How Do You Weed Out The Hoaxes?

The 1940's Los Angelos mass UFO sighting is a good example to use in regard to the topic of this thread.

First off, as we know, hundreds of people witnessed those UFO's/balls of lights over Los Angelos that night and as we can see, photographs taken by professional photographers who were there to capture those sightings on film.
So:
1) We've got hundreds of witnesses.
2) Photographs were taken of that event/sighting.
3) The top ufologists and experts at that time and thereafter have qualified those objects as UFOs.

But let's looks at a different scenario.
What if there was a similar sighting of UFOs like what we are seeing in the 1940's Los Angeles photo but supposing that sighting occurred instead last week at a relatively sparsely populated remote rural area somewhere where only the photographer saw those lights/ufos which he took photo's of. And supposing the military personnel from a nearby base who were operating those search lights were given orders to "forget" what they saw up there that night or else risk being court marshalled ... or worse.

So in this scenario, all we have is that one witness to this sighting ... who is also the man who took a photo of those UFOs he saw up there that night. And supposing this man (let's call him Joe) is a high school drop out just out of drug re-hab who's employed at a local Taco Bell as a counter clerk somewhere. In other words, he's not anyone some people here would put in the 'ideal witness' category. He just happened to be there at the right time with his camera on hand where he snapped a few photo's of those balls of light those search lights were directed at from a hill somewhere.

Ok... Now supposing Joe decides to come here to ATS and shows his photo of that sighting.
So then one member loads Joe's photo into an image editor, blows up a section of where some of those balls of lights are in that photo and lightens it up and increases the contrast of it only to find that each ball of light is in its own squared off pixels where those pixels also look distorted, different and a different size than those other pixels surrounding those pixels in the background. In other words, the squared jpg compression algorithm/artifacts are, at least for this member, a dead give away that those "UFOs" in that photo is a copy/paste job!

So this member automatically shouts, HOAX and he posts his results of Joe's photograph for all to see.. see below:



Then everybody else jumps in and agrees that Joe's UFO photo is a hoax too.... !!

Well, the above situation is unfortunate but as we already know, that Los Angeles photograph is in fact authentic. (which is the fictitious Joe's photo)

Yet, when I analyzed it by brightening it up and increasing the contrast of it, I could clearly see that each ball of light is in it's own box of squared off pixels and they show distortion (different pattern) because the jpg compression algorithm's distort those pixels where even the color depth/tone of them are different than those pixels in the background. Those pixels with those balls of lights in them also are a different size than the pixels in the background.

But some people here, regardless that they consider themselves professional photographers and/or graphic artists where they say they have years and years in that profession, don't have enough experience in analyzing photographs with anomalous objects/images in them where they automatically will brand a UFO photo as a cut and paste job if it's showing the same results as what's in image #2 for example -- (See image above) -- especially if they are already non-black project UFO skeptics to begin with.

But let's go back to Joe. So what happened here? As we can see, Joe's photograph was DEBUNKED all because a few members here were convinced that he copy/pasted those balls of light in his photograph because they lacked the background experienc to really analyze that photo correctly. So they ended up trashing what in fact was a photograph showing real UFOs!!


[edit on 29-12-2007 by Palasheea]

reply to post by LazyGuy


WRT the Haiti Video...

It was actually created by an artist who was having fun with the new software, not the company that makes the software. Through the email conversation we had with him we learned his intention was not to hoax the net but the video exploded in views on You Tube and people were climbing over each other to get their speculation out there about these "UFOs". Lots of so called "respected" outlets and people presented this as the "real deal".

Within a few minutes of it hitting ATS our Video Imaging experts had conclusively proven to me that it was CGI, but I held my "digital tongue" for the most part, until our membership could see the repeating trees in the landscape and discover they were part of the default tool set in the new release of VUE, (the software that created the movie) and the other indications that it was CGI.

What amazed me most was the significant number of people who, in spite of the facts being laid out in front of them, refused to accept it was CGI. There is a definite percentage of the population that literally NEEDS to find something that will validate their beliefs. That's when objectivity, critical thought and logic go out the door IMHO.

The other thing that became evident to me was there are a handful of "respected" people and sites in this "field" who will promote ANYTHING because their income depends on it. That is another very unfortunate situation for ufology.

My personal feelings toward several of these "respected" people have changed dramatically because of the Haiti Video and even more so "the Drones" episode.

In an effort to move the "spotlight" away from these personalities who seemingly get duped by every hoax created, and therefor fuel the rhetoric that this whole field of investigation is crazy and ludicrous, we (senior management of ATS/TAN) have been working hard at getting the best cases and DATA reviewed and tested by widely accepted professionals who have nothing to gain or lose from the results and are independent/successful enough to not worry about putting their name on the results should they indicate something out of the ordinary.

We are spending our money and time on this in order to present the stuff that requires NO "belief" (because the evidence is in hand and verifiable) to the mainstream media and through them to the majority of the population. We hope that by focusing the attention on what is REAL we can help to reduce the stigma, that I believe has been created, in part, by a well executed bit of social engineering, surrounding the investigation of this phenomena.

2008 stands to be a banner year if our work is successful.

Springer...

[edit on 12-29-2007 by Springer]

All, thank you for the insightful comments. I feel like I've found a new home!!