UFOs and Modern Cameras

[tongodeon]

When I was a kid I was really big into cryptozoology: Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, etc. Also UFOs. Most of the "hard evidence" at the time was poorly exposed 35mm enlargements or grainy 16mm movies. It took a few seconds to set up an exposure and not a lot of people carried 35mm cameras with them. The "best" material at that time was the

Comments

[spiritualmonkey]

Wow, I never thought of that. Excellent point. Unless it's because the aliens have some manner of anti-imager tek that confounds ever digicams. I'm just sayin'...

Made me think of this 1970s TV show about Operation:Blue Book, the USAF's project investigating UFOs. The two officers who interviewed the probees each week were so WOODEN as actors. But then, maybe they were just deep into their characters.

[mmcirvin]

The show was produced by Dragnet creator/star Jack Webb. I think he was deliberately going for that style. On Dragnet, all the actors were reading off TelePrompTers--I don't know if he did the same thing on "Project UFO", but I'd guess he did.

[spiritualmonkey]

That's the one. Man, I thought they must have been real USAF personnel. They had that stilted, gummint issue bearing.

I heard Bob Guccione of Penthouse fame sued to have the OP: Blue Book files opened or something. Dunno what came of it.

[merde]

god, i LOVED Project Blue Book. my brother and i watched it with my dad. we were absolutely GLUED to the TV every time it was on.

[mmcirvin]

Whole new varieties of wackiness have arisen, however. For instance, pocket-size digital cameras tend to have a flash located a little too close to the lens, which, besides red-eye and terrible-looking lighting, also tends to produce "orbs"--bright circles in the picture from out-of-focus dust motes illuminated by the flash while hovering close to the lens.

There are people who believe that these orbs are living organisms from another plane of existence, possibly intelligent.

[merde]

i saw an entire documentary on this phenomenon on the Discovery channel. there was a particular cave somewhere that had especially good lighting conditions for it, apparently, so some nutball decided that was where they came from.

i miss the days when Discovery and TLC actually showed documentaries, even though a lot of them were complete and utter crap. i love how they presented each and every one without comment, no matter how insane it was. i'm especially fond of the people who believe the Sphinx is 10,000 years old and that erosion patterns on its sides prove that the Great Flood really happened.

[tongodeon]

Nobody realized that the "orb organisms" are in exactly the same location in every frame?

[mmcirvin]

Well, the motes often aren't sitting on the lens itself and move around a bit in response to air currents, so you'll see them drift about from picture to picture.

[matrushkaka]

Cryptobotany & cryptozoology are listed as "interests" on my LJ profile page. I've always been fascinated with strange & unusual plant and animal life. I remember getting excited when the Wollemi pines were discovered. I've often thought that if I could live in the Future when space travel and exploration of planets was possible, I'd like to be a botanist and discover new plant species on different planets.

Also, I wonder if the Giant Penguin will make a comeback.

[tongodeon]

The Great Penguin is a Santa Claus-like being that seems to exist only in the imagination of matrushkaka. Every year, matrushkaka sits on an ice floe waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear.

[mmcirvin]

I always figured that the people who are seriously into this stuff regard it as the solution to the paradox. "They're here, but The Man is keeping you from knowing about it" (section 4.2.4.2 in the Wikipedia article). Of course it only really works if you see the entire scientific community as part and parcel of the Great Lump of Authority and naturally inclined to be in on the biggest conspiracies.

[merde]

well, there's a problem with digital video where UFOs are concerned: it's way, way easier to fake up something convincing on digital video than it is on film, or even videotape, which makes authentication infinitely more difficult.

on the other hand, i wouldn't mind having that hideous screech from The Legend of Boggy Creek in crisp full-digital stereo.

well, okay, actually i would, because last time i watched the movie it creeped me out so much i couldn't sleep for days, and i had to draw the shades on the windows at night for weeks because suddenly the dark outside the windows was the Black Hole of Terror. sound, like smell, works on the most primitive parts of your brain, so it's much more effective at scaring you than just video -- Sam Raimi used that to excellent effect in the first couple of Evil Dead movies, since he didn't have the budget for spectacular FX.

on the other hand, i wonder whether part of what makes that kind of stuff so creepy is the poor quality of the film and recordings. modern "scary movies" don't really

mad props....

[drieuxster]

While I must confess to scepticism, I must also confess that I prefer that someone keep on trying to sort out what should be the basis for making more rational steps forward...

So thanks for reminding folks!!! and keep up the good fight...

[tongodeon]

it's way, way easier to fake up something convincing on digital video than it is on film, or even videotape, which makes authentication infinitely more difficult.

As someone who makes his living faking up convincing imagery on film I have to disagree with you. The only real difference is the input/output stage. You need a 35mm film scanner and digital printer. You can buy a scanner for a few hundred bucks and most service bureaus will let you print to film.

I think the main issue is that between digital watermarks, forensic tools, and the higher quality images that modern cameras produce it's gotten way, way easier to *detect* forgeries. You couldn't tell very much in a grainy underexposed 16mm frame that's been blown up and copied a few generations, but a modern 10 megapixel autofocus camera gives you a lot of signal and not a lot of noise to perform your analysis on.

[merde]

The only real difference is the input/output stage. You need a 35mm film scanner and digital printer.

yes, but if you're using film, you can provide original negatives as proof that the image hasn't been tampered with.