WTF are Rods?

I started reading about these Rods the other day and wanted to get a DTV consensus. These are apparently flying creatures that can travel at speeds of 1000mph and have been caught on film several times by accident. I have never heard of this phenomenon before and wondered if you guys had?

www.ufos-aliens.co.uk...
The Mysterious Rods

Since 1994 strange serpent-like creatures have been captured on film flying through our skies. Are these so-called 'Rods' of ET origin or a new form of terrestrial life?

After hearing of numerous UFO sightings in his local area of Monterrey, Mexico, a man called Santiago Ytturia decided to set up his camera equipment to see if he could catch one of these unusual objects on film. After waiting for more than an hour on the day of 19th of March, 1994, Ytturia started to become restless, but just as he was about to give up hope, his patience was rewarded. Suddenly, he spotted a flashing light and began filming. Unfortunately the light disappeared quickly and after waiting in vain for further activity, Ytturia decided to dismantle his camera and replay the video to see what he had captured on film. On reviewing the film he could see the strange light of the UFO, but then a few frames further on, Ytturia saw something else that puzzled him even more.

After the UFO had disappeared on the film, Yturria noticed the brief appearance of a long spear-like object, which darted across the screen at an incredible speed. After constantly replaying the footage he realised that this object could not be a bird or insect. In fact this object was moving so fast that it could only be spotted when the film was viewed frame by frame. Ytturia knew instantly that he had captured something new on film, but was it linked to the UFO or was it a completely new phenomena?

Since then, many more 'rods' have been captured on film from all over the world. One of the key investigators into the 'rods' phenomenon is video production company owner Jose' Escamilla. So far, Escamilla, who is in charge of a team of independent investigators, has obtained spectacular footage and photographs from a wide range of countries, including the UK, Sweden, Canada, Norway, Mexico and the USA. He even has footage of rods underwater. What is generally agreed is that these strange objects are organic. In other words, they are living creatures and not just some new form of flying saucer. Some people have suggested that they maybe a form of extraterrestrial life form because they are occasionally encountered with UFO activity. Some sceptics would have us believe that what we are seeing is nothing more than birds, insects or camera trickery, but as you can see from the film footage on this page, this does not seem to be a conclusive explanation.

Despite the difference of opinion on the nature of rods, close examination of the video footage has uncovered a number of consistent features. Analysis reveals that the rods seem to be cylinder-shaped 'creatures' that range in length from about 10 centimetres to 3 metres, and can travel at speeds of up to 300 kmh. They appear to fly through the air by using an undulating solid membrane which vibrates extremely rapidly on each side of its body (similar to how a squid propels itself through water).

Because of the speed that they move, it can be difficult to capture rods on film. Even with 30 frames per second (fps), good video cameras still have problems capturing detailed pictures of rods. With rods moving up to speeds of 300 kmh, the video is only capable of capturing a few frames of footage before they disappear. Also, because of the fast movement, the video images of rods generally lack resolution, meaning that it is hard to see fine details, such as if these 'creatures' possess eyes or even a head.

What seems to be the best footage taken so far of rods was filmed by Mark Lichtle who is a professional cameraman for US television. He was making a film of parachutists jumping into a deep, vertical cave near San Luis Potosi, Mexico. As in most cases, the rods were only noticed when the film was reviewed later. On observing the slow-motion video, Lichtle saw numerous rods darting in and out of the frame and flying around the base jumpers as they fell through the air (see picture left). In one shot, a rod avoids colliding with one of the jumpers by veering sharply away at the last second.

Optical expert Bruce Maccabee, better known for his analysis of UFO footage, has viewed the film and confirms that the objects are between 2 and 4 metres in length, therefore ruling out the possibility of birds or insects. In 1997, Escamilla attempted to gain scientific recognition of the phenomena by taking a selection of his footage to zoologists and entomologists from the University of Colorado. 'They were totally baffled,' states Escamilla. 'All they could say was that it was unlike anything they had ever seen and that it deserved further study'.



Biologist Ken Swartz has been investigating the rods phenomenon since 1998 and says 'Rods appear to be biological, but without a physical specimen it is difficult to say anything conclusively. They seem to be amphibious, as they have been seen entering and leaving water. Perhaps they are born in the sea and emerge into the air?' Speculating from the eyewitness testimony of people who have seen them, Swartz maintains that they appear to have some similarities to the family of creatures known as cephalopods, such as squids. 'There have been descriptions of them expanding like a balloon and rapidly deflating,' he states 'so they could be using a mechanism similar to a squid which sucks in water and jets it out for propulsion.'

If rods are biological entities, why has no one, so far, found the body of a dead rod? If they are flying around us all the time as is commonly believed, then how is it possible that not a single body has been discovered on the ground? Swartz explains that if the rods are indeed similar to squid, they will not have any hard body parts and so could decompose without a trace. Swartz points out 'If you look at the fossil record, there is only one creature that ever lived that had the rod mode of locomotion, and this was the dominant predator of the time called anamalocaris, which lived in the sea during the Cambrian evolutionary expansion 400 million years ago.' According to Swartz 'the creature propelled itself by a row of plates or fins that vibrated in a similar manner to the membranes seen on rods, it is possible that anamalocaris is the evolutionary ancestor of rods.'

Flying Rods Caught

There is a theoretical new and unique form of life now actively flying through the air in our environment. Some believe that they are all around us. So what are they? Is there any evidentiary support?

Some of the characteristics of these flying rods are quite intriguing. They are shaped like rods and can vary in size from just a few centimeters to many meters in length. They are zipping through the air at enormous speeds. They are nearly invisible to the naked eye, but can be captured via video or film. Some have appendages along the torso that resemble fins. And they do not appear to be mechanical, they seem to be alive and possibly have intelligence.

So, how have these Flying Rods caught the public attention? They brought into the public eye in 1994, thanks to filmmaker Jose Escamilla. He filmed some mysterious and unexplainable objects in Midway, New Mexico. On March 5, 1994 Escamilla filmed about 16 minutes of footage that contained UFOs. On March 19, 1994 he had the Flying Rods caught on film. This was the first recording of the phenomenon ever documented. Since then, many people have had these Flying Rods caught (or what they think are Flying Rods) on film, in pictures and videos.

Theory proponents say that there is no possibility that the Flying Rods can be known objects. All of the evidence centers around the photographs and the Flying Rods caught on tape and on film. There are also non-photographic pieces of evidence like ancient cave drawings that can be depicted as the Flying Rods. But, no one has the desire to make an active case for the evidence so it doesn’t get attended to much at all.

Since the evidence is based only upon the photographs and video, the theory of this phenomenon isn’t well supported because the evidence is flawed. With the motion-blue effect of “fins” on a Flying Rod is consistent an inset beating its wings very quickly.

After analysis of the footage, it is clear that the objects cannot possibly be as big as reported or they could easily be seen without the use of any specialized equipment. And in addition to that, it just isn’t possible for video to be able to capture something like that without being visible.

There is plenty of information to find online and in the media regarding the Flying Rods caught on tape and in photographs. In 2002 there was a television documentary called Rods! The documentary is produced and directed by John Moffet who was also responsible for such titles as Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? (2001) and World's Scariest Ghosts: Caught on Tape (2000). The footage used in Rods!, primarily focuses on the video footage by Jose Escamilla. There are also interviews with Escamilla and various other rod researchers, along with mentions of other UFO reports.

This theory’s main problem is that these Flying Rods caught on tape and in video can easily be explained by naturally occurring phenomena; such as birds and insects. This theory, in short, just doesn’t “Fly.”

Rods are bugs.

From Wikipedia, Flying rods

Investigators have proposed that rods are mere tricks of light which result from how images (primarily video images) are recorded and played back. In particular, the fast passage before the camera of an insect flapping its wings has been shown to produce rodlike effects, due to motion blur, if the camera is shooting with relatively long exposure times.[10] (In low-light conditions or even when pointed at blue sky, the automatic exposure programming of a video camera is likely to select the longest possible exposure time, which is 1/60th second per video field for NTSC format or 1/50th second for PAL format.)

This proposition suggests that such video is incapable of capturing a clean image of something which moves so fast relative to the camera. In particular, the "membrane" in a video frame of a rod is effectively a time-lapse of the wings of the flying animal in different positions over several wingbeats that occurred during the field exposure time, while the central "rod" is a time-lapse image of the body, showing the full distance traveled during the field exposure time. The effect is especially pronounced with large, long-bodied insects which have broad wings and fairly slow wingbeats, such as mantises, grasshoppers, and katydids, or completely opaque wings such as moths. On video equipment which resolves the two interlaced fields of a single video frame (which are captured successively and then displayed as alternating horizontal lines), the "rod" effect can be seen to alternate from one field to the other, producing the distinctive gaps between successive images.[3] Similar results can be produced using standard film, if there is a long exposure and/or a stroboscopic lighting effect which lasts more than a single wingbeat. In other words, one can produce "rod" effects at will with the right equipment, lighting, and subject.

On August 8-9 2005, China Central Television (CCTV) aired a two-part documentary about flying rods in China. It reported the events from May to June of the same year at Tonghua Zhenguo Pharmaceutical Company in Tonghua City, Jilin Province, which debunked the flying rods.[2] Surveillance cameras in the facility's compound captured video footage of flying rods identical to those shown in Jose Escamilla's video. Getting no satisfactory answer to the phenomenon, curious scientists at the facility decided that they would try to solve the mystery by attempting to catch these airborne creatures. Huge nets were set up and the same surveillance cameras then captured images of rods flying into the trap. When the nets were inspected, the "rods" were no more than regular moths and other ordinary flying insects. Subsequent investigations proved that the appearance of flying rods on video was an optical illusion created by the slower recording speed of the camera. This represents empirical evidence which shows that the "rods" themselves can be captured, and that they are indeed ordinary insects. This documentary also addressed claims that rods were capable of flying at speeds impossible for insects, showing that video cameras cannot be used to accurately measure speed if the distance from the lens to the moving object cannot be determined.[2]

The insect hypothesis was further validated by an experiment on an episode of the History Channel series Monster Quest,[11] which included footage where a "rod" is captured simultaneously by a traditional video camera and a high-speed camera. While the video recorded by the traditional camera showed a brightly illuminated "rod" with multiple undulating wings, the high-speed video clearly showed a common moth flying across its field of view.

That used to drive me crazy, too.

Then I realized they are most likely just interdimensional ... flitting in and out where ever and whenever they choose.

i caught them!!



anybody can do it!

(but must know the hidden secret)

[edit on 19/1/10 by depthoffield]

Originally posted by kayne1982

As your second video you posted (above) indicates, and as explained by "cripmeister", they are probably the result of fast-flying insects coupled with the frame-rates and interlacing of some video recorders.



[edit on 1/19/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]

Oh god please dont drag this hoax up again. you might actually start a new craze with newer members.

Originally posted by MR BOB
Oh god please dont drag this hoax up again. you might actually start a new craze with newer members.

I don't think it was a deliberate "hoax" (at least not by most people).

The people who first thought the saw these "rods" probably really did believe they were capturing something mysterious on their videos. HOWEVER, it was only a misunderstanding because those people did not understand how the video works. I didn't know what they were until the video explanation was told to me.

Having said that, I'm sure there were some deliberate hoaxers who proclaimed seeing "rods" (just like the hoaxers who say people with pixelated faces and rectangular pupils in videos = Reptilians)

[edit on 1/19/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


I say hoax because there is one man still peddaling his bs. who did and may still be making money from it.

when it has been absolutly ridiculed, and proven to be false many times.

They have been debunked by one of those shows UFO hunters or the likes maybe mythbusters ......they re-created them and everything

reply to post by Doc Holiday


been debinked here lots of times too. I trust ATS debunking more as it is usually much more detailed and accurate.

Yeah I saw this on Monsterquest (I think it was). Rods are total bunk and were recreated by shooting insects.

This was also debunked by anyone that understood the video equipment they owned. It is frightening that this even ever got off the ground. Owning a video camera and doing a little bit of editing is all it takes for anyone to have known these were bugs. It scares me that this got as big as it did.

WTF are Rods?

- Bugs

Maybe they're Biological Alien Probes sent to gather information before the invasion?

I don't have the link at hand but I will definitely try and find it, but back in 1997 or 1996 Jose used to be on the old WBS chat system and would often answer questions and chat with everyone in the paranormal chat rooms. This was a great site and was something quite new for everyone who was used to using IRC to chat with friends on the net, myself included who had been using IRC since 1993.

Jose was told time and time again that the phenomenon was caused by insects, primarily moths and hummingbirds as their wing speeds are quite fast. Yet time and time again nobody paid any attention to these people who did their own scientific research with high speed cameras. The media even completely ignored these findings as they had vested interests in airing "paranormal shows", especially FOX.

I guess because the actual scientific facts behind the video anomalies weren't going to generate much revenue and weren't interesting, nobody was interested in hearing the truth.

I think this was debunked on one of those "monsterquest" shows or whatever. Most "rods" are just insects or birds.