Build Your Own UFO Detecting Binoculars !

This page explains how to build a simple electronic device that will produce different audio signals depending on the light source it is focused at.

Link

As a kid with an electronics hobby I once taped a selenium solar cell to the eyepiece of a small 50X telescope, routed it to an audio amplifier, then pointed it at distant light sources at night while listening to the signal. Incandescent streetlights give a deep hum, their AC light output is a pure 120hz sine wave. Mercury and sodium vapor bulbs are nonlinear, they give a complex 120hz waveform that sounds like WHAANNNNNNNNN. Neon signs sound different, with a squealy high frequency buzz component to their 120hz fundamental. Automobile headlights are DC, so I never tried viewing them. Recently I saw an article by Don Lancaster (or Forrest Mims?) which mentioned that headlights are modulated by car vibrations, so I checked it out and yes, car headlights give off a continuous soft gonging sound even on smooth highways. Their filaments vibrate, and different types of headlights give different pitches of "bell" sounds. Aircraft strobes are easy to detect as a loud clicking. Other aircraft lights *may* have a standard 800Hz modulation (from their 400Hz supplies), but I found that it wasn't loud enough to hear from distant aircraft lights. Perhaps the thermal inertia of their filaments tends to filter out all the high frequencies, whereas 60Hz is slow enough to be "broadcast" by light bulb filaments. Maybe with a low-noise detector and some bandpass filtering, the 800Hz of aircraft lights could be sensed.

In other words a UFO might give a unique signal different from that given off by normal everyday lights that can be detected and verified?

Is that what your getting at Dulcimer ?

It sounds so ludicrously simple it just may well work my friend.

I'd like to see the next Hessdalen AMS use a technique like this just to compare against normal control lights.

In that way it might be possible to build a profile of the "unknowns".

[edit on 30-10-2005 by lost_shaman]

UFO's must give out some kind of signal or interference maybe that could be used as a detector or tracking device...or are they stealth configured ?

That'ss a joke.

An UFO wouldd simply come to me within a few metres if the aliens wanted me to see their spaceship. If not, theywouldn't come, or I would not see anything there at all. No need for any device.

Originally posted by Khali
That'ss a joke.

An UFO wouldd simply come to me within a few metres if the aliens wanted me to see their spaceship. If not, theywouldn't come, or I would not see anything there at all. No need for any device.

And how do you know that ?

Originally posted by lost_shaman
And how do you know that ?

Because aliens are far better than you. Or do you really think, that aliens are like animals on the trees, who cannot see the differencebetween a jip and a piece of rock? Aliens can even see what you think, anywhere you are on this planet. So if an UFO appears near you, it is deliberate amd you don't need a device to see it. But if you build one, they will laugh at you... you know?

I don't pretend to know what an Alien would think , but I think that building a profile to distinguish between known light sources and UFOs would be a great idea.

So why wouldn't that alien come forward to show his space craft to you, if it is say 500 m away from you? Perhaps you are too far away for an alien to see you? If there is an UFO near you, it is meant tto show itself, it is not there for other reason. If it has an other thing to do near you, it may come some other time if it wants to. If not, then forget it. An UFO is far different from any light source or manmade craft.

As a long time hobby astronomer I have to say this is utter BS. If you tape a solar cell onto a telescope's eyepiece you can no longer look through the telescope to aim it. I've tried to look at aircraft with my telescopes before and they simply move too fast to get a good look at. How this guy did it using a telescope he couldn't see through is beyond me. The lens on a telescope's eyepiece is tiny, an inch in diameter or less, and that just doesn't allow enough light to fall on a solar cell to get any useful signal from it.

When you use a telescope the slightest touch of the telescope causes the image you see to jump up and down becuase the slight movement is magnified by the lens/mirror and eyepiece. A slight wind will cause the image to shake. If there is a solar cell on the eyepiece when the telescope is vibrating, even slightly, it will effect the frequency that is recorded by the solar cell.

Finally, if the lights are moving there will be a red shift or a blue shift that will effect the frequency of the sound generated.

You are definitely on to something here. It is rumored that UFO's have a hard time not emiting heat. why not get a thermal camera mount it in a way that lets it be used on a telescope, and use a second telescope of the same size which points in the same direction as the said thermal scope you you have a way of finding cloaked aliens

why not get a thermal camera mount it in a way that lets it be used on a telescope, and use a second telescope of the same size which points in the same direction as the said thermal scope you you have a way of finding cloaked aliens

How about because thermal cameras can't detect heat through glass?

Originally posted by CrazySanMan

why not get a thermal camera mount it in a way that lets it be used on a telescope, and use a second telescope of the same size which points in the same direction as the said thermal scope you you have a way of finding cloaked aliens

How about because thermal cameras can't detect heat through glass?

did i say thermal I meant near ir. 900-1200nm sorry.

Now you're talking about something to play with. Forget that steam car stuff.

I am also not too keen on the "tape to the optics of a scope" thing. But if we want to capture a range of frequencies, whatever they may be, with a given device, it can be done. Including the use of a receiver array to increase the signal strength.

If a thermal camera can't detect through glass, then how is it a camera with glass lenses?

[edit on 30-10-2005 by ZPE StarPilot]

The lens on the camera can detect heat if it is in the same area as the heat source. The lens will heat up from the radiant heat and will result in images being displayed on the CCD of the camera. If you put a barrier, such as a piece of glass, between the camera and the object, the object will heat up the glass and the camera will only detect the heated glass.

Optics that can focus heat rays would be extremely expensive like a copper or gold mirror and the focusing elements

Nope, not buying that. The optical transmission characteristics of "glass", good glass or bad glass, are excellent from 200nm to 2700nm. The refraction drops in the 2700nm to 3700nm range.

Coatings on glass or filters, can block infra-red or ultra-violet. Or conversely, enhance those transmissions by blocking visible light.

If glass blocked heat, my house wouldn't be hot with all those windows. Or conversely, cold in the winter.

The water vapor in the atmosphere, on the other hand, blocks infra-red quite well. And ozone, blocks ultra-violet.

Nope, not buying that. The optical transmission characteristics of "glass", good glass or bad glass, are excellent from 200nm to 2700nm. The refraction drops in the 2700nm to 3700nm range.

Coatings on glass or filters, can block infra-red or ultra-violet. Or conversely, enhance those transmissions by blocking visible light.

If glass blocked heat, my house wouldn't be hot with all those windows. Or conversely, cold in the winter.

The water vapor in the atmosphere, on the other hand, blocks infra-red quite well. And ozone, blocks ultra-violet.

Your house gets hot with all those windows because the windows do indeed transfer heat. Glass has a very low thermal coefficient. It passes heat very easily. That is exactly why thermal imagers cannot see through it.

Using your example of the windows in the sun, the sun heats the outside surface of the windows. The windows transfer the heat through them and radiate is inside your house. If you looked at the windows that are receiving sunlight with a thermal imaging device you would see the entire window as one large, rectangular, solid object. The entire piece of glass will rapidly heat to the same temperature. You would not be able to detect a heat source on the other side of the window.

For your second example, water also has a fairly low thermal coefficient and conducts heat well. The water vapor in the atmosphere blocks IR for the same reason that the glass does. The water vapor heats up and you see the water vapor, not the heat source behind it.

When I was in the Navy we used a device called a NFTI - Naval Firefighting Thermal Imager, or something like that. At any rate, you use a NFTI after a fire is out to look for hot spots that may reflash and to detect fires in air ducts, inside walls, etc. We were taught over and over again that you could not look through the window in the main engine room doors with the NFTI, you had to enter the space to use it. I even saw this myself during damage control training. The entire window emits the heat from behind it and all you see is the window.

reply to post by CrazySanMan


Did anyone ever hear of the Sony video cameras that people were using to see through clothing? That was IR, it will pass through glass. I know it works, I have one of the cameras. The CCD gets an image, not a blur. That is what you would get from re-radiation, a blur.