As Steve Douglass remarks on the sighting at http://www.webbfeatproductions.com/Fake_.html, reffered by Bill Sweetman at
Ares Blog not accessible at the moment, here goes cashed version of his conclusions.
Photo Fakery Or The Real Deal?
Analysis of the Live Leak unidentified aircraft photo.
By Steve Douglass
Like all black project watchers, I read with great interest the posts and blogs concerning a photo of a possibly secret aircraft posted on Live Leak.
The original post was as follows:
California-Unknown Craft Photographed
California-04-24-08-I was fishing on Lake Trinity, and heard the sound of an aircraft engine. It was a very low frequency sound, but I felt it more than I could actually hear it. I only had an older Sony digital camera with me, the batteries were almost dead. I snapped 4 pictures before the camera shut off, only one came out when I read the disk.
I observed the aircraft until it vanished. It flew straight and level, I was unable to guage its size since I had no reference. But a best guess, since I have seen airliners fly over a couple of times early in the morning, I would say it was as big as a medium sized airliner, probably the size of the space shuttle. I know aircraft well, this did not look like anything I have seen out at Nellis.
It was very quiet, when an airliner flies over this lake, I hear it long before I can see it. This thing was already overhead when I heard it. It was flying southeast, as if it was on course to Las Vegas. One thing that was strange, just before I heard it, or felt it, I had a funny feeling that something was watching me, so I scanned the shorline thinking there was something watching me, then my exposed skin warmed up fast and only for 15 seconds as if I was hit with a microwave beam.
Almost enough to make me want to jump in the water. Then I felt it and saw the exhaust trail and grabbed the camera cause it was a single contrail, larger than any airliner.
The one shot that came out was at the camera's highest zoom, it is a 10X optical zoom. I was really reluctant of reporting this, the course it was on, well it flew over the most heaviest forested, least populated part of Northern California.
This thing left me with such a strange feeling that I packed up and sped home asap. I was scheduled to be on the lake through the weekend. Now I don't think this thing is alien, but it is a UFO because I don't know what the hell it is.
source and references:
MUFON submitter 10539
Here’s the original photo:
Although the photo looked real enough, I was skeptical, especially after reading the “microwave beam” description.
Still, it was intriguing photo and I like a challenge so I decided to delve deeper.
Before analyzing the photo, I decided to analyze the post, since it can be as telling as the photo. Several lines in the tale hit me as strangely familiar and also hinted at a possible hidden agenda by the poster.
These are the lines that bothered me.
1.
1.It was a very low frequency sound, but I felt it more than I could actually hear it.
This line is almost verbatim how I described the sound I heard emitted by the “The Pulser” aircraft,
I witnessed many, many years ago and published in AW&ST May 11, 1992, p. 62
Although in the AVWK article I did not describe the sound the unidentified “donuts -on-a-rope” aircraft as such, I did ( in many subsequent TV interviews that appeared on the Discovery & History Channel ) say “It was more of a sound you felt - than heard.”
Therefore, you may ask yourself, since you heard an aircraft that sounded similar, why don’t I believe the story?
A: No pulser-contrail.
2.
B.It sounded like someone quoting - me - and most likely someone who has absorbed the “black project” lore.
Other things that bugged me ...
2.
2.“I only had an older Sony digital camera with me, the batteries were almost dead.”
Hmm - I think - No - I know I’ve said that before. - when I video-taped several seconds of a a mini-B-2 shaped aircraft while attending Roving Sands (war games) in New Mexico in 1993.
Phil Patton wrote in his WIRED story Stealth Watchers: “ He raised his video camera - and the battery warning light flashed. He grabbed seven seconds of video before the machine snapped off.
Me thinks me smells something fishy, but before you think I’m making this story “all about me” read on.
3.
3.“I know aircraft well, this did not look like anything I have seen out at Nellis.”
This is the biggest hint of all - that the poster is either an aviation buff or most likely a UFO-ie as also evident by being “ MUFON submitter 10539”
Not to mention:
4.
4.“Now I don't think this thing is alien, but it is a UFO because I don't know what the hell it is.”
Wait! it gets better. This poster does have an agenda as revealed in this line:
4.
4.It was flying southeast, as if it was on course to Las Vegas.
Sounds to me he is trying to lead the reader to the conclusion that whatever it was it was probably from Groom Lake. Why not just say the aircraft was heading southeast?
My guess is It’s more exciting to think this was a “black bird” heading back to the secret bases of bases and since the reader comes to that conclusion (on his own) it becomes all that more believable -- right?
And then ...
5. “Then I felt it and saw the exhaust trail and grabbed the camera cause it was a single contrail, larger than any airliner.”
Again, suspicious. The contrail in the photo doesn’t look unusually large or out of scale for the aircraft, and yet the poster takes time to note this in his description. Does anyone know where i can get a contrail measuring meter?
But what really gets me is ...
6.
6.“I was really reluctant of reporting this.”
And yet he did - even if it was as an anonymous coward.
It would be easy to believe the source is afraid of the infamous “men in black” -- or it is just a transparent attempt to embellish the sighting - making it seem more secret by suggesting he might get in trouble for reporting it?
But most likely - the poster was afraid it would be exposed as a fake - and didn’t want anyone to know who the faker was.
On a personal note:
All of the photos, sighting and monitoring reports and videos I have posted on the Internet (of unusual aircraft I have encountered) have been done so with my name plainly attached.
Although many, many “experts” have analyzed, criticized, debated, derided and posted (sometimes profane) comments about me and my writings on various aviation forums, I have always stood by my guns.
I have never been hassled by the government, told to shut up ( by any official) visited by Federal agents or otherwise censored or (to my knowledge) investigated.
Why?
Because to do so would validate my reports - and the government is smarter than that
Therefore the “I was really reluctant of reporting this” doesn’t fly.
As a result - when I see anonymous posts, they are always suspect in my book.
Other reasons I don’t like anonymous posts is, because of my high profile, I have been e-mailed and snail-mailed, many supposed photos of various “black aircraft or UFOs” by many anonymous sources and in every single instance they have been proven to be bogus.
I don’t know if they were sent to me by person(s) with a political agendas or by someone trying to get me to pronounce a photo as genuine and then expose them as a fake - as an attempt to embarrass or discredit me - but it has happened on more than one occasion.
Point of fact: I was once burned by a photo (sent to me by a source I implicitly trusted) only to have it turn out (to the great delight of S. Douglass detractors) a fake.
Not to mention the recent raking over the coals (from Bill Sweetman) for passing on real photos of the Guam B-2 crash (sent to me by someone who said they were taken on the sly but in actuality had already been posted on many Internet sites by someone else) and ( so as a result ) I am and henceforth will always be slow to comment on - or authenticate = or pass on anything sent to me that has to do with black aircraft - before I have had a chance to scrutinize it thoroughly.
Once I was sent a photo of a supposed “black project aircraft” that turned out to be one of Graham Hawkes’ mini-subs.
I also debunked (for AVWK’S Bill Scott ) the now infamous “USAF flying saucer ” cleverly Photoshopped into a file-photo of a Nasa/Dryden hangar at Edwards AFB.
Not to mention, I can’t tell you how many times I was e-mailed the photos of the fake aircraft used in the movie “Stealth” under the heading: Secret Navy Stealth Warplane Revealed.”
That said ...
As a result, I use the following criteria when I come across or are sent images of supposed secret aircraft.
1.
1.If it is from an anonymous source, it should stay that way. If you won’t take credit, you also won’t take blame. No name - then its a fake.
2.
2. Is there more than one photo? One image is easy to fake, but ten or a dozen frames? That takes time, patience and skills. Who takes one photo anyway? I see the mother-ship from Zeta-Two Reticuli, I’m shooting ‘til I run out of film or card space!
3.
3.Is the original file available? Show me the raw file! I want the meta-data, the camera type, the exposure data - unprocessed images that can be analyzed down to the pixel structure. If you aren’t willing to post the raw image - then don’t send it to me.
Now on to the image analysis...
First thing I did was to up-scale the image to look at the pixel structure.
Using Genuine Fractals, I blew the image up to 300 DPI and found some problems.
CLICK HERE for the resampled image.
One thing that jumped out was what looked like a PhotoShop blur used over the entire image. Although the image was supposedly from a Sony camera with a 10X digital zoom, it didn’t have the usual pixelated look digital zooms typically make. Especially the contrail - it looked intentionally blurred and not due to a slow shutter speed or even a motion blur. It looked like an obvious attempt to hide the pixel structure.
I then zoomed in and applied NIK Color Efex Pro 3 Tonal Contrast filters which can really expose the pixel structure.
What it revealed is an area of disturbed pixels around
the aircraft shape as if a high-rez image had been pasted
into another lower-rez photograph (most likely the image containing the contrail)
with the image-maker not doing a very good job at cutting and pasting - and then
to fix his edits - adjusting the hue and saturation controls to make it all blend together.
The software also reveals evidence of a another blur filter applied to make pasted in
image appear to have the same resolution.
A false color filter enhances the disturbed pixels as seen here:
The final test - is to see if I can replicate the image.
To do this, I shot a small toy aircraft against a white background and pasted it into a photo I snatched off the internet of a contrail trailing out behind a jumbo jet.
Here is the original contrail photo:
,
Note the “halo” around the object and other pixel artifacts and how the pixels making up the aircraft are more defined - denser - tightly- packed - than those in the surrounding sky.
This tells me the image is a composite, intentionally blurred and thus most-likely ...
drumroll please ...
A FAKE!
My shot of a toy plane.
And with a little PhotoShop magic, some cutting and pasting and reshaping (trimming off the wings and stretching) to make the aircraft an unrecognizable type ... but plausible - recalling the mythos-- maybe a 75 degree delta- black - stealthy - spooky ... and ... “headed toward Las Vegas” ... add little motion blur - some blending ,,,
... and voila! Aurora finally captured - or wait - an F-16 XL?
Do you see canards?
What about a Draken? - maybe an F-111? - no wait - an F-14!
Interesting engine inlets! What about that aspect ratio?
Kingfish?
Santa?
Superman?
In closing - despite all the blogging in the blogosphere - by blogo-experts one thing is clear- people tend to see what they want to see.
In the end the original photo is at its’ best - just a blurry photo of something possibly flying in the sky that will never yield any true answers - or at its’ worst is a bad fake - designed to do what it is doing, - igniting the blogosphere in useless debate.
It amazed me the details Internet aviationistas are able to discern - when all I see is a Photoshoped image of a fake airplane.
Now lets sit back and see if my image gets passed around on the Internet as the real deal.
1.
-Steve Douglass
PS: Don’t you just hate it when after you’ve posted something and then you think of other somethings you wanted to post?
Last night as I ruminated a bit about the topic, one more discrepancy in the photographer’s account popped into my head that I just had to address, even if I am coming close to flogging (if not already decomposing) and obviously dead horse.
Imagine you are fishing on a placid California Lake. It’s tranquil. The fish maybe or may not be biting - then suddenly a mysterious heat ray sweeps over you and you fee like jumping into the lake - but wait - ignoring the searing sensation - you happen to look up and see see the BAC (big-ass- contrail) - so you put down your fishing pole, grab your ancient Sony camera (which takes time to power up) and manage to focus zoom and snap photos of the mystery aircraft as it zooms by.
Unfortunately (and conveniently) only one of the many frames you took is saved to the camera’s media card due to an exhausted battery (or a result of the mysterious beams radiating from the aircraft ) and it just happens to be the one snap when the aircraft is directly over the photographer.
As a professional photographer who has taken many many photos of high-speed aircraft, the odds of doing this successfully - are - well stacked against you.
You’d either have to have psychic powers of pre-cognition or know the aircraft was coming at you (well in advance and also from what direction) or be incredibly fast and lucky.
Just like in comedy, in photography timing is everything and as we say down here in rural Texas, - that dog just don’t hunt!
-Steve Douglass
