Wednesday, February 9, 2011

UFOs over Utah? I don't think so.

Coast to Coast AM had an interesting Photo of the Day today.  The photo (which can be seen here) claims to be of an unidentified triangular craft in the sky above Box Elder County, Utah.  What sets this apart from most UFO photos is that this craft was visible in broad daylight (cloud cover aside).  This also isn't the only photo (you can see the rest on the blog created specifically for these photos).

Honestly, the only thing astonishing to me about these photos is how one of them managed to become Photo of the Day on Coast to Coast AM's website.  I'm no photo manipulation expert, but in every single one of these photos something stands out to me:  There are definite anomalies, either around the objects themselves or in other areas of the photo.  Others that I have shown these to have seen the same thing.

In the first photo (in chronological order as posted on the blog) you can see a vaguely triangular object in front of some clouds.  If you look closely above this object, you'll see what I can only describe as a distortion that is about the same shape as the object.  It almost looks like a picture of a pyramid was shrunken down and pasted over the cloud, then tools were uses to make it blend into the background.

The second photo could depict anything.  It is certainly an unidentified flying object by definition of the phrase, but there's no scale, nothing to compare it to, and it's just a black blur against some background sky.  There also appears to be some distortion around the edges (if you can call the whole object anything but a distortion).  It could be just about anything.

Photo three is the photo that was Photo of the Day.  Looking at the triangular craft (and you don't have to scrutinize it very closely), you can definitely see something strange around the edge of the craft.  That distortion seems to be the tell-tale sign of cutting and pasting, and then using tools to smooth and smudge the edges to make them blend with the background.  Again, I'm not a photo manipulation expert, but I spotted this on my first glance at the photo.  The manipulation is so obvious that it makes the thing look like it has an aura.

The fourth photo (the final one at the time of this posting) and its close-up show more unidentifiable objects in the sky.  These are little more than pixelated slivers against the background.  The low resolution of the objects makes it near impossible to determine what they are, but based on the previous examples I'm inclined to say that these are also meant to be a clever ruse.  I can say that they just don't seem to fit with the resolution of the rest of the picture (notice the cloud in the lower-left of the close up, which appears to be farther away than the objects yet better defined).

There are some more problems I have with this whole presentation as well.  If these objects are sighted so often that he has posted four separate photos over the course of that many days...  Why can't he shoot some video of these things?  My guess is that his manipulation skills aren't good enough to alter video convincingly.  On top of all of this I have to say that reading his story sets off my bullshit detector.  This isn't something that is quantifiable though, so take it as you will.

I'm open to the possibility of these types of craft existing whether they're owned by the government, extraterrestrials, or others.  I do not have a vendetta against UFO evidence or the UFO phenomenon.  What I do have a problem with is people that try to pass off fake UFO photos as legitimate UFO photos.  It's even worse when they manage to make their hoax work by getting attention from a popular radio show's website.  I reconsidered writing about this because I didn't want to funnel any more attention this guy's way, but then I decided that it didn't really matter since he was already on the front page of the Coast to Coast AM website.

As always, I encourage you to decide for yourselves.

3 comments:

  1. ...*shrug* Despite how much I usually have to say about UFO sightings, in this case I do not. There are a number of points here:

    1) The blog is not saying "These are UFOs," it's a guy asking whether they are UFOs or some of ours. That, to me, says he's probably not a faker. If he was clever enough to say that as a ruse, he'd also be clever enough to doctor better photos.

    2) He lives in Utah.

    Where we test planes that the public doesn't know about and probably won't for another 100-200 years.

    3) The number and variation of photos does make me suspicious. If he said that these were all taken on different days, maybe, but the first story he tells is of four triangles, only one of which is visible through tree branches at the angle of the photo before speeding away too fast to capture. Later in the blog, he says that the boy is pointing at one in the middle of his play, but this is in a completely different part of the sky... and the other photos are unexplained. /I/ could explain the other ones, particularly the triangle of three and the smudge in the cloud, but the fact that the blog-writer's story does not add up, leaves so many things out... well, I'm not sure what to think there.

    If the photos are real and undoctored, the guy must just be unable to write a comprehensive blog-- hardly an uncommon fault. If the photos are doctored, then I must assume he got advice on what to say and just didn't follow through very well.

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  2. Hi, I am the guy with the blog with these pics. I am sorry about the rush descriptions. I was more focused on getting them online. These photo's were taken on different days - but with in the same week. My son may or may not be pointing at it... it just ended up with him pointing that way. He is only 11 and was looking at several things - he may have been pointing at another air craft (commercial air plane at the time) - he and I are not UFO "believers" we are just amazed by this activity and like things that fly. I do live close to NASA development sight (ATK) and the north end of the testing grounds for the air force. We have seen the stealth bomber and fighter fly over in years past. What was interesting to me was that these were in formation and moving in unusual ways. As for the camera, it is an older Kodak Z612. I have thought about buying a camera and setting it up to capture more if it happens.

    Just on the other-side of where I live, about 10 miles to the west is were they build and test rocket motors even for the shuttle. We live close enough for them to shake the house with vibrations from the tests. It is fun for us as we can go over an view them from an observation area.

    Feel free to contact me at contact@utahufo.com

    Something you might ask yourselves.. why would I make these up? I am not even using my real name or want the attention. I am making no money on this, nor have I wanted to. Frankly allot the folks in the UFO cults scare me a bit. LOL.

    I was more curious as to what the thing was - there have been some good posts on the blog saying it was ours (air force) other simply don't know.

    As for ET, not sure about that - I think people get confused by the two subjects. Personally, don't think ET is here - more like progressive science and fantastic new engineering due to our own scientific inquiry. Granted, I have gone along with the theme of traditional UFO sights - mainly to get some feed back from folks that look at this stuff allot.

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  3. I think the fact that the blog is no longer up says a lot.

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