Extracting and animating data from the "UFO Video Captured By Homeland Security"

a reply to: IsaacKoi

The impression I get is of balloons blowing in the wind. I see no indication of intelligent control and the changing shape seems consistent with a string of mylar type party balloons.

Tell me if there is any way I can further help.

Hey Isaac

Any news? I have been gone & am just returning. Did you get
the last file I sent you?
Cheers
Ektar

Just checking in to see what the final word is on tHis project...

a reply to: kkrattiger
The final word has not been said, but in the meantime, here's an article that uses some of the data collected on the case. The analysis seems good, but some of opinions by the author, Tim Printy, are rather pointed.

SUNlite vol 7, #6, A new candidate for the “best evidence”?

originally posted by: CardDown
The final word has not been said, but in the meantime, here's an article that uses some of the data collected on the case. The analysis seems good, but some of opinions by the author, Tim Printy, are rather pointed.

SUNlite vol 7, #6, A new candidate for the “best evidence”?

Thanks for posting that link CardDown.

(CardDown and Tim Printy are fellow members of the Roswell Slides Research Group and the PRRR).

I'll post more in this thread at the weekend. Currently I'm busy, busy...

I hope to have news soon of an experiment relating to Puerto Rico video.

Great thread as usual...


I'll be watching with anticipation.

a reply to: CardDown

Thanks for posting those reports. They were very
well written & interesting to read. The explanations
presented were educational even though some of it
was above my level, I was still able to comprehend the
discussions & explanations enough to understand the conclusions.

Cheers
Ektar

Hey Isaac hope everything is going okay for you now.
Can you please notify us when you have an update?
I have kept this file open since the beginning & I
have too may open ATM & need to close since there
is no action.
I do want to be updated as well as see the results
& also if this method is something to use for the
future. Thank you.

Cheers
Ektar

originally posted by: Ektar
Hey Isaac hope everything is going okay for you now.
Can you please notify us when you have an update?
I have kept this file open since the beginning & I
have too may open ATM & need to close since there
is no action.
I do want to be updated as well as see the results
& also if this method is something to use for the
future. Thank you.

Cheers

Hi Ektar,

I'm sorry about the silence from me in the last few weeks. Work and other things suddenly became rather hectic and ufology had to be put to one side for a while...

Anyway, I (and others in the informal PRRR group) are slowly working on a few ideas relating to the Puerto Rico video in the background. One member in particular, Lance Moody, has been working on several videos that make use of the data in the Puerto Rico video. We have also been in touch with a group of drone enthusiasts with IR cameras and it looks like we will be able to run an experiment or two in the near future.

So, things are still happening.

However, this video is not a particularly high priority for most of us so it will be weeks, possibly even months, before relevant work concludes. Most of us are doing other ufological projects in parallel with work on this video, in fairly limited spare time.

Of course, anyone else is welcome to use the tools and spreadsheets posted in this thread to do their own work in the meantime.

Several people clearly have used this material already, with some of the resultant work posted in this thread.

I just wanted to pop in and thank all of the folks who contributed to the data collection and conversation here (and, of course, to Isaac). The below is just my opinion and not necessarily that of the PRRR.

So we are just a rag tag crew and everyone works in fits and starts but I thought I might update everyone with what is happening with this project.

Tim Printy's article in Sunlite definitely has a lot of good info in it.

www.astronomyufo.com...

In short, working with Florent Michard's initial plot, we created a path that demonstrates how a balloon isn't just a random possibility but really is a likely suspect for the object seen in the video.

I used Cinema 4D Studio and a plug-in called DEMEarth to create a super accurate map of the area. The map is textured with satellite imagery. DEMEarth also allows precise positioning of geometry using GPS numbers just as we see in the video.

We took data points at every second and used those to position both a plane camera and the line of sight for that camera. One important discovery we made is that the assumptions made by the SCU about the LOS data were quite incorrect. The data we see onscreen is often inaccurate by a rather large amount (even using the SCU's proposed one second delay). This makes mathematical reliance on that data pretty foolhardy.

Fortunately we also have, for much of the video, actual visual landmarks that allow for a sort of checksum to correct the LOS. This is something I did by hand for each second of video. We end our simulation at the point at which water is the only background. Although it would be easy to pretend that we could place objects, etc., without landmarks, this, as mentioned would be foolish and it would be cheating. One can easily judge how well the simulation follows the real video by simply comparing the frames.

We also estimated the various focal lengths of the plane camera by using the video itself as a guide.

The SCU paper postulates that the position of the object can be determined, in part, because it seems to go behind trees at certain points. We found this claim to be unsupported. There are earlier sequences in which there are no trees present but the object dims away (almost completely disappearing). The SCU paper does not offer an explanation for this apparent winking out. Our surmise is that we are seeing something related to the imaging hardware/software itself. Further, during the proposed time that the object is going behind trees it is actually still there (and can be seen by changing the contrast). There is one frame in which the object is almost completely gone in both the tree section and the no tree section. Additionally one can see an overall change in contrast happening in the video during this time period.

In the PRRR simulation the object is actually much closer to the camera than it appears. We have modeled a 15" slightly squashed sphere representing a balloon (or something like a balloon, perhaps a Chinese lantern, something lighter than air moving at wind speed).

This balloon is attached to a spline (path) that is positioned 245m in the air.

No effort was made to precisely match the location of our proposed object to the one seen in the video. This would have been a trivial task but really wasn't the point of the simulation.

The C4D timeline was tied to the frame numbers seen in out frame set. So the huge advantage of the simulation is that one can see exactly what the situation was from any viewpoint at any time in the video. When looking from above, for instance, we can see precisely (as possible) where the plane was and exactly what its field of view encompasses.

This allows us to understand some rather powerful indications that a balloon is a good candidate for what we see in the video:

1. For the entire video, the plane camera is turned to face one particular (slightly drifting) area. This is where we placed our path. The SCU scenario has the object seemingly connected to the plane and pivoting around the airport as the plane does.

2. The altitude needed to bring our postulated balloon into the view of the plane camera JUST HAPPENS to be where the wind picks up enough to make our scenario fit (~18mph).

3. Our pathway follows the prevailing wind direction.

4. Our simulation demonstrates how the apparent great speed is just an illusion.

5. Our balloon moves at an almost constant speed (+/- 2%) and altitude (-20m) . No cheating was necessary to make the scenario fit.

6. We postulated the path and so forth prior to building the model (we didn't work backwards) without any idea as to how the finished product might look.

So what's left of the SCU paper if one discards the supposed great speed that they spent so much time and effort (and a supplemental paper) promoting while insisting that a ballon path was impossible and could not fit the data?

From my perspective, not much. What's left is really mostly just assertions by unnamed witnesses and supposed "experts". Almost every bit of the presumed hard science is, to my mind, disproven or immaterial.

So when will we be releasing all our material? Very soon--work is going on now preparing our presentation. I intend to make the actual C4D project available as well.

If you are someone interested in the case and need to see the simulation now, send me a PM and I'll forward you an early peek at the video we made.

Thanks again to the ATS community for responding to Isaac's call for help.

Feel free to ask me anything!

Lance

P.S. I wanted to mention also the things we have not dealt with as yet:

1. The disappearance (submergence?) into the water and the apparent splitting in two. We don't know what is causing this. We suspect that it has something to do with the imaging at the great distance. If we are right, we are talking about an object that 15" in diameter being viewed by that point at near 5 miles away. The earlier winking out sections suggest that something was happening with the imaging. We don't have the technical expertise to say what. We hope to find someone who can speak about this with authority and on the record. If not, I am still comfortable ruling out dimensional magic or whatnot.

2. The heat signature. We aren't sure if this means anything or not. We do have a statement from someone who is an unquestioned expert in the field saying that it doesn't rule out a balloon but our feeling is that this person only gave the matter only cursory thought so we don't cite this as evidence. Again it would be helpful to find someone with unquestioned expertise.

3. The delayed flight, lights in the sky, witnesses, etc. All of these claims which exist only as assertion from unnamed parties don't rise high enough as evidence to overrule a more parsimonious explanation (as above).

I'm sure some here must be asking isn't this case old news?
Yes, but it keeps getting revived, and it's going to be featured in at least two major UFO conferences this year. The SCU's Robert Powell is presenting the Aguadilla case at the International UFO Congress in Feb., and Rich Hoffman is scheduled to lecture on it at the annual MUFON symposium in Sept.

I need to apologize to Florent Michaud for misspelling his name above! Sorry Flo!

The video simulation based on the data gathered here has finally been released, published on YouTube by Scott Brando of UFO of Interest, "The Aguadilla Infrared Footage of UFO on April 25, 2013: a simple explanation." In the description, he provides links to further details on the case and how the simulation was made. youtu.be...

a reply to: CardDown

And there is a seriously butthurt guy in the comment section going off now. Thanks for the video update. I hope to hear from Isaac again.

The object in the video looks like it has a magneto shell around it.

The Aguadilla UAP in eight 3D formats - for VR-HMD, 3Dtv's and coloured glasses (anaglyph) SBS, TAB