The UFOs That Never Were: Classic Photos Now Exposed As Fakes

reply to post by zorgon


That was a tease. i want to know what the other topics are lol. he mentions telling the public versus not telling. Makes you wonder if true, why would they suddenly want to tell us now. everyone is talking about disclosure. I still dont see what they would gain by telling us. If its control over the masses, I would think they could find a better solution rather than alien disclosure.

But on the other hand the terror card is all played out. There would be no bigger threat to mankind other than aliens or an unknown disease about to wipe us out. The problem is until discloser happens, This will always be a split subject. Proof is only good to the people that want to believe it.

Most people wont believe anything unless the news or our great government in the USA tells us it is so. Do you think with all the info we have access to that maybe its to much for us to take in after years of just trickling info?

I wrote i post a few years ago called past and present ufo,s. I mentioned that if you look back on photos from the last 50 or so years you will see that most look like ufos made in those times. Dont get me wrong, i truly believe in alien/ufo's. But we should all know that there will be so much fakery We will be drowned out by it. Almost like it was planned that way.

Originally posted by RICH-ENGLAND
wow what a strange coincidence, i was actually reading about that spaceman photo this morning and it was the first time i had seen it for about 18 years, and now we have a thread about it being debunked . weird...

thanks

rich

It was debunked a lot earlier on this site.
If you are curious just do a search.

I don't think it was even a beekeeper, but instead, just some guy behind her.

Some people on here have demonstrated just how it was, and it was a pretty good debunking as far as I am concerned. It's just some guy in the shot.

I don't believe the photographer and I never bought that photo as being of an "alien" anyway.

- Lee

Originally posted by MR BOB
i dont think that the blog author did a very good job in debunking the photos.
-----
also It is blindingly obvious this was a beekeeper

The reason I don't believe this is a beekeeper, is because this photo was alleged taken in a marsh somewhere.
Not the place I'd assume one would expect to find a beekeeper walking around.

I think it is a man in a hooded sweater and golf-cap.

As I said, it's been up here numerous times, and there are a couple of other photos online from people debunking that image.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/73dbf221baf2.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a663e8b7b6e4.jpg[/atsimg]

From The Cumberland Spaceman photo solved? - Angelfire.com

reply to post by lee anoma


The picture of the figure drawn from that analysis is so utterly wrong as to be beyond funny. The person who did it obviously doesn't have the first clue about human anatomy. The phi ration is not some made up rubbish but a fairly accurate representation of the proportion of the human head and various other parts of the anatomy to the whole body. It is accurate to within 10-15% for about 90 percent of the population. Artists have used it for hundreds of years. Whoever cobbled that lame effort together hasn't the first clue about the human physique. In other words it is, in effect, a hoax explanation.

reply to post by lee anoma


it has already been shown that there is lots of beekepers in the area, and its only a marsh by name!.

thanks

rich

reply to post by FireMoon


care to show us something better?

thanks

rich

I don't think it was even a beekeeper, but instead, just some guy behind her.

And from the back. Personally, I've always thought this about this photo, and never took it as a "sacred cow" pic. Even from the narrative, there's no reason to associate it with UFOs. More of a "ghost" from the story, rather than an alien, but in reality, I think it was just someone with his back to the camera.

As for the others, the evidence is fairly weak, unless it can be shown that these statements are indeed genuine, but even if they are, it's just a few photos, out of the many thousands of others, along with radar returns, videos, witness accounts, etc.

How is this a sacred cow of UFOlogy? Never even heard of it

I was wondering the same thing. Of all the great incidents from the past that have taken place why would this be considered a "sacred cow"? With an image such as that it's easy to come to many possibilities to what it might be. It's also quite easy to attempt to discredit Ufology as a whole by labeling it as such. It would be nice if some of the better cases were debated and analyzed as much as this has been.

reply to post by zorgon


Thanks for that enlarged full photo Zorgon.
I noticed something interesting when I took this photo and used my image tools applying a negative filter to it.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/53f7d30cf29b.jpg[/atsimg]
I am not an expert but if you zoom in on the "alien" or whatever he/she/it is it is clear that the area around the head has definitely been photo manipulated...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/62e3fbdb6c99.jpg[/atsimg]
Only the area around the head seems to have been manipulated if you zoom in you can clearly see a large square or block where this manipulation has taken place. Just my two cents.

Originally posted by RICH-ENGLAND
care to show us something better?

Isn't it obvious that it's a 25 foot tall alien?

Originally posted by Jocko Flocko
I was wondering the same thing. Of all the great incidents from the past that have taken place why would this be considered a "sacred cow"?

I use the term "sacred cow" because of the stock and dogged, and frankly idiotic, defense of the picture as a "genuine" anomaly some members and others in the UFO field put in.

That isn't to say that all, or even most, UFO believers think of it as a genuine alien. But there appears to be a good percentage that do.

And debunking photos is not necessarily an attack on Ufology as a whole, as many here seem to think it is. We need to get away from such binary thinking.

Originally posted by DoomsdayRex
And debunking photos is not necessarily an attack on Ufology as a whole, as many here seem to think it is. We need to get away from such binary thinking.

Well then post the case you feel is the most convincing to you

Originally posted by WhiteWash
I am not an expert but if you zoom in on the "alien" or whatever he/she/it is it is clear that the area around the head has definitely been photo manipulated...

I would agree you're not an expert.

The file is in jpg format and what you call manipulation looks like typical jpeg (jpg) compression artifacts.

Those who use the World Wide Web may be familiar with the irregularities known as compression artifacts that appear in JPEG images, which may take the form of noise around contrasting edges (especially curves and corners), or blocky images, commonly known as 'jaggies'. These are due to the quantization step of the JPEG algorithm.

There are some examples of these compression artifacts at that link and others found in a search, that look very much like what you've identified.

reply to post by RICH-ENGLAND


It's pretty simple, all one has to do is, take a ruler place it against the screen, measure the size of the apparent head and then multiply that by 8 and you have the height of the figure, if it's human, standing upright. You want a reference just look up a picture of Leonardo's Vitruvian man. It's not 100% accurate for all people, no-one claims it is, but its a close as need be to make a decent extrapolation from virtually any picture of a human.

I don't profess to know what the *figure* is. All I point out is that, if is was a human it conforms to a specific set of proportions and that the photo was taken on the totally flat Marshlands on the edge of the Solway Firth. Changing the location and the topography because it makes a mess of your prejudices is not science, it's hoaxing as is being ignorant of basic human anatomy. How can anyone have any faith in someone's work when they don't even know the basic mathematics involved?

As for those who claim the location of the photo was falsified. Go and look at the video i posted go back to the picture and compare the faint purplish grey block where the horizon meets the sky. They are remarkably similar in both shape and size.

reply to post by FireMoon

It's pretty simple, all one has to do is, take a ruler place it against the screen, measure the size of the apparent head and then multiply that by 8 and you have the height of the figure, if it's human, standing upright.

It's a ratio that's taught in art colleges and very familiar to cartoonists. 8/6:1 head ratios are reserved for the superheroes. Ugly, comical or cuter characters are designed with smaller head to body ratios. Babies can be 1:1 and probably more in some Japanese animations.

And debunking photos is not necessarily an attack on Ufology as a whole, as many here seem to think it is. We need to get away from such binary thinking.

It is when the majority of so called "skeptics" repeatedly go after cases they find easy to explain; never tackling the hard cases.

nice work on that analysis, and i agree, the heflin photos look totally fake. ithe object looks far to sharp and in focus compared to the background and i would agree, something small and close to the camera, typical forced perspective.

I'm willing to bet you didn't even bother to read Zorgon's link to that pdf file on the re-analysis of those photos he posted did you? It goes into extreme detail and analysis of those images.

reply to post by Jocko Flocko
I don't understand why you have to have such a divisive attitude, the author doesn't consider himself a skeptic, if you read the article:

Originally posted by DoomsdayRex
Source

Just as many readers will soon feel, I do not like this story. I do not like to report it. I am not driven to "debunk." I am driven to truth. .... As readers know, I support the ET nature of many UFOs...

How about we do as jkrog08 suggested, and call ourselves truth seekers, instead of skeptics or believers? And if we are seeking the truth, we try to explain the cases we can explain, and the cases we can't explain, remain unexplained.

I agree with Gazrok, authors who genuinely seek the truth do more to provide credibility to the field of ufology, than to discredit it as you suggest.

Regarding your question about the Heflin case being a "sacred cow" of UFOlogy, out of the thousands and thousands of UFO reports, the Heflin case ranked #62 in the top 100 UFO cases compiled by our friend Isaac Koi:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I loosely interpret "sacred cow" as something like "favorite" or "most popular" so I would say being in the top 100 cases is enough to prevent me from criticizing the "sacred cow" claim.

Originally posted by Jocko Flocko
It is when the majority of so called "skeptics" repeatedly go after cases they find easy to explain; never tackling the hard cases.

Again, you are locked in binary thinking.

Your strawman argument is meaningless. Even if a skeptic cannot explain a case, it does not mean it is explained by virtue of it being unexplained.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
I loosely interpret "sacred cow" as something like "favorite" or "most popular" so I would say being in the top 100 cases is enough to prevent me from criticizing the "sacred cow" claim.

edit on 20-10-2010 by Arbitrageur because: added link

Well yes that is a 'loose interpretation' and might be valid except that the sacred cow was referring to the spaceman that we said we never even heard of

Originally posted by DoomsdayRex
In particular perhaps the silliest sacred-cow of the UFO field, the Cumberland Spaceman photo.