UFOs, Photography, Imaging, Lighting, and Photogrammetric Analysis

Anyone who has watched a recent Sci-Fi movie knows visual fx and imaging techniques have evolved to the point where it's hard to differentiate what is real from what is fake. To a large extent this is why so many people react with a great deal of skepticism when faced with someone claiming to have snapped a photograph of a UFO. This sense of caution is unfortunately necessary, especially when one considers the number of UFO cases that are outright hoaxes constructed using tools like Maya, Photoshop, and After Effects.[0][1][2][3] It is in direct response to the many ways people can fake a photograph or video, why modern ufologists require corroborating eyewitnesses to willingly reveal their identities to an investigative research body before a case is considered to have any merit.[4]

In the past this was less of a problem because photographic fakes could easily be identified since they were often constructed using physical props and simple false perspective camera tricks.[5][6] Though there are still cases even today, where people use physical objects like flares or solar balloons to create the illusion of a fake UFO.[7][8][9]

The cases that are probably the hardest to identify though are the ones where a person has snapped a normal photograph and after the fact discovers something strange in the negative.[10] The evidence is typically dismissed out-of-hand however by more serious researchers because the photographer didn't witness the unknown with the naked eye at the time of the shooting and make an intentioned effort to go about photographing the object. Also, as is most often the case, the object in the composition proves to be something mundane like a bird,[11][12] a radiosonde, or another more down to earth object.[13][14]

Regrettably, the factors mentioned above, amongst numerous others issues, have led to a high number of false-positive vectors. This has forced researchers to adapt to find better ways to manage the low-signal-to-noise ratio. A significant part of the ongoing initiative to expunge bad data involves finding new ways to defend against hoaxsters and other less scrupulous individuals, who try to pass off low quality evidence in an attempt to validate their belief system. So, at the present, one of the primary areas of UFO research is photographic forensics.[15]

Techniques using photogrammetric reconstruction helps to place the object in the scene, to determine whether it was close in the foreground or further out in the distance. This gives a better sense of the scale of the object. The mathematically rigorous nature of forensic and photogrammetric investigative methodologies makes it an important area of research which will likely one day help to prove whether any UFO photographs are of a genuine unknown object that is truly new to science.[16],[17],[18],[19]

== Refs/Notes ==

[0]. "UFO Over Haiti ** Proof Of Fake** Analysis Of The Trees" -- www.youtube.com...
[1]. "Pic of UFO very close range" -- www.abovetopsecret.com... and the images www.abovetopsecret.com...
[2]. "Dome Of The Rock UFO: Hoaxes Are Easy - Extended Discussion." -- www.abovetopsecret.com...
[3]. "Nightly News Alien" debunked on 'Fact or Faked' -- video.syfy.com... . The full episode is available on hulu, www.imdb.com...
[4]. To see what's involved in a modern UFO case study, see the 2008 MUFON "Special Research Report, Stephensville, Texas" -- www.ufocasebook.com...
[5]. "Alien Autopsy Hoax" -- www.disclose.tv... . Also see, www.livescience.com... and the Wikipedia article discussing how Ray Santilli faked the footage, en.wikipedia.org...
[6]. "The Billy Meier hoax photographs" -- forgetomori.com... and his ex-wife corroborates the hoax -- www.youtube.com...
[7]. "Morristown UFO hoax" -- en.wikipedia.org... and an interview with Chris Russo and Joe Rudy -- www.youtube.com...
[8]. "Faking UFO Photos for the Twenty-First Century" -- www.csicop.org...
[9]. "HUGE Solar Balloon!" -- www.metacafe.com...
[10]. A famous example of this is the Solway Firth "Spaceman" photo -- en.wikipedia.org...
[11]. "November 25, 2005, Vancouver Island, BC, Canada" -- www.ufoevidence.org...
[12]. "August, 2005 - Jersey City, NJ, USA" -- www.ufoevidence.org...
[13]. "Is it a star, planet, aircraft lights, satellite or a UFO?" -- www.abovetopsecret.com...
[14]. "UFO?.......No!" -- www.abovetopsecret.com...
[15]. Carrion, James (May 2009). "The Nayarit UFO Photos - An In-depth Analysis." MUFON UFO Journal 493.
[16]. What constitutes proof of "UFOs" (in the broadest sense) is clearly somewhat subjective. There's a thread on ATS that describes an interesting methodology for separating UFOs into categories based on where the case is in the analysis (detection stage, position stage, confirmed stage, identified stage), in place of the high-strangeness index (Hynek's Close Encounter UFO classification system). The author seems to further suggest cases should be broken down into confirmed and unconfirmed categories organized by research institute. Thus creating an aggregate or meta-score ranking of the quality of the incident. See "UFOs: Lets cut the crap already" -- www.abovetopsecret.com... and "UFO: What does it mean?" -- www.abovetopsecret.com... . This discussion is further extended where the author talks about three types of proof as: [1] Internal Confirmation (seeing something strange, belief-logic, faith) [2] Appeal to authority / external confirmation (trustworthy sources - including family members / friends, whistleblowers, current authority figures) [3] Scientific verification (repeatable tests that any scientist can authenticate along /w peer-review). More on this can be found at: www.abovetopsecret.com...
[17]. For a solid UFO photo case that's been analyzed by professional photo labs see: Druffel, Ann; Wood, Robert M.; Kelson, Eric (2000). "Reanalysis of the 1965 Heflin UFO Photos." Journal of Scientific Exploration 14 (4) pp.583-622.
[18]. The Voorwerp object could be considered to be a UFO of sorts. As it is truly a genuine new phenomena, discovered by an amateur astronomer, floating through space, and no one knows exactly what it is. Like any new astronomical discovery hopefully further research of Hanny's Voorwerp will help us to better understand more about the physical universe. -- io9.com... . For more see: blogs.zooniverse.org...

[19]. "Hubble Finds Unidentified Object in Space, Scientists Puzzled" -- gizmodo.com... . For more on SCP 06F6 see: en.wikipedia.org...

This has been a difficult essay to write. I have a good understanding of computational geometry, basic photography, and forensics. However my knowledge of photogrammetric image-based modeling is lacking. Are there any articles or books the fine people of ATS can point me to that better describe computer vision techniques for converting surfaces to 3D objects? Extending this knowledge to video tracking is especially interesting to me. Beyond that, much like my other threads, I am hoping people will critique the write-up and offer feedback on:

1. Specific techniques used to convert sensing data to 3D objects. I am particularly interested in equipment like Microsoft's Kinect and hand-held radio transmitters to create point sprites from environmental data.

2. Whether the article is reasonably complete as an introduction to the intersection between UFO research and image analysis. Put another way, did I miss anything?

3. Should I mention ...

a. Bruce Maccabee (or insert your favorite optical physicist) and his work at the Naval research lab?

b. I also considered adding in details about SonotaCo's UFO Capture, Analyzer, Orbit and Monitor suite, but I think that's better left for a different essay on how UFOs pose a challenge to remote sensing, measurement-instrumentation technology, and computer science. Thoughts?

4. For those of you that have a background in computer science, image analysis-recognition, and optical physics are there any books that attempt to quantify and analyze ambiguous visual data-points to create a multisensor data fusion of a remotely sensed object? Cross-disciplinary books in astronomy, remote sensing, robotic machine vision, et cetera are all welcome additions.

5. Is the article balanced? I don't want to project a pro or con dichotomy where one needn't exist. I fear the essay sounds too negative.

6. Please feel free to point out grammatical mistakes. The wording isn't as flowing as I would like it to be. Hopefully a second or third pair of eyes will help fix any wording awkwardness.

Thank you. Shalom!

reply to post by FooScience


It's the ufo un-believer's go to these days.

It's sheer ignorance, seeing as they seem to omit the mentioning or regarding of strange objects in the sky seen and recorded by people since the beginning of recorded history, and then some.

Pretty sure they didn't have computers and CGI 2000 years ago.

Point sprites!

I should read with care.

Disregard my previous post.

The best method I have found so far for detecting image manipulation is based on 'Camera Pattern Noise' by:

Jan Lukáš, Jessica Fridrich, Miroslav Goljan, 2006, 'Detecting digital image forgeries using sensor pattern noise', Security, Steganography, and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents VIII

This method has a near 100% accuracy in detecting forged images. It does help when the image is at the largest resolution possible. It works by identifying the unique noise pattern of each individual camera sensor, like a fingerprint. This is then referenced to the pixels to determine if alterations have taken place. I am yet to locate any software on the open market that uses this technique. It is expected that some USA government agencies do have access to software based on these techniques. The movie 'Beyond Reasonable Doubt' with Michael Douglas shows it in action.

It seems that no one has patience to wait to see the real deal UFOs come in order to film them so they decide to create some UFOs using CGIs.

Those who do this should get their graphics cards taken out of their computers, phones, and cameras.

Originally posted by kwakakev
The best method I have found so far for detecting image manipulation is based on 'Camera Pattern Noise' by:

Jan Lukáš, Jessica Fridrich, Miroslav Goljan, 2006, 'Detecting digital image forgeries using sensor pattern noise', Security, Steganography, and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents VIII

This method has a near 100% accuracy in detecting forged images. It does help when the image is at the largest resolution possible. It works by identifying the unique noise pattern of each individual camera sensor, like a fingerprint. This is then referenced to the pixels to determine if alterations have taken place. I am yet to locate any software on the open market that uses this technique. It is expected that some USA government agencies do have access to software based on these techniques. The movie 'Beyond Reasonable Doubt' with Michael Douglas shows it in action.

Is there is a free trial version of this software so more ATS members can sleuth out fakes?

reply to post by Skywatcher2011


Not that I am aware of but have not had a hard look on the internet lately. The algorithms are identified in the paper posted above so any self respecting programmer with some time on their hands can write their own.

As many of you know, I am trying to set the bar several notches higher by providing free software to control two old Sony PTZ CCTV cameras (which originally listed for $1,299 but now go for $50 on eBay) set at least 20 meters apart and automatically detect any sizable object that enters the frame and hovers in daylight, whereupon the software adjusts the aim of the cameras if necessary, zooms them, and starts recording, all within 1.5 second, and prints tracking data below every frame and embeds hoaxproofing data, to be backed up by FOIA requests for weather and FAA radar data if an object captured is judged to be a true unknown.

But to have any hope of capturing the real thing, the system has to be set up very close to a known UFO hotspot. I have one location in mind with very clear skies where there's a subdivision of houses with big back yards two miles from bait no alien visitor could resist.

With that set up and a bit of patience, there's at least a chance of getting footage that would blow all the fakes and any government coverup out of the water.

Conventional wisdom would call for much more expensive equipment for this sort of setup, but that raises not only the issue of cost but also of reaction time, since the target may only hang around for a few seconds. And to set this up other than next door to obvious bait would call for more powerful equipment with worse reaction time.

Must find the vid. There was that guy who said "UFO's take off from here all the time" so the local news people brought their very good broadcast cameras and actually got something zipping off. It has been posted on ATS. It's funny 'cos the news people thought they were coming out to film a "kooky UFO nut", and ended up with a real story.

As more of the public gets access to high speed and thermal cameras, I think there will be more and more amazing "UFO" videos captured.

Found it. FOX News in Denver.

Sure CGI is easy to show.
But screwy UFO photo analysis defies the CGI cause they can't do it.
We see it time and time again on ATS.
CGI does not do fuzzy lights for some reason.
Ed:
[0]. "UFO Over Haiti ** Proof Of Fake** Analysis Of The Trees" -
Clear as day.
Show the strange analysis ones they defy CGI.
Ed+: there are bunches right now on ATS:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Ed++: that might just be a fuzzy photo altogether

I have photos that need analysis ! I have captured what I believe to be Hyper Stealth Suits ( invisibility suits) being used in surveillance!
I am not sure which agency is running this op. They erected and maintain massive camouflage tree platforms, blind and drop baskets. Most of this cannot be seen with the naked eye! However when I filter or alter the exposure and contrast, more is revealed.
Please help! You will not be disappointed !!

originally posted by: xpoq47


With that set up and a bit of patience, there's at least a chance of getting footage that would blow all the fakes and any government coverup out of the water.

No bias from you then, or it will show you were wrong !!!

originally posted by: Uhwake
I have photos that need analysis ! I have captured what I believe to be Hyper Stealth Suits ( invisibility suits) being used in surveillance!
I am not sure which agency is running this op. They erected and maintain massive camouflage tree platforms, blind and drop baskets. Most of this cannot be seen with the naked eye! However when I filter or alter the exposure and contrast, more is revealed.
Please help! You will not be disappointed !!

Ummm, adjusting exposure and contrast often removes detail not reveals more detail (you arent going to get more detail than you already have in a picture, you might see color and shade variants better but that doesnt mean you'll see things clearer)... you either end up loosing stuff as your darks become more and more uniform or the same in the opposite direction with all your lights getting closer and closer to white or both at the same time. Adjusting your levels will help, but you still have to be careful you dont start loosing stuff into others.

Result is you start to see odd shapes forming as colors and shades begin to merge, making shapes and forms where they arent... especially if the shape takes on a vaguely familiar form (that as i just said isnt actually there) given the brains habit of seeing such things by mistake naturally.