O'Hare Airport UFO Sighting -- UPDATE: Photos & Analysis

Originally posted by RiotComing

Originally posted by amongus

Have a hard time believing a guy called 0000000 would post the aformentioned photo in this way instead of through the media.

Media? You are aware that the "media" don't want people to know that ET are here, right? Read the Media Control CIA document on the front page at www.disclosureproject.org... - stated plainly in black and white that they have the ability to pull sensitive stories in the national interest.

To the guy who said he has a hard time believing a guy who has just signed up and posted the pic - this new member could well be the pilot himself - ever thought that? Coming from a guy who is only a new member himself, how shall I rate your relative credibility? My conclusion is that your membership status has nothing to do with the resources you bring to the table. Healthy skepticism is fine, but all this "oh it's fake because his username is stupid and the object is not in the center of the pic" is uncalled for. I know that cellphone pics are fiddlesome to snap at the best of times, let alone being a pilot on the spur of the moment caught unawares. I'm happy to take all we can get at this stage. For me, the object and photograph checks out as being consistent with the eyewitness accounts.

I agree entirely! I think its one step forward but we still have many large steps to take! Though every step closer is better!

Problem with that pic, which is a common clue I find in many of today's fakes... is that the composition of the object is almost never in the middle of the shot.

When taking pictures, it's almost an automatic instinct to centralize the object, in order to get the best possible view on it.

It is also a possibility that the photographer wanted to get a reference object in with the main object, but only if you still have time after doing the centralized picture... the most important.

Does the photographer of this image have another image, of a different composition?

As much as I'd like to believe that this is the real deal, I'm leaning towards hoax.

It's strange that when we get a pretty inconclusive pic on a hot topic most people think it's the real thing, but when someone posts another one they shot in their own backyard that's similarly inconclusive, the debunkers shoot it down.

There ARE some strange things about the picture (no direct evidence of digital manipulation, etc). But one thing that gets me is that all the witnesses stated that it was hard to see or metallic and alot like the clouds. Gave me the impression that it wasn't well-defined. The only problem with this pic is NOTHING in it is well-defined. Had it been a 10.0 megapixel camera, the runway lights and background at the bottom would have been in sharp detail, but likewise, the "UFO" would have been also ... contradicting the eyewitness reports.

I personally need 00000000 to come back and make a statement about the picture before I go believing it's anything more than the usual pictures we get on this forum every day.

Originally posted by Navieko
Does the photographer of this image have another image, of a different composition?

Another photo would be nice for multiple reasons, one being to discount the possibility that it is merely water on the lense.

Originally posted by HankMcCoy
Another photo would be nice for multiple reasons, one being to discount the possibility that it is merely water on the lense.

Cell phone lenses tend to be very small -- look at yours -- not much bigger than a drop of water. I doubt very much this could be a lense artifact.

I agree with the others, alone it's interesting, but without context it is nearly worthless.

Originally posted by mister.old.school
Cell phone lenses tend to be very small -- look at yours -- not much bigger than a drop of water. I doubt very much this could be a lense artifact.

My thoughts exactly. That drop would have to be damn near microscopic.

I'm skeptical about the member who posted this and the remarkable timing as one member pointed out earlier.

Peace

Originally posted by badw0lf

Originally posted by scififan]
No date, no camera info. What does this tell us? Not much, other than to say the picture was more than likely taken with a camera phone as your source suggests.

Actually, it doesnt tell us that at all... Not a single picture on my PC has that information within it, so what it does prove is a: unless that information is explicitly defined, it failes to be represented, OR, that downloading web images fails to include such data & his camera does not include such data, or its been removed from the image.

It does not tell us exclusively that this image was made with a mobiel phone. Nor with a web cam. Nor a digital image downloaded off the net, edited and then filtered so as the included image renders the same lesser quality as a mobile phone image.. etc etc.

Again one thing stick in my mind.. WHy is the image in the top right corner, if it was the focus of attention?

Also the person posting has only JUST registered. had it been a long time member Id be more inclined to agree.

Sorry, but I call hoax. and I hate people like me... ;/



[edit on 24-1-2007 by badw0lf]

Excellent points. There are many ways for EXIF data to be stripped from an image, and it can also be edited out by an individual. However you claim that "not a single picture" on your PC has this information in it. I just ran a quick search and I have several thousand JPEG files on my drive...did you actually take the time to check every single JPEG file on your computer with the same tool I used, a tool that is so new from Microsoft that it isn't even listed on Google yet?

www.microsoft.com...

Probably not. However I'm not trying to start a fight - the bottom line is that none of us here are properly trained to do this type of forensic research, especially me. However we are all anxiously looking for answers and trying to help any way we can. EXIF data (when it exists) typically isn't stripped when a picture is uploaded to the web. It's embedded within the file.

If there were EXIF data in the picture with a date from last week and camera information from a Casio camera then it would be easy to claim hoax. In this case the EXIF data doesn't tell us much, so in my mind until all possible variables are eliminated the photo is neither hoax nor real.

Originally posted by Hank McCoy
Science is rarely entertaining. That is why Star Trek still gets higher ratings than the Science Channel. Sorry to be a killjoy, but unlike a variety of others, my posts are not meant to be entertaining.

Sometimes a blob on a lense is merely a blob on a lense.

Without more evidence no possibilities can be discounted, but to be able to jump to an incredible conclusion, you MUST be able to discount the more mundane.

It's laugh-not-loud pandemonium in everything you write Hank-a-hoy! thats produced hundreds upon hundreds of imperceptible half-chuckles, furrowed brows, comtemplative grimaces, and even a flared nostril now and then among your readership; friend or foe.

Please, oh please, do write a book someday on the 'Tricks of the trade' as your urbane, droll, mostly embalmed sense of humor -- so full of wry subtleties that often go undetected by most readers -- casual or astute -- will be a real hit among those we nomals call egregious BORES.



[edit on 24-1-2007 by Palasheea]

i'm not an expert...but i once heard that you can open a picture in the notepad editor to see if it is a hoax.

if it is a hoax, you would see somewhere the line "photoshop (insert version here)" or some other line that states that the photo was manipulated in another image tool.

if it is real you would see the line which states "camera name and type" (if from a digital camera)

i checked the picture for those signs...nothing...no line stating it was manipulated by a imagetool nor a line stating it was from a digital camera.

the fact that there's nothing, makes me believe that it was taken using a cellphone camera.

i used to take pictures with my cellphonecam...and it's true...there's no line stating it was taken by the cellphone cam. it seems to be a normal phenomenon on pictures taken by cellphone cams.
before i forget it...you can't remove the string from the pic without destroying it.

[edit on 24-1-2007 by AgainstSecrecy]

hey there classified material

what's up with your FOIA request?

Originally posted by mister.old.school
Cell phone lenses tend to be very small -- look at yours -- not much bigger than a drop of water. I doubt very much this could be a lense artifact.

I agree with the others, alone it's interesting, but without context it is nearly worthless.

Aye, tis true, but that is making the large assumption that it was a cellphone camera. Mayhaps it could be another type of camera, but sadly it seems like we will never know for certain.

Originally posted by 00000000
from a camera phone

the person who sent this to me claims he shot this at the airport

Im sorry, but who exactly are you, and why would someone who has the only known photograph of a potentially major event in the history of UFOs trust you to expose it to the masses?

Are you sure you don't know who took this?

Originally posted by Palasheea
BORES.

Science is rarely entertaining. That is why Star Trek still gets higher ratings than the Science Channel. Sorry to be a killjoy, but unlike a variety of others, my posts are not meant to be entertaining.

Sometimes a blob on a lense is merely a blob on a lense.

Without more evidence no possibilities can be discounted, but to be able to jump to an incredible conclusion, you MUST be able to discount the more mundane.

Originally posted by Mezzanine

Originally posted by 00000000
from a camera phone

the person who sent this to me claims he shot this at the airport

Im sorry, but who exactly are you, and why would someone who has the only known photograph of a potentially major event in the history of UFOs trust you to expose it to the masses?

Are you sure you don't know who took this?

Right! These were the same questions I was asking.

A few thoughts...

Given the overcast day, there are no distinct shadows. When I enlarged and adjusted brightness on the object, it seemed like there may have been a lightening of the upper right top/back side of the object and a bit a shadow below. I am thinking about the direction of view in the picture. If that were the case, one would think the view is looking south or southeast. (time of day and the direction of sunset in nov) Maybe even southwest. I also looks like the taxiway at the lower part of the picture. If this is the case, the picture could have been taken from an upper level of the terminals or maybe from a plane on the runway to the north. I would be great if someone near the airport could try to orient the photo with the airport.

I have an Olympus E-20 camera. It sets the EXIF in all pics. Copying pictures with Windows preserves the info. Programs saving the image can quite often lose it. I have no idea about camera phones.

Not having access to a camera phone, I can't really say, but I would suspect the lens is quite small. A drop of water to create the object of that size, I my opinion, would have to be very small. A pinpoint. Wouldn't a drop blowing onto the len just cover most of the len surface?

The object seems larger than 20 foot diameter in the picture unless it is really close the the camera vs the background. Compare it to the ground clutter. Now that clutter could be across the airport grounds, 1/2 to 1 mile maybe. So the picture would have been taken near the terminals. That would make the object close in relation to the background, unless the clutter is the terminal buildings, which would make it seem incorrect.

I bet the lens aperture on the phone cameras is quite small so that a large area of depth (depth of field) is in focus. The picture looks like that is the case. Just opinion. Phone camera user could investigate that in their pictures or maybe simulate the situation. The object and background seem in a similar focus despite what would appear to be a fairly large distance seperation.

seems like everyone is on a rant to believe it's a hoax. i already stated in my previous posting: i don't think it is a hoax, read my explanation why.

just throwing this question into the room: why are those debunkers/skeptics always that successfull in convincing the people that everything is a hoax?

my two cents

[edit on 24-1-2007 by AgainstSecrecy]

Does anyone know any workers at Ohare? I mean common sense would tell me to show this picture to a worker that saw this thing? I would think that someone on here would know someone through someone who could log on to ATS and confirm this is what they saw that day?

Interesting point on the binary data of the picture.

Using an editor, I looked at some pics. The header of my original pics with EXIF data look different. I compared to a pic I edited with Paintshop pro. It looks very similar. I suspect that it has at least been opened and saved from a photo editor. Maybe an expert can check it out.

Originally posted by AgainstSecrecy
just throwing this question into the room: why are those debunkers/skeptics always that successfull in convincing the people that everything is a hoax?

Personally, Im not trying to debunk this photo, I sincerely hope that its the real thing. However, I think it's our responsibility as a community to police ourselves, and if this thing turns out to be a fake, itll make us all look like fools and call the entire incident into doubt in the minds of the general public.

My questions have nothing to do with the actual photo... there are people here who are much better at that than I am. I want to know who this guy is and how he got his hands on this photo.


Admins, I dont suppose you guys can check the person who posted this photo and find out if they're from a .gov or something like that. This seems vague and random enough to be disinfo I believe.

Originally posted by AgainstSecrecy
hey there classified material

what's up with your FOIA request?

Still waiting for their reply. I'll post it when I get it. No worries.