More "Anonymous" Chicago UFO images

Originally posted by jritzmann

I personally dont see the color as any issue. I've got some cell pics that are pretty brilliant actually.

But as vibrant and colorful as anonymous' UFO photo's posted in this thread??? I don't think so.
Also, I personally think that the color tonalities, vibrancy, and brightness in whatever photo's are posted in this forum IS AN ISSUE when determining if a photo is from a cam phone or not and if the photo has been tampered with or not.

I do see the common chromatic issues that are associated with camera phone lenses, that I dont think would be present within a reshoot scenario, and if they were used in such a way I'd expect them to be twice as bad.

I beg to disagree with you on this because if the lighting conditions are right, a reshoot of a photo may even result in a MORE vibrantly colored and brighter photo than the original. I'm an illustrator and graphic artist and was doing this type of work waaay before we started using computers in graphic arts and way before Photoshop was even invented. In the old days we always did reshoots on our artwork and many times we did such routine reshoots to BRING OUT THE COLORS.... LOL. Unlike today where everything is done by computer, camera's were an essential tool in graphic art production work.

I think Edward's shots of color

Those photo's posted by Edward in this thread DO NOT have any EXIF Information about them. I found this out after I opened them in an editor to find out that that information is not attched with those photo's. So this means that the photo's Edward posted in this thread are not directly from his cam phone or whatever camera he used to take them. This said, I'm hoping that Edward will post the original photo from his cam phone directly into this forum from his cam because I would like to know what cam phone he was using that takes pictures with such vibrant colors and that other information provided in the EXIF Information box when the photo is loaded into an image editor.

has an equal amount of saturation, and show the same aspects we see in other cell cam shots, a relatively hot center and more often then not in high contrast areas, the inability of cell cams to relate accurately some spectral data. I see this in both Ed's (second more high contrast shot) and the LaSalle shots. There is an overall purple/blue-red wash over the pictures consistent with limitations of cell cams.

An overall purple/blue-red wash... consistent with cell cams? I don't think so. I've never seen such VIBRANT tonal variations in cam phone photo's like anonymous' UFO photo's -- purple/blue wash or whatever.... I do not believe that such vibrant tonalities are CONSISTENT with cell phone photo's at all. I've never seen such cellphone photo's before like this and I've seen hundreds of cell phone photo's since they first came out so I do not believe that such vibrant and bright chromatic tonalities are typical of cam phone photos at all -- quite the contrary; they are very,very atypical -- if in fact it's possible to get such vibrantly colored photo's from such cam's. So far, I haven't seen any, but if they are coming out with cam phones now that are capable of recording such images, I would love to find out about that and which phone cams they are.
And those hot centers shown in those photo's are not indicative in any way that the photo has been recorded by a cell phone as such results are also seen in photo's taken with regular digital cams of every make.
But I agree with you that cell phones lack those adjustment features that are on digital cams which allow the photographer to fine tune those controls to produce a better photo. Cell cams are very limited in this regard and because of the very limited adjustment controls on them, it makes no sense to pay more for a cam phone that's over 3mp's. In fact, because of those lack of controls on cam phones, there's really not too much of a noticeable difference between those photos' taken by such cams at 2mp and those taken by 3mp cam phones in most environments.

But the colors dont seem out of reach to me for a cell.

Once again, it's very important to evaluate the chromatic tonalities, their vibrancy and brightness in order to evaluate if the photo was in fact taken by a cam phone. In fact, I would go as far to say that such an analysis is absolutely crucial in determining if they were taken by such cams or not. The vast majority of those color tonalities of photo's taken with cam phones are overwhelmingly DRAB..., not to mention their low resolutions and high ocular distortion levels. And just as one analyzes the resolutions and ocular/artifact distortions of alleged cam phone photo's, an evaluation of those chromatic tonalities of such photos is just as important in determining if a photo has been taken with a cam phone or not.






[edit: removed bold tags from responses]

[edit on 8-2-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

You have a U2U

[edit on 8/2/07 by masqua]












[edit on 8-2-2007 by Palasheea]

Originally posted by Palasheea

Originally posted by Edward Rose
I don't know if this will help. But here's one of them. This is completely unaltered... not even "re-saved," and came directly from the phone-to-the sd card-to-my computer. The pic was taken somewhere in Switzerland on a trip from Zurich to Amsterdam. (Yes, Amsterdam

)

Edward,
I opened this one up in Photoshop to find out the EXIF Information and found out that this photo has no information at all about it. This indicats that this photo is not straight from the cam to this forum --

In any case, the color tonalities and color vibrancy of this photo are no different from what we see in the vast majority of camera phone photo's.



[edit on 8-2-2007 by Palasheea]

No offense, but it seems to me you keep comparing Cell phone pictures as if they *should* be all the same. I think we all need to keep in mind that there are a myriad of cell phone companies that produce their own unique phone. The hardware and software differences between phones can be seriously complex and different. I know I'm electronics technician. Just because one cell phone applies EXIF data and another doesn't isn't any basis for any type of conclusion. It also doesn't mean squat because one phone could apply it - and it can be easily changed with a photo editor. Photoshop can do it. So can JASC Paint shop Pro.
You can even add your own EXIF data if you wanted it to look geniune.

As for the color/vibrancy issue - we don't know what kind of camera took the picture. Maybe springer can find out for us - that would answer alot of questions. Camera phones are a dime a dozen guys and like I stated before - tons of companies produce these products - it's no wonder that there are so many differences between pictures produced by them. Good luck finding a standard !

I have to agree with Jritzman - I think we are at a stand still with comparing these photos. Background information, at this point, is much more important. The 4th photo also is compelling if only for the reason (as Jritzman stated in his analysis) because it's such a crappy photo.

I will do some research on software/firmware standards for camera phones and see if I can find any more information. Has anyone thought of the possibility of another type of information embedded in the picture besides EXIF?

Oh that's interesting, I never thought about that. Maybe some cam phones do not include EXIF Information with their photo's when they are loaded into an image editor -- but I don't think so because all digital cam photo's DO provide such information and I can't see that cam phone photo's would be any different in this regard.

And you are right that there are so many different kinds of cam phones out there now -- but I would like to find out which one's have more controls on them so that the photographer is able to fine tune things to get better results. I would imagine that most cam phones are auto but if there are some out there that allow for more fine tuning, I would like to know about them.

As for anonymous' image #4 that Jeff commented on, that tiny almost imperceptible light that he had circled on that photo is no different from similar area's of that photo that are also showing small pinpoints of light in that photo.
The only reason why he was focusing on that area of light was because it's located in the area where that alleged UFO was moving by on a somewhat horizontal line as indictated by the position of the same UFO in those other photo's. But if we didn't have that information, IN KNOW WAY would anyone notice that area that Jeff pointed out in that photo. But like I said, there are similar area's of light all over that photo so which one is really the UFO if in fact that's what it is and if it's been inserted in those photos.

Originally posted by Palasheea
Maybe some cam phones do not include EXIF Information with their photo's when they are loaded into an image editor -- but I don't think so because all digital cam photo's DO provide such information and I can't see that cam phone photo's would be any different in this regard.

I don't see any EXIF or other identifying tags in the photos uploaded directly from cell phones to our picture phone forum:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I have had some experience with camera phones in the past having owned a number of different models and they certainly did vary greatly. My Motorola Zazr had a pretty sub standard quality lens so most pictures were fairly fuzzy and wouldn't have had the same depth of field than the inititial photo's posted by Springer. It also didn't have much in the way of features (Shoot modes etc). Flip the other side of the coin and you get camera phones like the Sony Ericsson K750i which had a fantastic 2 mega pixel quality picture comparable to some of the older 2MP cameras on the market a couple of years ago.

With this type of feature rich phone you can adjust the exposure in increments and with a powerful flash get sharp images. The most interesting thing was that it had a sports burst mode that took 4 continuous shots of a fast moving image without you having to wait for the camera to reset for the next picture (Camera phones are really bad for this). I would think that if this person did take this sequence of pictures on a camera phone it would HAVE to be set up for a burst shot (I think the person said it was moving pretty quickly) and it seems to be a slim chance that they would miraculously have it set to this mode ready to shoot an unexpected UFO.

Having said that the shots were taken in what appears to be a paddock, who knows maybe they were taking pictures of somebody horseriding on that day which would give some credibility to them setting the phone to that mode. Can we find out what kind of phone the pictures were taken with then I can look at the specs and see if it has this feature.

Hope this helps

Well so far, only those images posted by Klaxmexalix (see page before this one) are showing EXIF Information on those cam phone photo's he loaded into this thread.
So maybe it's true that some cam phone photos do not provide such important information when loaded directly from the camera into this forum after all.
I'm finding this very disappointing because isn't that one of reasons why we want people to load their photo's directly from their cam's into this forum so that we may view the EXIF Information about those photo's to determine if they've been tampered with or not?

[edit on 8-2-2007 by Palasheea]

October, your information helps a lot! Now we are getting somewhere. If we can find out the type of cam phone annonymous' mother has, then we would be a lot more better off in determining if that UFO was added to those photo's or not.

Originally posted by Palasheea
isn't that one of reasons why we want people to load their photo's directly from their cam's into this forum so that we may view the EXIF Information about those photo's to determine if they've been tampered with or not?

EXIF data can easily be created or modified with a number of tools currently available. I don't think it's as reliable as you hope for.

With the picture phone posting capability, we can at least verify a chain of evidence from camera phone to server.

But in the end, I think it's a good idea to immediately classify any anonymous UFO picture submission as a hoax until witness testimony and other factors are verified. While these shots are "interesting", given the unknown source, it's pointless to consider them anything more than that.

Regarding the picture and photographic anomalies like chromatic and certain undetectable and detectable wavelengths of light..the blur, the seperations, the shadow beneath the alleged craft, coronas etc. I have to go with one member that said its partly due to a crapola phone camera.

But I also wanted to bring up a little what Sereda says about being able to see these UFOs under certain visual conditions dealing with the EM spectrum of light.

Like the shuttle cameras that can see these things in space but if they were to use another camera or use just their eyes they would not. I would also like to point out what Lazar said eventhough many believe hes fake and legitimately debunked which may be true. You have to remember there are also disinformationalists that go leakin true info, half truth info, and comple fallacies. I guess the key is to pick out which ones make some sense and parallels many other claims by respected individuals in the field. LOL....i just sounded like an apologist for Lazar...sorry.

Anyways...back to what Lazar said. Remember when he said you could see one of these crafts in operation at certain angles but if you were to walk underneath one you couldnt see it? Kind of goes along with Sereda and how he talks about Electromagnetic Spectrums of Light...certain wave lengths you cannot see with just the naked eye, some you can. Maybe these craft pulse at certain frequencies to allow this. Sometimes they go to a different frequency and can be seen with the naked eye yet photographic methods tend to screw it up "the blur effect" Sometimes photographic methods make the invisible ones clear as a bell.

Anyways....just my 2 cents worth.

I can see why employee's of O'Hare who witnessed that UFO at the airport might want to only send us their photo's anonymously via the administrator's of this forum -- but I can't for the life of me understand why someone else whose photo isn't even from that sighting event would choose to not participate in the on going dialogue, anonymously of course, on these photo's that his mother took, just to answer some very basic questions about them.
This to me makes no sense at all... unless of course the photo's have been tampered with and the UFO was added to them after they were taken.
Personally, I think this very well may be the case here. I'm questioning if in fact these photo's were even taken by a cam phone.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
EXIF data can easily be created or modified with a number of tools currently available. I don't think it's as reliable as you hope for.

yup - i sold my soul for a copy of IVIEW MEDIAPRO 3

and the EXIF editor / magager is awesome - no i am no hoaxer so i leave the camera data alone - and just add notes / tags etc - and its bloody obvious that i have made edits

but i am certain that i could change camera data without it being obvious

With the picture phone posting capability, we can at least verify a chain of evidence from camera phone to server.

can we ? my current handset , nokia 6680 can load images , heck any file back to the camera from pc , via the nokia synch suite

and AFAIK it can the send the file via picture message

Well one thing you have to consider, a lot of people don't even know anything about that EXIF Information that can be viewed when one loads those original photo's into an image editor.

So of course, those people would not be changing any of that information because they don't even know that the EXIF Information about photo's can be viewed that way. So for this reason, they will not of course be changing that information in that box in an editor if they don't even know it exists!

Also, for that matter, I would imagine most cam phone users are not proficient in Photoshop or Paintshop anyway....



[edit on 8-2-2007 by Palasheea]

O'Hare related

Originally posted by fastwalker23
Regarding the picture and photographic anomalies like chromatic and certain undetectable and detectable wavelengths of light..the blur, the seperations, the shadow beneath the alleged craft, coronas etc. I have to go with one member that said its partly due to a crapola phone camera.

But I also wanted to bring up a little what Sereda says about being able to see these UFOs under certain visual conditions dealing with the EM spectrum of light.

Like the shuttle cameras that can see these things in space but if they were to use another camera or use just their eyes they would not. I would also like to point out what Lazar said eventhough many believe hes fake and legitimately debunked which may be true. You have to remember there are also disinformationalists that go leakin true info, half truth info, and comple fallacies. I guess the key is to pick out which ones make some sense and parallels many other claims by respected individuals in the field. LOL....i just sounded like an apologist for Lazar...sorry.

Anyways...back to what Lazar said. Remember when he said you could see one of these crafts in operation at certain angles but if you were to walk underneath one you couldnt see it? Kind of goes along with Sereda and how he talks about Electromagnetic Spectrums of Light...certain wave lengths you cannot see with just the naked eye, some you can. Maybe these craft pulse at certain frequencies to allow this. Sometimes they go to a different frequency and can be seen with the naked eye yet photographic methods tend to screw it up "the blur effect" Sometimes photographic methods make the invisible ones clear as a bell.

Anyways....just my 2 cents worth.

Hi Fastwalker,
I've had that happen to me when I inadvertently recorded some strange lights flying over the lake that I did not see at the time when I was recording that short movie with my cheap camcorder.
I'm thinking they probably flew by so fast, I missed them at the time when I was recording it, but I'm still not sure about that because it could be that what I recorded was invisible to the naked eye -- but as you can see by the images below those light are showing up very clearly in the movie. I only saw them after I played back the movie in Windows Movie Maker shortly after I recorded it. In any case, we do get a lot of strange light zipping around over the lake so I will continue to record such movies even though I'm not seeing anything out there because one never knows if instead, something will be seen on playback.



[edit on 8-2-2007 by Palasheea]

All,

I went to wikipedia and found some info on the Exif tag format.
Wikipedia Exif

There are some drawbacks to Exif - and I quote

The standard defines a makernote tag, which allows camera manufacturers to place any custom format metadata in the file. This is used increasingly by camera manufacturers to store a myriad of camera settings not listed in the Exif standard, such as shooting modes, post-processing settings, serial number, focusing modes, etc. As this tag format is proprietary and manufacturer-specific, it can be prohibitively difficult to retrieve this information from an image (or properly preserve it when rewriting an image).

I interpret this as camera manufacturers can alter the 'tag' any way they wish - if Cell phone Cameras do this it might be 'unrecognizable' to standard software we're using to examine the Exif tag. Maybe we should look into finding software that view or examine these possibly custom tags?

Exif metadata is restricted in size to 64 kB in JPEG images because according to specification this information must be contained within a single JPEG APP1 segment. Although the FlashPix extensions allow information to span multiple JPEG APP2 segments, these extensions are not commonly used. This has prompted some camera manufacturers to develop non-standard techniques for storing the large preview images used by some digital cameras for LCD review. These non standard extensions are commonly lost if a user re-saves the image using image editor software, possibly rendering the image incompatible with the original camera that created it.

Cell phone camera's also generate thumbnail previews on the screen right? If people are sending their photo's to their PC's using whatever software came with their phone to interface it to the PC - it might be deleting the "non-standard" extensions that *could* provide us more information on the file. I think we should look into this. If this were true, then even the link from the users PC to ATS Server would be corrupt, because the interfacing software is removing or deleting the extensions data.

There is also another extension stored in the APP2 section of the JPEG file - its called FlashPIX information. It's a bit unusual but it does have dates/times in it. It might be useful to try and find a viewer for this and see if we can extract any information from our pictures.

Hope this helps

The colours don't look too saturated to me. It's a bright, clear day, lots of light, which gives more saturated images than dull, cloudy days...

Unfortunately, London is very snowy and grey right now, so I can't really illustrate, but here's a pic I just took indoors, showing some very saturated colours.



annoyingly, i think my phone downsized the image before sending via the ATS pic submission feature. I did bluetooth a copy to the computer and try to upload it, but it's 141k ish and the max file size is 100k on ATS, so this is the best I can do for now.

the phone is a crappy old nokia 6230i... not exactly state of the art.

zeeon, thanks for the information. I googled FlashPIX viewers and found this website. Would this viewer work for our purposes?
www.irfanview.com...

[edit on 8-2-2007 by Palasheea]

Palasheea,

It might - but FlashPIX is also a file format. Ifranview is good software - I have it at home, but right now I'm at work. I can't remember if allows you to view FlashPIX extension information. You should try it and let us know


[Edit due to me screwing up Palasheea name...doh ! ;x]

[edit on 8-2-2007 by zeeon]

Thanks for posting your cam phone photo nowthenlookhere!
At least we are getting some idea how different these photo's are looking depending on the make of the camera.
I'm seeing plenty of color staturation in your photo but not much vibrancy but I guess that's got to do with how much lighting you had available at the time when you took this photo. Still... it's not bad! Is it 1.3mp or 2mp? Just wondering.

Originally posted by nowthenlookhere
The colours don't look too saturated to me. It's a bright, clear day, lots of light, which gives more saturated images than dull, cloudy days...

Unfortunately, London is very snowy and grey right now, so I can't really illustrate, but here's a pic I just took indoors, showing some very saturated colours.

These are definitely pictures of books. I would say that the books are located in a residence somewhere here on Earth. They look like other books I have seen, but I don't think I have seen these particular books before. I think that the type of books we are seeing in these pictures are interesting in that those that are identifiable-like the guitar book-seem unrelated to the other books in the picture. I think we can assume that the owner is either well-read, or simply a compulsive book purchaser....

[edit on 8-2-2007 by c3hamby]