Debunking the Phoenix Lights flare theory

[Wookietim]

You might have missed the part where the animated GIF is a composite of two pieces of footage taken from the same point of view. One piece of that composite is the original K video, the other is day footage from the same perspective.

Interestingly, neither seems to actually match the picture I presented.

And I could composite a few pictures together to show an alien spaceship from betelguese... but that doesn't prove much either...

[booNyzarC]

Silly observation : If we were to break the study of the human body down to a study of the individual atoms, where would we find anything that is alive? Or, in order to make it more obvious what I am saying, if we were to analyze a box as six board, where does the "Boxness" come from?

Sometimes breaking down an entire phenomenon that is obviously much larger than one tiny thing is not the best way to analyze anything...

Your analogies are flawed and don't represent what I'm describing in any way. Perhaps you can find a more accurate representation?

Interestingly, neither seems to actually match the picture I presented.

And I could composite a few pictures together to show an alien spaceship from betelguese... but that doesn't prove much either...

I created that GIF from screen capture of an analysis done by Cognitech. The full analysis can be viewed here if you'd prefer:

You seem resistant to even understanding the analyses that have been done. Or am I just getting the wrong impression?

[Wookietim]

Your analogies are flawed and don't represent what I'm describing in any way. Perhaps you can find a more accurate representation?

I created that GIF from screen capture of an analysis done by Cognitech. The full analysis can be viewed here if you'd prefer:

You seem resistant to even understanding the analyses that have been done. Or am I just getting the wrong impression?

Not really. It's simply that I have seen these analyses done time and again and then I have seen other analyses done that refute them. I understand that one set of analyses say one thing. That's nice. But unless one only listens to one and not any other, one is left with the realization that these analyses are just opinion and not fact. And to latch onto them as if they are fact is a very much incorrect thing to do if one actually wants to approach the subject in a logical manner...

[S2F]

Not really. It's simply that I have seen these analyses done time and again and then I have seen other analyses done that refute them. I understand that one set of analyses say one thing. That's nice. But unless one only listens to one and not any other, one is left with the realization that these analyses are just opinion and not fact. And to latch onto them as if they are fact is a very much incorrect thing to do if one actually wants to approach the subject in a logical manner...

I have seen the math put forward by booN, lost shaman and Pericynthion each individually and having known them from prior interactions spanning more than a few months I would tend to take their word for it over some random name on the internet. Having discussed things of this nature with them on several occasions I have a pretty good grasp of their integrity and honesty as well as their intellectual competence. The fact that these three posters each did the math individually and came to the same (relatively) conclusions is beyond coincidental in my opinion. The numbers support the flare theory. For the 10:00 PM sighting in March of '97 at least.

[booNyzarC]

Not really. It's simply that I have seen these analyses done time and again and then I have seen other analyses done that refute them. I understand that one set of analyses say one thing. That's nice. But unless one only listens to one and not any other, one is left with the realization that these analyses are just opinion and not fact. And to latch onto them as if they are fact is a very much incorrect thing to do if one actually wants to approach the subject in a logical manner...

Would you mind pointing me to any of the analyses which you believe have successfully refuted the Maccabee analysis? Because I haven't seen one yet. Or perhaps you can share with me what is incorrect about Maccabee's analysis?

I have seen the math put forward by booN, lost shaman and Pericynthion each individually and having known them from prior interactions spanning more than a few months I would tend to take their word for it over some random name on the internet. Having discussed things of this nature with them on several occasions I have a pretty good grasp of their integrity and honesty as well as their intellectual competence. The fact that these three posters each did the math individually and came to the same (relatively) conclusions is beyond coincidental in my opinion. The numbers support the flare theory. For the 10:00 PM sighting in March of '97 at least.

Thanks S2F. That means a lot to me man.

[AlienDan]

I copied several frames from the video and put them together, did some stabalizing in photoshop to keep the ground level, and you can clearly see that the "lights" are descending and moving just like flares. They are not staying in one place like people seem to think.

Flares.

[booNyzarC]

I copied several frames from the video and put them together, did some stabalizing in photoshop to keep the ground level, and you can clearly see that the "lights" are descending and moving just like flares. They are not staying in one place like people seem to think.

*Awesome Animated GIF snipped but linked because that's how awesome it is!*

Flares.

Very impressive AlienDan! Further analysis which confirms the flare conclusions previously made.

Why is it that when people actually take the time to analyze this stuff they come up with the same conclusions and the people that try to perpetuate the mythology of mystery around this video evidence don't bother to analyze anything or actually address the analyses which dispel the mystery? (<-- Rhetorical Question.)

[mcrom901]

I'm not aware of anyone claiming that the earlier sightings on March 13, 1997 were of flares. Aside from one bit of video (

... tell me that doesn't look like planes in formation...), all we have to go on for the earlier sightings is witness testimony. Comparing the video with the testimony demonstrates a pretty compelling discrepancy. Add to that mix the fact that Mitch Stanley viewed the earlier sighting through his Dobsonian telescope and reported that it was planes flying in formation and one has to wonder about the accuracy of the other eye witness testimony related to the earlier events if they have the intention of intellectual honesty.

cheers boon.... i don't think your initial video link is re the '97 sighting.... check here.... link

n here is mitch stanley with his scope...

http://home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/azconc.htm

[booNyzarC]

cheers boon.... i don't think your initial video link is re the '97 sighting.... check here.... link

n here is mitch stanley with his scope...

http://home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/azconc.htm

Awesome information mcrom, thanks man.

I've seen clips from that Terry video before, but I've never seen this Discovery piece and to see him describe it helps quite a bit. And the picture of Mitch Stanley with his telescope is awesome too, I'm tired of linking to the wiki images.

Oh, and by the way, I still haven't seen any waterfall in that other picture. I couldn't find Waldo either, but I really looked hard to find either. I'll go back and review it in detail again, I assure you...

[Wookietim]

Would you mind pointing me to any of the analyses which you believe have successfully refuted the Maccabee analysis? Because I haven't seen one yet. Or perhaps you can share with me what is incorrect about Maccabee's analysis?

I am only quoting portions of these pages, however there is other points to consider on the links as well.

http://www.skywatch-research.org/ufo/plvideo.htm :

Dr. Macabee does not adequately address the differences between the observed mystery lights and the type and color of flares used by the Maryland ANG. The flares allegedly dispensed by the A-10s is called LUU-2 and is a high-intensity illumination flare that is housed in a pod or canister and is deployed by ejection. The mechanism has a timer on it that deploys the parachute and ignites the flare candle. The flare candle burns magnesium. Magnesium burns with an intense bright white light. This has been confirmed by a call to the flare manufacturer. The lights on March 13th had a brilliant liquid-gold hue of a very pure color. Viewing aircraft with white lights on them that are approaching from a low elevation through 60 to 70 miles of clear desert air at night still look white at that distance. Even planets rising over the horizon at night do not show a distinctly different color to the naked eye, much less through magnification. The mystery lights had no white color at all, nor tinged yellow or white as might appear through a layer of dust in the atmosphere. Through a telescope, witnesses saw a perfectly round circle of yellow-gold light without any glare around it. Flares are fires that flicker and change in brightness and shape. Flares can be viewed during exercises in military operating areas. There are yellow illumination flares that can be seen and bear a resemblance to the color of the mystery lights, but do not resemble them in form and do cast a glare into the surrounding air, however the Maryland ANG used the white flares according to their testimony and statements by the Air Force.

In reference to your mention of Mitch stanley and his witness testimony that they were planes :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights -

Mitch Stanley, an amateur astronomer, observed the lights using a Dobsonian telescope outfitted with a TELEVUE 32mm Plössl eyepiece, which produces 43x magnification. After observing the lights, he told his mother, who was present at the time, that the lights were aircraft.[17] According to Stanley, the lights were quite clearly individual airplanes; a companion who was with him recalled asking Stanley at the time what the lights were, and he said, "Planes". His account is contradicted by several thousand Phoenix residents, however, and no military or civilian aircraft formations were known to have been flying in the area at that time

I will also point out that if a formation of planes were flying without a flight plan that this would constitute a rather major event even in the pre-9/11 world and would have kicked off an investigation whether or not people asked for Radar records or not. Where are the arrests?

To return to the argument of flares :

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread662185/pg1 :

He ran each frame through a "Light Fluctuation program" which detects light flicker, changes in brightness.

He spent over 2 years collating data on exisiting Military flares, he ran these through the program, and each time the program ran the data it would produce a wobbly line of data (showing the changes in light color, brightness, shakiness etc).

Now when he ran the data of the Phoenix lights, after going through 4000 frames individually, the data which came out was astonishing.

It came out as a dead straight line, there where no color changes, no brightness changes, they were completely static, unlike the data he had already got of military flares.

He came to the conclusion that they were NOT flares.

His final words where, he doesn't know what they are, but he knows what they aern't.

This is just to present a sliver of the discussion about the problems in the analysis you present. Obviously there are conflicting opinions and analyses. To latch onto one analysis that and ignore all others is far from a logical way to go about discussing this phenomenon. Essentially what you have done is no better than the people who have latched onto the alien spacecraft explanation and will listen to no others - you are focusing on one explanation to the exclusion of all others...

[booNyzarC]

I am only quoting portions of these pages, however there is other points to consider on the links as well.

http://www.skywatch-research.org/ufo/plvideo.htm :

This link of yours is to the Bill Hamilton and Tom King analysis. Maccabee responded to this analysis here. In particular, the quote you extracted has to do with the coloration of the lights as seen by the naked eye (but ironically, not captured on video...) which were of a golden or orange hue.

Maccabee responded as follows:

H&K point out that the colors of the lights seem to be too orange to be magnesium flares of the LUU-2 type, since magnesium burns at high temperature with a white light. I suggested that light traveling through the atmosphere over 50 miles could be reddened (like the moon or sun) by dust and moisture droplets in the atmosphere. They, however, argue that any reddening wouldn't be sufficient to produce the orange color they and the others saw. This can only be resolved by experiment. (Note: although the magnesium burns white, the consumption of the aluminum cylinder that contains the flare "candle" may add some orange to the light.) The problem of color may be resolved with controlled observations during similar training exercises expected to take place during early 1999.

Maccabee offers the possibility that light traveling through the atmosphere could be reddened by dust and moisture in the atmosphere. Certainly, depending on what is in the atmosphere, this is definitely possible. That doesn't mean it happened that particular night, but it is possible. He also offers the possibility that a future (past, at this point) test might verify or deny this.

I have yet to see footage of this exercise from early 1999, but I have seen comparison photos of flares taken from a much closer range than the initial videos. Here is one such example from a video in support of the mystery:

First, the imagery of this comparison was taken at a much closer proximity than the original videos. Second... what color are those flares?

They don't look white to me... Do they look white to you? Perhaps the smoke from the flares was enough to give the reddened hue all on its own?

As far as I'm concerned, the H&K argument in this regard is insubstantial at best. Feel free to push it further if you have more to add, but I don't see any reason to consider their "hue" argument as definitive by any means.

In reference to your mention of Mitch stanley and his witness testimony that they were planes :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights -

Yes, your quote states that thousands of eye witnesses don't agree with Mitch Stanley. Were any of those disagreeable eye witnesses looking through a telescope? I don't think that they were... So what do we have here? Conflicting testimony from people who were looking at the sky with the naked eye compared with Mitch Stanley who was looking at the sky through a telescope. Let me guess, you take the unassisted views over Mitch's telescope?

Your quote from wiki also indicates that there were no known flights in the area at the time of the earlier sighting. Agreed, there weren't. But that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. It just means that we don't have a record of it.

I will also point out that if a formation of planes were flying without a flight plan that this would constitute a rather major event even in the pre-9/11 world and would have kicked off an investigation whether or not people asked for Radar records or not. Where are the arrests?

Again, just because we don't have a record of the flight plan doesn't mean that there was no flight plan. Are you going to start going into conspiracy theories now? You don't seem like the conspiracy theory type to me.

To return to the argument of flares :

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread662185/pg1 :

What is this exactly? A synopsis of Jim Delettoso's optical analysis? Sorry, I don't often read ATS because I'm not signed up and lurkers apparently aren't appreciated if you consider all of the spam advertising they subject us to.

But if it is a synopsis of Jim Delettoso's optical analysis I'm going to need much more. This is the same guy who triangulated the lights to determine that they were above the city of Phoenix. One has only to look at the Chuck Rairdon video to understand how astronomically retarded that triangulation was (because he wasn't even looking in the direction of Phoenix when he filmed his video...).

So forgive me if I take anything coming out of Delettoso with a grain of salt. Perhaps if you can validate his claims in some way I'll give it more weight. So far, nobody I'm aware of has validated any of his silly claims regarding this case but many people have confirmed the analysis delivered by Maccabee.

This is just to present a sliver of the discussion about the problems in the analysis you present. Obviously there are conflicting opinions and analyses. To latch onto one analysis that and ignore all others is far from a logical way to go about discussing this phenomenon. Essentially what you have done is no better than the people who have latched onto the alien spacecraft explanation and will listen to no others - you are focusing on one explanation to the exclusion of all others...

Well, I guess my tweezers have adequately removed your sliver problem. Perhaps you should track down something more substantial. Or you could also opt for reason and recognize that you are arguing a losing battle. There simply isn't as much mystery behind the Phoenix Lights as you've convinced yourself to be. Sorry mate. I really do respect you highly and consider you to be quite well endowed with both intelligence and integrity after participation with you on several subjects.

Cheers.

[Wookietim]

This link of yours is to the Bill Hamilton and Tom King analysis. Maccabee responded to this analysis here. In particular, the quote you extracted has to do with the coloration of the lights as seen by the naked eye (but ironically, not captured on video...) which were of a golden or orange hue.

Maccabee responded as follows:

Maccabee offers the possibility that light traveling through the atmosphere could be reddened by dust and moisture in the atmosphere. Certainly, depending on what is in the atmosphere, this is definitely possible. That doesn't mean it happened that particular night, but it is possible. He also offers the possibility that a future (past, at this point) test might verify or deny this.

I have yet to see footage of this exercise from early 1999, but I have seen comparison photos of flares taken from a much closer range than the initial videos. Here is one such example from a video in support of the mystery:

First, the imagery of this comparison was taken at a much closer proximity than the original videos. Second... what color are those flares?

They don't look white to me... Do they look white to you? Perhaps the smoke from the flares was enough to give the reddened hue all on its own?

As far as I'm concerned, the H&K argument in this regard is insubstantial at best. Feel free to push it further if you have more to add, but I don't see any reason to consider their "hue" argument as definitive by any means.

Yes, your quote states that thousands of eye witnesses don't agree with Mitch Stanley. Were any of those disagreeable eye witnesses looking through a telescope? I don't think that they were... So what do we have here? Conflicting testimony from people who were looking at the sky with the naked eye compared with Mitch Stanley who was looking at the sky through a telescope. Let me guess, you take the unassisted views over Mitch's telescope?

Your quote from wiki also indicates that there were no known flights in the area at the time of the earlier sighting. Agreed, there weren't. But that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. It just means that we don't have a record of it.

Again, just because we don't have a record of the flight plan doesn't mean that there was no flight plan. Are you going to start going into conspiracy theories now? You don't seem like the conspiracy theory type to me.

What is this exactly? A synopsis of Jim Delettoso's optical analysis? Sorry, I don't often read ATS because I'm not signed up and lurkers apparently aren't appreciated if you consider all of the spam advertising they subject us to.

But if it is a synopsis of Jim Delettoso's optical analysis I'm going to need much more. This is the same guy who triangulated the lights to determine that they were above the city of Phoenix. One has only to look at the Chuck Rairdon video to understand how astronomically retarded that triangulation was (because he wasn't even looking in the direction of Phoenix when he filmed his video...).

So forgive me if I take anything coming out of Delettoso with a grain of salt. Perhaps if you can validate his claims in some way I'll give it more weight. So far, nobody I'm aware of has validated any of his silly claims regarding this case but many people have confirmed the analysis delivered by Maccabee.

Well, I guess my tweezers have adequately removed your sliver problem. Perhaps you should track down something more substantial. Or you could also opt for reason and recognize that you are arguing a losing battle. There simply isn't as much mystery behind the Phoenix Lights as you've convinced yourself to be. Sorry mate. I really do respect you highly and consider you to be quite well endowed with both intelligence and integrity after participation with you on several subjects.

Cheers.

So, to sum up your response : While you admit to response Maccabee made to the questions is complex you have essentially decided that only Maccabee is correct and there are no possible arguments against him. May I point out that you are treating his analysis the same way that extremely religious people treat the bible? "Only his analysis is correct, only he can be listened to, everyone else is wrong" in other words...

And, by the way, I have endeavored to remain very polite and respectful when talking to you. your sarcasm is not really welcome. Therefore you will be ignored.

[booNyzarC]

So, to sum up your response : While you admit to response Maccabee made to the questions is complex you have essentially decided that only Maccabee is correct and there are no possible arguments against him. May I point out that you are treating his analysis the same way that extremely religious people treat the bible? "Only his analysis is correct, only he can be listened to, everyone else is wrong" in other words...

You are familiar with the term falsification, yes? For Maccabee's analysis to be disconsidered, it would need to be adequately falsified. It hasn't been. Not by anyone that I'm aware of.

The other analyses that you've presented have been falsified.

There is no religious likeness to this. By all means, if you can adequately falsify the analysis that he has presented and replace it with a more accurate analysis, I would accept it. I'm not attached to Maccabee's conclusions for any other reason than the fact that his explanation best matches with the video evidence presented and has been verified by multiple people.

I'm not sure why this isn't clear to you. Each analysis should be measured on its own merit. None of the analyses I've seen you present withstand scrutiny. That means that they don't have much merit. Maccabee's analysis does withstand scrutiny. That qualifies it with more merit.

And, by the way, I have endeavored to remain very polite and respectful when talking to you. your sarcasm is not really welcome. Therefore you will be ignored.

Ignored?

That seems like a pretty extreme response to me. After lurking some of your discussions with others I've seen you demonstrate much thicker skin. But then, your arguments in those appeared to have the upper hand, so perhaps you were more tolerant of a bit of sarcasm because you were more confident in your position in the debate? Hard for me to say, but that is what it looks like from my perspective.

At any rate, apologies for the hint of sarcasm. It was late, I was feeling a bit "punchy", and I let some snarkiness seep in. At least I ended the post commending your intelligence and integrity. Despite our differing positions on this Phoenix Lights debate, I do hold you in high regard as an individual.

If it is any consolation, at the time I had the feeling that I was responding in kind because I interpreted the tone of quite a few of your statements over the course of this thread as equally sarcastic. For example, the way you ended the post I was responding to likened me to a religious zealot:

Essentially what you have done is no better than the people who have latched onto the alien spacecraft explanation and will listen to no others - you are focusing on one explanation to the exclusion of all others...

And do you recall referring to me as a debunker and hinting that my approach to this analysis has been illogical? I think if you read back through your statements you'll find sarcasm. I know I did.

[booNyzarC]

Interestingly, neither seems to actually match the picture I presented.

And I could composite a few pictures together to show an alien spaceship from betelguese... but that doesn't prove much either...

You could composite some pictures to show an alien spaceship from betelguese, funny how sarcasm swings both ways.

But just to add a little more clarity on this particular point... the picture you presented includes more of the lights from the K video array than my animated GIF because the animated GIF only includes the last part of the video showing 6 of the 9 lights as they disappear from view behind the mountains. The picture you presented is from an earlier point in the video (not included in the GIF) before the right-hand lights had disappeared behind the mountains.

The intention of my GIF wasn't to fully reproduce the K video. Those GIFs get pretty big when you include too many frames. Even shaving it down to 35 frames left the file size at 1.45MB's. Put too many of those on a web page and it takes a long time to load...

If you take a look at AlienDan's stabilized GIF above, it pretty much shows the same thing without the daytime overlay, but includes screenshots from even more of the original sequence (the last 7 of the 9 lights as they appeared from K's footage). Surely you must agree that his stabilized GIF is an accurate depiction and clearly shows that the lights weren't stationary and fell irregularly, right?