Why is it hard to prove UFO evidence with photos

To make things Clear:

Im not trying to start a flaming war or collect ATS point im just trying to prove I point if I can:

Ok Lets start with this link which has nothing to do with Aliens but photo quality:
www.frogview.com...

Or These photos from the same site:




All these pictures were modified from the true picture using photoshop
without giving away pixelation errors, only to be noticed by experienced
people who do this on an everyday basis.

So what if they manipulate this to construct UFO evidence?

This is mainly one of the reasons why photographs will never be taken seriously unless the source is validated, then speculation starts debunking to follow.

To make things clear I do belive in life out there, heck even some scientists out there are trying to prove if extraterrestial bacteria came from meteors to initiate life or introduce disease....

Back to the topic: how can UFO photographic evidence be taken seriously specially these days when almost evrything you see around you is an illusion.

mod edit: title spelling

[edit on 16-2-2007 by sanctum]

Oh and pressing the back button gave me the php code of this page?

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totally off topic, just making the mods aware so they can pass it on to
the Dark Matter Designers...

Originally posted by a1ex
To make things Clear:

Im not trying to start a flaming war or collect ATS point im just trying to prove I point if I can:

Ok Lets start with this link which has nothing to do with Aliens but photo quality:
www.frogview.com...

Or These photos from the same site:



l
All these pictures were modified from the true picture using photoshop

Though tasteful, it should be noted that these images are slightly NSFW.

As to your main point, I completely agree. People have simply got to stop posting photos and say look! I found this on the internet and it's PROOF that aliens are here. Stop, stop, stop. They are just bringing down derisive laughter on the whole topic.

It's just too easy for some Photoshop geek with too much time on his hands to make a fake. Provenance, verifiable supporting data, and supporting testimony are key.

It's the same thing with stories. Wild stories appear in books, videos, and internet postings, all about underground alien bases, huge government conspiracies, and so on (you know the drill), and not one shred of verifiable evidence is offered in support. Still, people get very excited about these red herrings.

I think that we as a community should just start ignoring this stuff, placing the burden of evidence with the claimant as it should be.

Agree alex, but what can we do? Its a shame folks enjoy making fake photos, reminds me of those who also manufacture a virus for our pc's.
Besides the trouble of trying, and luck to get a credible witness (ie. pilot) taking a risk and reporting a sighting, rare military or FAA cooperation, always hoped someone would have a camera.
Now its almost like, oh good...another picture, I mean hoax. Now the regular people are in the disinformation...sure seems like more and more folks are doing this, and whats up with that?

Funny that you posted this. I was just thinking about this type of subject early this morning while scanning the threads on the alien/UFO board. I agree with you. With today's photo-manipulation (for lack of a better word this morning) technology; it is really difficult to trust photos that you are presented with today; whether they are supposed UFO's or ET's, or photos you see in magazine advertisements, etc.

Case in point. My brother-in-law has some very good photo-shopping skills, and he recently showed me a photo of a buck deer that looked like it had a huge set of antlers with 14 antler points. In truth, he had photo-shopped a buck with a small 6 point antler rack into the 14 point size. If he had showed me the fake photo and said that this was the buck he killed during hunting season; I would have completely believed him.

Point is, I have a hard time believing anything photos I see posted here due to today's technology. Which might not be really fair to the original posters. I do not absolutely discount them; however, I just look at them now with a higher degree of skepticism than ever before. Especially if they are just linked from another web site.

The photo is hardly the problem.

Knowing whats in a ufo photo can be a big help.

So far after I have seen ufo photos here and on youtube
starting the summer of 2006 and looking for evidence of
electrical activity, according to the outlook of Lyne's suggestion
that Tesla created voltage fields might be the source
of hover and motion and why they get stuck and flare up
or show bright lights of lightning, I would say most of what
you see today are triangle craft.

The triangle craft have multiple plasma thrustors while the old
time saucer had only one and looked like ball lightning.
Flashing lights like a stop sign, triangle; ball lightning, saucer.

Not much to it, kind of boring. Keep up those art pictures as
good evidence of what kind of pictures should only be accepted
as evidence on ats. Thats something like what Wikipedia does for
the triangle evidence.

As I have said to several people over the past couple of months, the ability or tools for faking photos has almost reached the level of the tools to detect them.

However, there's just about always going to be clues (such as channel specific data and pixel disruption in digital media) that at least can give you a clue. There's a set number of tools and most have by-products that can bee seen.

Past that, it's going to come down to motive, composition, and consistency in the shot(s). After that it's going to widdle to a series of odds, and how far someone is willing to go to fake a UFO pic.

But I dont think (barring obvious fakes) that many people are going to be able to give definitive answers on fake or not after awhile...it's just going to be odds.

Now in some cases photos could be valid imagine someone taking a photo of Ball Lightning? This mystery is still unexplained but does exist!



en.wikipedia.org...

now see hstory about this phenonmenon , and epople talking about it then writing the incident or making art...

Now someone taking a photo of a reall occurance of the above will publish it but
the evidence will be ither accepted or ignored due to vast amounts of fakes out there.

Originally posted by Txhunter67
Funny that you posted this. I was just thinking about this type of subject early this morning

Funny you mention this .. I really wonder if all things are really connected one way or another...

Originally posted by lyingunderoath
Agree alex, but what can we do? Its a shame folks enjoy making fake photos, reminds me of those who also manufacture a virus for our pc's.

I never thought about it that way , yes good point!

Originally posted by jritzmann
As I have said to several people over the past couple of months, the ability or tools for faking photos has almost reached the level of the tools to detect them.

However, there's just about always going to be clues (such as channel specific data and pixel disruption in digital media) that at least can give you a clue. There's a set number of tools and most have by-products that can bee seen.

Past that, it's going to come down to motive, composition, and consistency in the shot(s). After that it's going to widdle to a series of odds, and how far someone is willing to go to fake a UFO pic.

But I dont think (barring obvious fakes) that many people are going to be able to give definitive answers on fake or not after awhile...it's just going to be odds.

I forsee another problem developing as our technology advances.

Yes, the means to produce "faked" photgraphic "eveidence" is rapidly approaching a level of sophistication and availablity (ease of use) to make virtually Every photo suspect. However, I also see the blossoming proliferation of Digital photography to be problematic in and of itself.

It has often been reported that the presence of a UFO has been accompanied by unusual electromagnetic phenomenon: glowing "plasmas, static discharges, the erratic operation and failure of electrical and electronic equipment/devices such as lights, cars, and radios.

It cannot have escaped the consideration of anyone seriously persueing photographic "eveidence" of UFO's, that the very thing that makes that new High-Resolution, 8 Megapixel camera so valuable to the hunt, also makes it so vunerable to fail at the crucial moment!

Digital photography may have not only made it easier to fake a sighting, it may have also made it next to impossible to visually record a True encounter with any reliability!

What kind of digital "artifacts" would a close enounter with a UFO's "Electro-Gravimetric Plasma Force Repulso Field" impart to an image captured on a memory card? Do we know? Can we guess? Is there a certain distance to object beyond which digitally produced images may not be considered reliable?

Would we be able to Distinguish "artifact" from "alteration"; "Signal" from "Noise"?

what really amazes me is that nobody had photoshop in the 1950's or 1960's and yet nobody really goes in deep to analyze them. its hard to prove ufos with photos because of people like Penn and Teller who live in a closed world where everything is based off of past science.

Digital photography may have not only made it easier to fake a sighting, it may have also made it next to impossible to visually record a True encounter with any reliability!

Is there any Digital camera that also takes the picture in Analog film?
Daul Cammera Both digital and analog this would not make fakes impossible but
harder to achive since you have 2 pictures to modify? errors will be easier to catch?

Is there anything like that out there already?

Maybe people doing research into ufos will have to revert to using 35mm cameras instead of the digital. That way they cannot be accused of faking photos of ufos with photoshop, and they will have the negatives.

Back to the topic: how can UFO photographic evidence be taken seriously specially these days when almost evrything you see around you is an illusion.

The simple excuse: It can't be taken seriously.

Unless you have multiple photos from multiple sources (and this can be verified), as well as the witness testimony to back it up...or you look at old photos (prior to everyone having a PC in their home).

The Phoenix Lights case is a great example. We have around 6 different videos all showing the same thing, from different vantage points. Granted, seems the videoed event turned out to be flares, but it still illustrates an instance where photographic/video evidence can be seriously considered, even in this age of digital wizardry....

Originally posted by a1ex
Why is it hard to prove UFO evidence with photos

Because for those that believe, no proof is necessary, for those that don't, none will suffice".

UFO photos are a complete waste of time!


[edit on 16/2/07 by Prote]

Anyone who believes in alien visitiation in UFOs because of UFO photos is a moron. That's right. There is ZERO proof to be found in UFO photos of alien visitation. They are just interesting pieces of evidence of something, we can't say for sure what.

Are some UFO photos legitimate? == YES
Do UFO witnesses really see what they think they see? == YES
Is it possible these things are alien craft from other planets? == YES
Are they alien craft from other planets? == NOBODY CAN PROVE IT!

Thousands of sightings, photos, physical traces, eyewitness accounts.

Do they inarguably add up to "aliens from space?" == NO!

Originally posted by Prote

Originally posted by a1ex
Why is it hard to prove UFO evidence with photos

"Because for those that believe, no proof is necessary, for those that don't, none will suffice".

There's nothing inherently wrong with believing something. It's impossible for us human beings to know the real "truth" about everything, because that requires having all the facts, and we never have all the facts. We have to take certain things for granted, illogically based on past experience, or we wouldn't be able to make any choices and live our lives. Without eyes, we can't see, but even with eyes, we can't see everything.

There's a difference, however, between believing in something and recognizing it to be a compromise reached because we don't have enough data, and presenting one's beliefs as "fact," when they so logically and obviously aren't.

The funny thing about the quote above, is that for someone like myself who requires proof, if I'm provided with that bit of proof, I won't have to believe, since the proof is there. And so neither will the "believer" have to continue to believe. Proof negates faith.

So it all boils down to how much you value faith. Other than faith that the world (reality) will be perceived by me to be relatively consistent until I die, I don't have a lot of faith, and I find it a necessary annoyance, but still an annoyance. Other people value faith a lot more than reason, since without it you can't experience the joy and love of Christ or God or the thrill of knowing aliens are out there in the vast Universe, etc.

I find those people of faith to be aggressively stupid, as they find the "faith-challeged" like myself to be pointlessly joyless. So I guess it all evens out.

Originally posted by SkyWay
Maybe people doing research into ufos will have to revert to using 35mm cameras instead of the digital. That way they cannot be accused of faking photos of ufos with photoshop, and they will have the negatives.

I understand some are beginning to do that in "Paranormal" investigations since the orb phenomena and artifacts have increased. Whether that's proportional to the increase in camera ownership or that people are taking more pictures who knows. I remember my SLR days. Sometimes 36 frames could be loaded there for months and you do get fed up with the development side, whether you do it at home or send it to a lab. Now I can shoot 500 in an evening easily.

Originally posted by a1ex
Why is it hard to prove UFO evidence with photos

People do not trust people when "reasonable doubt" exists. People demand undisputable physical proof in order to justify their belief. Without such proof, they will never choose to believe it.

Back to the topic: how can UFO photographic evidence be taken seriously specially these days when almost evrything you see around you is an illusion.

Then, perhaps ....

We need to know what it is we hold up as a basis for comparison when judging the integrity of other peoples' stories concerning ufos. We need to know ourselves as best as we can first, since it is ourselves (or rather what we know of ourselves) which is what defines the perameters of where we will classify other people ... and their agendas.

Back to the topic: how can UFO photographic evidence be taken seriously specially these days when almost evrything you see around you is an illusion.

Shortest answer: No photographic evidence will be taken seriously. People know it may be faked.

What if the original picture was the picture with the true ufo ....
and certain agencies operate photo-shops which produce altered pictures in order to discredit the original picture??????

Pictures can not ... nor will they be accepted by everyone as proof.

Pictures and video evidence are becoming ... or have already become moot.

Although it obviously stretches my imagination to think certain ways, since people do not trust available physical evidence .....

Then look at the direction that world leaders and the most powerful people in the world are heading in.

I say international policies coupled with measuring effects and percieved intentionality of the most influential powers on the planet may shed far more light on the subject at hand than any long drawn out degates concerning whether each and every picture is a fraud, or manipulated hoax.

I spend more time contemtplating the reasons that would have to exist in order to justify current events ... and historical stances made by those who may have been in the know.

For instance... the USA is the supposedly the driving force in the world today which is leading in the spread of Democracy.

If the USA is doing what they are doing to support the spread of Democracy across the globe, then are they succeeding when the overwhelming majority of the population of their own country and the world population dissagrees with their policies.

I'm not saying i think what the USA is doing is wrong.

But what would have to be taking place in order to justify the actions that are being taken?

I believe the answers to the right questions concerning intentions may lead us closer the truth than spinning our wheels argueing over pictures and videos, and eywitnesses .... and stories.

cause and effect. intentions.