Wichita UFO report draws wide attention

reply to post by Alan Saltsman


Ah, ok. My bad.

But at the risk of taking the thread off-topic, exactly how does "blurring the picture 30 times with Irfanview" compare to the circumstances under which the seagull photo was taken?

Digital photo manipulation is VASTLY different from, and more powerful than, the natural effects of motion and distance/focus blur.


[edit on 2/14/2009 by eaglewingz]

reply to post by eaglewingz


Regarding your photo supposedly showing no wings. I see the wing toward the camera quite clearly, it's simply blurred. The other wing is out of the frame of the picture.

You probably make a good point when you said "Digital photo manipulation is VASTLY different from, and more powerful than, the natural effects of motion and distance/focus blur." I was actually pondering the same thing. Unfortunately, I don't know what the exact differences are.

So are you saying that the seagull was motion-blurred? It seems like it is too far away for motion-blur to occur. I would say the seagull is blurred simply because it is so far away: the detail simply isn't there.

I would rather keep the topic on the Wichita UFO, but the posting of the seagull photo as if everybody agreed with it's conclusions was what took the thread off topic.

:bnghd: Why do I feel a headache coming on?

OK. Clear picture. Seagull even. Little wing showing.



I'm just out of therapy from the last epic seagull thread a few years ago, so have fun!


[edit on 2/14/2009 by eaglewingz]

lol, the ironic thing is...


until you can identify the type of bird...

...it still remains an Unidentified Flying Object.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
I am addressing posters who think the object in the photo is a bird.

Look at the object in the photo, the "bird" has a long neck, plus the neck is slightly wider than the head.

This is not the neck. This is a reflection off the right wing. It's lighter than the sky.

I don't see a large scale blur that turns the object into a featureless blob. And if blur got rid of the wings, then why didn't it also get rid of the beak and the stick-like tail?

This is because of very high contrast between the bird and the rest of the picture. The photographer shot this towards the Sun. Possibly the Sun was cropped out of the picture.

However, the reflections on the "object" are mostly points of light like you would see reflecting off an automobile, suggesting to me that the object is metal, not feathers.

It's very hard to photograph a bird in similar conditions, close to the direction of the Sun. I think the areas of reflections are even smaller, but magnified by the blur. They don't compare well to other pictures of ravens & crows taken at a different angle. FWIW I took a few this afternoon.

Bright reflections:





Flat tail:


I appreciate your post, and agree with most of what you said, this is certainly a strange picture. But it does look like a bird, optical illusions explain the missing right wing and long neck.

What else can it be? No motion blur, out of focus means close, slow and small.

[edit on 2009-2-15 by nablator]

Ok, now I think its very clearly helicopter. Google-pictures "wichita helicopter". This picture is from Wichita McConnell airforce place, Marine One.

Google-source

Yon can see windscreen in negative picture better. I think it is helicopter.








[edit on 16-2-2009 by hande]

I also live in a rural area of Kansas approx 15 miles northwest of Rose Hill. Rose Hill is a very small town, we are talking 5 streets I don't even know if they have a grocery store. Most homes there are "out in the country." Where I live we have a camera on the sunporch all the time because we get so much wildlife, foxes, deer, great horned owls, wild turkeys, even caught a Beaver in my husbands shed and we catch pictures all the time. So the fact that the man had a camera ready doesn't suprise me at all.

Just a worthless piece of info... 35 years ago I lived just a few miles from MAFB. Those planes use to fly so low and so fast, our window panes shattered one morning before i left for school. My dad said someone complained to MAFB and they didn't fly that low or that fast anymore!