Rainbow rods: the evidence?
The apparent existence of a newly discovered, or even entirely new, species of flying creatures has been touted by members of the UFO community and others for a few years now. While proponents for the "rods'" existence have presented plenty of evidence, primarily in the form of digital video footage, little independent research or investigation into the phenomenon has taken place. In this exlusive article, Michael Merchant, puts forward his case for rod reality.
To prove the existence of rods we must first examine and eliminate what the skeptics claim they are, most notably sun glare, insects, internal artifacts of the camera, birds, scratches on the lens, or pollen and dust particles.
The easiest skeptical claim to abolish is the claim that internal artifacts of the camera, scratches on the lens and sun glare are responsible for the Rainbow rod phenomenon.
Now I cannot speak for any other rod researchers but when I film I do several things to make sure the above are not mistaken for rods. First I clamp my camera onto a tripod and I lock the focus on the manual setting. This means I do not have to worry about the camera auto focusing and causing movement of dust or scratches on the lens that could be mistaken for something alive in the FOV (field of view).
With the camera stable, and the lens focus fixed in place anything moving across the FOV is alive or, is material that was carried aloft by the wind currents. Dust on the lens would appear stationary, so would scratches and lens flares, these would not move across the FOV of the camera if the camera was fixed in place and the focus was locked. The same would go for an internal glitch inside of the camera. Furthermore if an internal glitch inside of the camera were to blame, one would expect it to look similar in each photo.
A camera glitch would not be able to change directions, nor would it be of different sizes, it also could not be used to explain the presents of multiple rods in the same shot. If you film a swarm of bees no one claims they are camera glitches yet film a swarm of rods and sudden they claim your camera is broken. I wish just once a skeptic would take the time to duplicate a rod photo before claiming to be an expert in optics and camera mechanics. It seems you run into a lot of armchair experts in this business.
Now that we have a clean lens, a stable camera we must tackle a more difficult claim made by armchair experts, namely that rods are insects, birds, pollen particles or some strange seed pod that flies about under it’s own power. Now I am not a botanist, but I have yet to observe a seedpod flying about. As far as pollen particles go I have never measured one 12 inches in length, yet I have confirmed several rods that were at least 12 inches in length.
Pollen particles are tiny specks resembling dust floating about in the air and are not often mistaken for flying animals. As to birds I must admit that some people have showcased photos that looked like blurred birds in flight to me. I am not going to sit here and tell you that a bird could not be mistaken for a rod once in a while - I am sure it happens. You sometimes mistake a garden hose for a snake too but not all the time.
Insects can easily be mistake for small rods as they fly about glinting in the midday sun, but when you capture a rod and a fly in the same frame, having observed the fly with your naked eye the whole time, seeing the rod pass the FOV within the LCD screen of the camera and picking up no sign of the rod with your peripheral vision as it passes within ten feet of you it tends to make you a believer.
In the film footage of the above still the fly can be seen flying right at the camera lens appearing much like a giant fly in a horror flick. Then it zooms up to the eaves of the roof, appearing in the upper right of the frame as the rod passes by appearing in the middle left of the frame.
Examine this photograph of a Rainbow rod with a fly in the same frame.
I was present behind the camera when this shot was taken, the log end you see at the left of the picture was 8 feet from me, I saw the fly quite clearly, yet did not see the rod as it passed. If the rod photographed here was 8 feet away then it was at least 5 inches long. That would be a very large fly! If it was father away then it was larger then 5 inches. The fly at the upper right looks just like it should, like a fly a 1/4 inch long. The rod on the other hand looks nothing like any insect I am familiar with - to me it looks more like a type of marine worm swimming in the air.
Another pet theory of the debunkers is birds, now I have filmed a number of birds, in fact the very same day that the above photo was taken a bird flew across the FOV and as you can see in this following photo it looks like a bird, it does not look like the rod captured in the still with the fly.
Notice the exact log end in this photo as in the previous photo
Granted the bird has a reddish tinge to it due to being back lit by the bright sunlight that day, but clearly it is a bird. So here we have a photo of a fly, a bird and a rod all taken within a few minutes of each other, all taken with the same set up; focus the same, lighting the same, basically every thing the same except different animals. Note the size of the bird as compared to the rod; in fact we have a good idea how large the bird is because just before this photo was taken the bird had landed for a moment on the log end.
The log end blocked the view of the bird so we know the bird was a little smaller then 3 inches square with it’s wings folded. There can be no mistaking the identity of the bird, no mistaking the identity of the fly, so you dear reader tell me what the rod was if it was not a Rainbow rod.
As further evidence that rods are not birds or insects let's take a look at this photo, which shows a rod passing by the roof edge here in this photo.
The rod is traveling from the right side of the frame towards the left side. Take note that the object is headed downwards in this shot, the roof in this photo sweeps upwards away from the viewer, and is a simple shed roof design. The rod must be beyond the roof edge or else it would have crashed into the roof. In fact it must be several feet beyond the roof edge in order to avoid hitting the roof. So by measuring the edge of the roof here in this photo we know for certain that the Rainbow rod here is at least 12 inches in length and most likely is closer to 1.5 ft long or longer. The log end you see at the far left of the photo is about 3 inches across the face of it and it is about 6 inches between the bumps on the metal roofing. In this next photo we have the same set up as before except this rod is cruising level with the edge of the roof and is estimated to be at least 18 inches in length, an extremely large bug!
Once again note the same log end as in the first four photos.
In all of these photos the shutter speed was the same and the focus was locked; we can identify insects, birds and rods. There is no confusion as to what is a rod, what is an insect and what is a bird.
In this last photo that I want you to look at you can make out maple leaves behind the creature, you can plainly see pollen particles floating behind the creature visible though the rod’s body. In this shot the rod also dipped below the roof edge so we have an exact placement of the animal, we also know the FOV at that distance and can extrapolate from this data that the rod was 10 –12 inches in length. Much too large for any insect in Maine, and it does not even remotely have the morphology of a bird and is certainly not a speck of dust, pollen particle or a scratch on the lens of the camera.
We have an unknown as yet unidentified species of animals here, begging to be discovered and studied. Look at the evidence, study these photos and tell me this is not something that deserves to be looked into. Go out and take your own photos, do your own work, try and make birds, insects, or pollen look like these rods photos and then get in touch with me. Perhaps we can get you a job with a special effects company.
The bottom line is this is something that cannot be easily brushed aside, the debunkers can debunk but unless they get themselves educated they are not going to sweep this subject under the table.
This may very well be the single greatest biological discovery of our age.
All discoveries are first met with hesitant skepticisms, and that is healthy, we should take the time to investigate wild claims, but here we have proof, photographic evidence staring back at us. We do not need to accept the wild unfounded claims that these creatures can pass though solid objects, or that they reach a hundred feet in length.
I am not saying that, I am only providing a view into an unknown, unexplored realm that is not so different from the world that was unveiled when microbes were first discovered. People couldn’t believe then that tiny creatures lived everywhere but were unseen because they were so small, and now we take for granted beer that is brewed with cultures of yeast, we do not even question taking medication for viruses or bacterial infections.
This is no different; we have in front of us an unseen world that can be looked into with the advent of modern CCD cameras that allow us to record animals that only reflect infrared light. They are not wraiths or ghosts they are real physical creatures with behaviors similar to known animals, they breed, they raise young, they fight, struggle to survive and I imagine that they die of old age.
How can we take the risk of not studying these wonderful enigmatic creatures?
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Michael Merchant can be emailed here.
What do you think? Email us with your own research or comments.
