Perhaps a silly blogpost..........
I've been trying to clean up the Film category in my UFO case files. Each new photo brought up its own demons. I've always wondered whether those demons were in the photos or in me.
To begin with anyway, I'm just going to post some of these photos without commentary. If you'd like, pop them up one after the other and just note to yourself the first thought that comes to your mind as your eyeballs comprehend the image.
Maybe we can find out something about UFOs or maybe we can find something out about ourselves.
Photo #1: Timberlake, ME 1958.
Photo #2: Balwyn, Australia, 1966.
Photo #3: ?Bloomfield, NJ, 1967 [NICAP file].
Photo #4: Madro de Dios-Flusses, Peru, 1952.
Photo #5: Tulsa, OK, 1965.
Photo #6: Hallam, Australia, 1967.
Photo #7: Kauai Sands Hotel, Hawaii, 1975.
Photo #8: Simplon Pass, Switzerland, 1975.
Photo #9: Passaic, NJ, 1952.
Photo #10: Coyococ, Mexico, 1973.
Photo #11: Deutsch Landsberg, Austria, 1971.
Photo #12: Darmstadt, Germany, 1953.
So... a "dirty dozen." What first thoughts, i.e. "prejudices", came immediately to mind? Were some of these "just obviously not UFOs?" Why? Why did your mind react that way? Were some not UFOs because they were too "good", or some because they were too "bad"? Were any "just right?" Why? Is it even possible for a photo to be "just right?" What would it take?
I have all these prejudices myself. I wonder, really wonder, if any UFO photograph could ever make it past the barriers our minds alone put up against it?
I'll throw out another Dirty Dozen soon.
Peace, friends.
Each UFO image within the frame strikes me as odd. It is an object that doesn't belong with the rest of the scene in the photograph as we understand what is normal. For those with a curious mind, questions would spring forward to the cause of the object that doesn't fit. I like this exercise. I will take up the challenge and write a list for myself. I look forward to the next dirty dozen.
ReplyDeleteThe Photo #4: Madro de Dios-Flusses, Peru, 1952 looks like abstract art. I have not seen that one before. I don't know the story behind this one.
"Odd" .... remarkably "innocent" and clean way of responding, Elsie.
DeleteI'm not sure that there is much of a story on the "cigar-like-a-rocket" photo from Brazil. This photo reached the USAF from the Peruvian Air Force. The grains of the story sound true --- multi witnessed object crossing long distances, supposedly photo'd by different people. The witnesses were a mixed group, including engineers and a customs official. PAF HQ decided to {save face?} inform the USAF that they were concerned about a commercial scam by a newspaper --- something which doesn't fit how the case came out. [to me anyway]. Our wonderful air analysts then wrote the case off as a hoax PERFORMED BY THE PERUVIAN AIR FORCE ITSELF!!!!
A later commentator tried to return to sanity by saying that this couldn't be what they meant and the hoax had to be civilian. Either way, the "analysis" is no analysis and the "conclusion" WAY beyond the data available.
With the exception of photo 3, any of these could be 'acceptable', if not 'just right'. For me, though, although the shapes are acceptable-- difference of forms/aerodynamics/orientation etc don't bother me-- outside of the un-numbered photo at the head of the post (and possibly #10 or Switzerland), none of these seem to exhibit what my eye sees as proper 'scale'. The object is either cropped so as to remove any scale reference, or doesn't appear any different in scale than a pie tin or hubcap would. I've never seen a photo of a conventional airplane that made me think perhaps it was a a foot wide, though many of these photos give me that impression. That may be because I am familiar with a conventional aircraft, though. Furthermore, there's nothing that says UFOs must be large, contain passengers, or anything else, so my 'scale' argument doesn't work logically-- it's just my immediate reaction...
ReplyDeletePhoto #3, the Bloomfield NY (1967) photo impresses me as being legit and disturbing to me on some level.....Photo #5, the Tulsa OK (1965) photo has an insect-like quality to it. Also disturbing when I look at it.
ReplyDeleteDon't know what any of my initial reactions to those two particular photos could mean, but there it is.
~ Susan
To Bruno & Susan: you see that you react exactly opposite to photo #3. Some folks seem to dislike its hard-focussed ordinariness; some are bothered in a different way about its concreteness and utter lack of "romance". Photo #5/ Tulsa has been dumped on regularly by some who don't think that it looks right, has too much color, and the photographer was too young. But before anyone goes racing to judgement on it [and I was initially guilty], everyone needs to read the file and the subtleties of the local folks vouching for its legitimacy. It's a live option.
DeleteWhat a fine post! I'll be looking forward to more from you.
ReplyDeleteDavid
Its nice to read posts from so many thoughtful people. I was wondering if anyone here could give me an opinion, and maybe direct me to other similar cases.
ReplyDeleteI am investigating a case where the witness had many physical effects. The object (appearing as a large white light) passed directly overhead. The witness' telescope quit functioning, (later had to be reprogrammed) the car would not start, but did after the object passed. The witness suffered a nosebleed when the object was overhead and got a headache of "migraine proportions" which let up the next day. Cell tower lights dimmed and went out as it passed. And while the object was insight all the cicadas and other bugs fell silent.
If you have any info on similar cases I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks, Barbara Becker ufomig@yahoo.com
Hello Barbara. I believe that I met you, perhaps even twice, many years ago associated somehow with CUFOS. People seemed to have high respect for your field work and I thought it a shame that you seemed to become a bit less visible with time. UFOlogy needs all the good field workers that it can get.
DeleteAs to the case: I can say with full confidence that no case is even close to identical to the one you describe, and you'd have to scrape around to find many with as many CE2 type elements.
Taken piecemeal [and as someone of your quality knows], many of these bits are common {Vehicle Interference, OZ, the malfunction of various machines}. Others are in the literature but less frequent { I did a few posts here on CE2physiologicals --- quite a few actually --- and there aren't as many headache cases as you'd expect. The Newfield /Ithaca NY case of 1967 is a rare thing with both CE2p and CE2e&m effects, including headaches and vehicle interference.} Although I can easily be wrong about this, the only CE2p that I can come up with involving nosebleed is Te Araroa, NZ 1978. There are, of course, many nosebleed claims in CE4s, but I consider that very specious considering the very common phenomenon of drying thin nasal passages during sleep [especially in winter]. A case involving something like the cell tower dimming might be Ted Bloecher's investigation of the Hillcrest Heights, MD flyover of the Washington National Airport in about 1955.
This is probably of little use, but maybe others know more.