objects make real maneuvers, in sincron, so they show inteligence and connections between them

b) the maneuvers of the objects are not real, but the camera together with the shuttle itself make small maneuvers, because of the Reaction control system of the shuttle in action (en.wikipedia.org...), when finely and with precission make small adjustements in the shuttle attitude or motion vector as part of it's flight in orbit.

If we look with attention, we can see clearly that even the stars themselves, those apparently imobile bright or dimmer points of light, appear to do some kind of small maneuveurs, exactly at the precise moments ("changes") marked by me! Clear evidence for shuttle maneuvers!!!

This really rules out the "inteligence" factor needed to explain the "misterious maneuvers of the objects!

source: link

And some relevant stars in this image:








Trick number 2: select proper marks to help judge the image

I recognised the stars in that image:

Originally posted by depthoffield
We have identified the part of the sky where the tether is seen: constelation Centaurus.

First, a brief identification when we see the tether in an unzoomed situation, naming some stars and using the stacking method to better isolate the stars between moving "ufo's", also overlaying the image onto a Stellarium chart:



Second, absolutely the same thing, but using another sky-chart software, an older one, Skymap, which have the advantage that we could make ANGLE MEASUREMENTS:

source: link1, link2





..and finnally, to make yourself an image of RCS firigs in action,(perhaps a strong maneuver, but the shuttle doesn't appear to move significant), here is an example:

Shrike, can we approach this dispute in small steps?

Are you satisifed that there is, indeed, a dawn shadow zone down-sun of spacecraft, inside of which any small spacecraft-generated dandruff would be invisible until it drifts out of the shadow and into sunlight?

Is such a concept within the range of your belief system?

Originally posted by JimOberg
Shrike, can we approach this dispute in small steps?

Are you satisifed that there is, indeed, a dawn shadow zone down-sun of spacecraft, inside of which any small spacecraft-generated dandruff would be invisible until it drifts out of the shadow and into sunlight?

Is such a concept within the range of your belief system?

Just saw the teaser for Tuesday's 'NASA Unexplained' on the Science channel and Kasher is to be quoted,
so this needs to be bumped. So far, nobody has made any substantive response to my demolishing ALL of Kasher's famous "five proofs it can't be ice."

Please try harder instead of squeezing eyes tigher shut.

What I want to know from the people on here that think these objects are ufo's or critters as some claim how they work out size distance and the speed of these objects because I have seen meny claims so how do you do it

I've revised my disproof of 'Proof 2' because Kasher DID talk about the objects possessing initial velocities, he just garbled the explanation -- but it's not needed for the disproof. Here's the fixed version:

Proof 2: The two fast-moving particles must have been traveling directly away from the RCS thruster. Their motion is linear – “If a rocket did the firing, the lines MUST meet” – and Kasher claims they don’t. Kasher’s ‘Appendix J’ asserted that only the left-firing left pod vernier jet (L5L) could possible affect the particle motion – “This is crucial when we examine the trajectories of the objects more carefully.”

He wrote: “If they were ice particles accelerated by the one possible vernier rocket, the two lines must meet at one point. This proves that the two objects were not ice particles accelerated by the vernier adjustor rocket.”

Disproof: Kasher incorrectly ASSUMES that all thruster plume force is linearly directed away from the thruster. But he misidentified the thruster responsible for the plume puff – it was actually L5D, the down-firing vernier jet, as shown by telemetry records. He was also unaware of the propensity of aft-mounted down-firing thrusters to generate plume flows which significantly impinged on Orbiter structure and thus bounced off in new directions, including into areas previously out of direct ;sight’ of the thruster – such as the region the particles presumably were drifting.