The Complete Digital Debunker

Members,
I logged on to ATS for the first time to take part in the debate and debunk surrounding the Jerusalem UFO hoax. I came to the thread weighing in heavily on the side of the believers. I had arrived at the thread with my usual mixed bag of belief and doubt but was leaning very heavily towards belief. But, after ploughing through about half the thread I started to apply some of the examples of critical thinking that I saw being modeled by a few of the older members.

I, like many, had been burned by these hoaxes before. I had been taken by Haiti and even though it only took several hours for the debunk to make it to the web I had already embarrassed myself in front of friends and family. The palm trees. Remember? I mention this because, with the Jerusalem thread, I believe I was just at the right place in my life to begin to look at these UFO events in a different way and to begin to take a new approach to understanding them. Although I do not presently consider myself a 'UFO debunker' or outright disbeliever, my thinking around all of this has been rendered much more sane and reasonable by my experience with the Jerusalem Hoax.I feel much more empowered now. And if you were in the same boat as me I believe I can help you to feel a little of the same empowerment.

The thing that amazed me the most about that thread was the way that folks were able to deploy software from their own desktops that helped them get some control and direction over the situation. Debo, for instance came up to bat with his Audio analysis. And knocked it out of two parks. I believe he was using Soundforge.The member who discovered the video tiling errors had his material scooped up and used by news agencies across the web.I don't know what software packages he was using but I would sure like to know. And then you had Mr. Mask, with a not-so-digital blast from our archaic past, who used his own highly trained eyes and an intimate understanding of The Rules of Perspective which he then turned to digital evidence which he used to then crush the hoaxers like little girly-men. That is speed folks, when you consider that most of this debunk info was provided by page 36 of the thread. It took me until about P.105 of the new thread to catch up. That's sad.

So, that being said, here are my hopes for this thread...

I thought it would be great if there was a thread that one could come to if one wished to learn about video and audio analysis and get suggestions on the software that is available to get the job done.

My real hope is that we can compile a database of sorts for links to Free and Open Source (as well as proprietary) video and audio software so that interested parties can begin to participate in UFO and related threads at a slightly higher degree of competency. I hope as those of us who are interested begin to work with these packages that folks will post their own anecdotes, advice, suggestions and tips.
Of course the best thing that could possibly happen is that Pros from our community might check in and give advice and tips and help straighten us all out. My personal experience comes from working with Surgical imaging equipment and a lifelong love of music so my resources are limited.
I will begin by providing links to free software that I have found and am currently trying to utilize.
I tested all of the usage and implementation on this software at Moose318's thread: www.abovetopsecret.com... Within a matter of 4 hours or so I was able to extract the video from Youtube. Convert the files to Mp3. Analyze the audio with RavenLite and then, still using Raven, produce jpegs of the pertinent audio envelopes and extract only the audio in question. Then I was able to use Windows Movie Maker to create little videos with my products from Raven and post them on Youtube. This allowed me to link the videos to Moose 318's thread. Voila!

So first off you need to get those videos off the web and onto your desktop. This is relatively easy so I won't go into any great detail. Mozilla Firefox has multiple add-ons. Go Google 'download Youtube movies' and return if you are so inclined.

Now that you have the video you will notice that is probably a .flv file. Windows is likely going to choke on this so...mpc-hc.sourceforge.net...
Media Player Classic will play it all. Fire and forget
Next you want to probably extract the audio and maybe try to convert the file format. Windows does not provide you with any means of doing this that I am aware of so you are going to need a File Converter. Go and get Hamster. Until We find a better one this will do. It has an easy drag and drop format...download.cnet.com...

Now you are going to want to start messing with the audio and video. For audio we come to my favorite. Raven....www.birds.cornell.edu...
The license for Raven is free. You must get the license and activate it to use it. But it is free and seemingly powerful. It comes gratis from the Cornell University Ornithology department. It seems to have video manipulation capabilities as well. Raven allowed me to create jpegs of just the part of the audio envelope in question. Here are examples:



Raven also allowed me to isolate only the audio in question and then save it as an mp3 file for later use.

Once I had the images of the envelopes and the pertinent mp3s I was able to use Windows Movie Maker to produce little videos with the sound and images synchronized. I will not link them here as they are really only important to Moose's thread but if you are interested they are on page 5 I believe.
Inspiration for all of this came from folks on the Jerusalem thread. I would like to add one more link because all of this digital technology won't be of much use to us if we don't heed the advice of Mr. Mask
www.ski.org...


I really hope that everyone will participate and share their tips, tricks and expertise. I know this will go a long way to help out those like myself who are seeking to learn and contribute in a more quality way.

I hope that this thread can become a benefit to all who are seeking a better understanding, more sanity and the tools that they are looking for to Deny Ignorance.

I commend you for this thread and agree with most of your assessment of the Jerusalem thread. Odd that despite ongoing discussion it was not only moved to HOAX section, but then CLOSED. Not before directing it to another thread. Odd to say the least. Granted passions became heated and it was a long thread. People get frustrated. Funny you mention the Haiti UFO Hoax. That one has really made me gun shy and more skeptical of everything.

I don't have much to share regarding software but know there are many powerful tools at little to no cost. Personally I am running Final Cut Studio and Photoshop which I use for my work as a video editor as opposed to debunking video.

The only thing I'll add is that I often prefer doing screen caps, then playing around in PS with filters. It is important to remember that by the time a video gets uploaded and then downloaded it has been passed thru several codecs (encoders/decoders) which add artifacts and anomalies all their own and reduce quality. It is all "lossy" compression schemes and as the old adage goes, garbage in/garbage out.

As far as ripping YouTube videos, I like keepvid.com. It requires no software downloading or install. (It runs a java applet) Just paste URL link and convert to mp4. Then using Quicktime Player free for Mac or PC at Apple.com you can step thru a video frame by frame.(Windows player doesn't do that) In doing so many tell tale signs of forgery become readily apparent as opposed to viewing real time.

Very inspiring thread idea.

My .02¢

reply to post by kinda kurious


Thank you so much for the recommendations. I am going to check out Quicktime next. From your description it is precisely what I am looking for and I know the info will benefit others.
This is exactly the type of posts that this thread needs.
I have taken the advice of EnigmaAgent over at Moose318s thread. I downloaded Audacity and it is awesome. Although it looks like a person would be able to get up and running more quickly with the Raven Lite software, Audacity is much more full featured. It has many more screen capture options and just has overall more features that an ATS person might be looking for.
Most importantly it is free.

audacity.sourceforge.net...
This device even features an 'Analyze' tab that boasts some neat capabilities. My intention is to work with the Audacity software and try to post a tutorial of sorts in a couple of days. After that I would like to tackle the finer points of Quicktime. Thanks again.
In the meantime if anyone has any questions please post them. If I do not know the answer it will at least cause me to go and find one. Or find someone who knows.

Happy to help. Surprised others have not jumped in.

Also to add that when analysis of photos are involved there are many tools I've seen others share that extracts Image EXIF data (embedded metadata) to corroborate or discount a raw photo's origin and learn if it has been run through Image editing/processing software.

Hopefully someone who is savvy can jump in with that.

reply to post by kinda kurious


Hi. I went and found it. Here is Exif-O-Matic. It has an easy three step process for attaining the EXIF information from digital images.

www.softpedia.com...

reply to post by Frater210


Greetings Earthlings, Assorted Visitors and Frater210:

I have really enjoyed your posts heretofore and think that this is a GREAT idea! At least, you will not get some of the less informed folks that seemed to pop out of the woodwork (and registered on the same day).

Please note, the coverage of this vid in the Aus media has pissed me off so much that I have written a program (with GUI) that can take any youtube vid, isolate a nominal UFO within each frame and calculate several parameters framewise. These include

• motion of UFO
• motion of UFO relative to background/foreground
• motion of background/foreground resulting from camera shake
• pixel intensity model
• size
• surface reflected light analysis (quite a few algorithms in here, the local contrast feature just one of many)
• frame by frame parameter summary table, statistics, histograms etc.

quite a few more features, I will get around to listing them. I will try and compile a sanitised version for release. I think i will call it DBUNK1.0

I have requested a beta test of the software, but pezza has failed to respond to the request, so far. He indicated that he was taking a few weeks off, so I guess DBUNK 1.0 is still vaporware.

Too bad. I am looking forward to keeping up with what you are doing and will recommend to friends.

Pezza! Are you out there? We need you and your expertise again, please.

From the looks of it, you are off to a resounding start. Good luck!

In Peace & Light
tfw