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SETI Institute chief offers his views on UFOs and alien visitors


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19 hours ago, Pericynthion said:

Cat Cove is visible in the photo. I've tinted the water blue in this copy:

image.jpeg.0b3e9f1f89983c71088d0c653aafef94.jpeg

Thank you! The view from Google Maps street view doesn't look like this at all though. From the location from where the Coast Guard base was it shows the power plant more distant with a lot more water. This looks more like Smith's Pool which is north of Cat's Cove.

Could the photo lab been farther north of the base?

catscove.jpg

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On 5/3/2024 at 6:30 PM, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

I never said the Willows were in the direction of the power plant. quit  lying.

Neither did I so you're just making up stuff like you always do.

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19 hours ago, Pericynthion said:

Everything lines up very nicely with Alpert's photo. The power station should take up about a quarter of the horizontal field of view, which it does. Alpert's photo catches the overhanging roof of the photo lab building and the corner of the administration building, while the parked cars run from about the center of the frame to the right edge.

So the two things that threw me off were that the building was more north than I had thought and there is a hill between the building and Cat's Cove which is obscuring it.

19 hours ago, Pericynthion said:

Alpert took his photo on July 16, 1952 at about 9:35 am EDT (source). At that time the sun would have been at an azimuth of 102 deg, putting it almost directly behind Alpert's camera, and about 44 deg above the horizon (source: heavens-above.com). The weather that day was very hot. Temperature at about 9:30 am was already 86 deg F (30 deg C) and the sky was partly cloudy (source). On such a hot day, the glass windows would have very likely been open, with the photo being shot through the window screen only (as referenced in the reports).

I'd still like to know what caused the at least three stops of light loss in the photo. He did say the screen was dirty but that's very dirty.

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I would like to point out (again) that Alpert was on record as saying he didn't think nor ever state that what he took a photo of was extraterrestrial craft. That malarkey was slapped on by the UFO crazed crowd at the time, and after the fact.

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I've never shot sheet film but I know a photographer who does so I sent her the link to Alpert's story. She noticed something. Alpert never said he loaded the camera with a new sheet of film before taking the photo. He even said that he wasn't sure there was film in the camera when he took the photo and that he had been cleaning the lens.

She suspects that Alpert may have accidentally tripped the shutter while cleaning the lens holding it up to the office lights thinking that there was no film in it or that the slide was covering it. That would have created a double exposure of the office lights out of focus. He did say that before taking the photo he pulled the slide which would have prevented the film being accidentally exposed. She thought that sounded strange because she's never put an empty film holder into her camera. That's to avoid accidentally taking a photo without film. She suspected that he added that detail to cover his accidental double exposure.

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8 hours ago, Trelane said:

I would like to point out (again) that Alpert was on record as saying he didn't think nor ever state that what he took a photo of was extraterrestrial craft. That malarkey was slapped on by the UFO crazed crowd at the time, and after the fact.

It's a UFO and can only be aliens , my dad was there and 60 witnesses and and and , etc ad nauseum, zero supporting evidence.

Edited by the13bats
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5 hours ago, astrobeing said:

I've never shot sheet film but I know a photographer who does so I sent her the link to Alpert's story. She noticed something. Alpert never said he loaded the camera with a new sheet of film before taking the photo. He even said that he wasn't sure there was film in the camera when he took the photo and that he had been cleaning the lens.

She suspects that Alpert may have accidentally tripped the shutter while cleaning the lens holding it up to the office lights thinking that there was no film in it or that the slide was covering it. That would have created a double exposure of the office lights out of focus. He did say that before taking the photo he pulled the slide which would have prevented the film being accidentally exposed. She thought that sounded strange because she's never put an empty film holder into her camera. That's to avoid accidentally taking a photo without film. She suspected that he added that detail to cover his accidental double exposure.

And he was likely so utterly humiliated that his ego wouldn't allow him to come clean and his buddy felt bad and just babbled he saw a flash.

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2 hours ago, the13bats said:

And he was likely so utterly humiliated that his ego wouldn't allow him to come clean and his buddy felt bad and just babbled he saw a flash.

But don't worry, EarlofTrumps is about, any minute now, to cite all the other 59 witnesses...

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1 minute ago, ChrLzs said:

But don't worry, EarlofTrumps is about, any minute now, to cite all the other 59 witnesses...

smiley_popcorn.gif.5a89c843c9c41da25550b2bc3c4c29f6.giflaughing7.gif.feb6704319fbee9ba8135997f251687b.gif

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On 5/7/2024 at 3:34 PM, the13bats said:

And he was likely so utterly humiliated that his ego wouldn't allow him to come clean and his buddy felt bad and just babbled he saw a flash.

My photographer friend told me that shooting sheet film is a nightmare. She has to carry around stacks of holders and each has exactly one sheet of film. You're supposed to mark the holder after you expose it but sometimes you forget or sometimes you don't see your own mark and you end up with a double exposure. She said another possibility is that the camera Alpert said he was cleaning probably had no film in it since he was cleaning it so he quickly grabbed any folder that was around (note that he said he didn't know if the holder even had film in it) and accidentally used one that had already been exposed.

Mistakes happen.

 

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On 5/10/2024 at 12:15 PM, astrobeing said:

My photographer friend told me that shooting sheet film is a nightmare. She has to carry around stacks of holders and each has exactly one sheet of film. You're supposed to mark the holder after you expose it but sometimes you forget or sometimes you don't see your own mark and you end up with a double exposure. She said another possibility is that the camera Alpert said he was cleaning probably had no film in it since he was cleaning it so he quickly grabbed any folder that was around (note that he said he didn't know if the holder even had film in it) and accidentally used one that had already been exposed.

Mistakes happen.

 

My nsho is it was likely a deliberate hoax by a bored coastie and second to that an accident afterall i would think someone involved would recognize the lights, maybe eot could ask his dad about lights that could be the source

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On 5/6/2024 at 10:29 AM, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

later this pm

I thought pm may heve meant later that afternoon.

I yhink a few of is had trouble finding that thread.

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19 hours ago, the13bats said:

My nsho is it was likely a deliberate hoax by a bored coastie and second to that an accident afterall i would think someone involved would recognize the lights, maybe eot could ask his dad about lights that could be the source

My guess is that this shot was an accidental double exposure (or possible reflections) but every other similar shot of white blobs in late 1952 and 1953 were deliberate hoaxes done by photographers who saw Alpert's photo in the newspaper and thought, "Oh, that's easy." It really lowered the bar. Anyone with a camera could make a similar shot during an afternoon and sell it to the local newspaper for $50.

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49 minutes ago, astrobeing said:

My guess is that this shot was an accidental double exposure (or possible reflections) but every other similar shot of white blobs in late 1952 and 1953 were deliberate hoaxes done by photographers who saw Alpert's photo in the newspaper and thought, "Oh, that's easy." It really lowered the bar. Anyone with a camera could make a similar shot during an afternoon and sell it to the local newspaper for $50.

My rub with accident would then mean he didn't know what made the reflection like lights in the room and in that case what did?

Hum, I have a theory back after lunch.

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2 hours ago, the13bats said:

My rub with accident would then mean he didn't know what made the reflection like lights in the room and in that case what did?

Hum, I have a theory back after lunch.

The joint we had lunch at had a wall with glass top waitress station and lights were reflecting "pepper ghost" in that glass thing is you could tell it was lights very good detail in the reflection.

The light blobs in this thread pic do to me always seem like the same light repeated or a fixture of more than one light,

Let me ask can the camera used do like multi exposure or just double?

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22 hours ago, the13bats said:

The joint we had lunch at had a wall with glass top waitress station and lights were reflecting "pepper ghost" in that glass thing is you could tell it was lights very good detail in the reflection.

The light blobs in this thread pic do to me always seem like the same light repeated or a fixture of more than one light,

They reminded me of the slats they used to put on fluorescent tube fixtures. This is a photo of a fluorescent light made in 1951. Note how the horizontal slats look very similar to the horizontal lines in the white blobs?

light.JPG

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23 hours ago, the13bats said:

Let me ask can the camera used do like multi exposure or just double?

You can recock the shutter and take as many exposures as you want onto the sheet of film in the camera. Nothing will stop you.

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5 hours ago, astrobeing said:

You can recock the shutter and take as many exposures as you want onto the sheet of film in the camera. Nothing will stop you.

So just in educating me, I could take say 4 pics of one light moving the came each time a little bit then take a pic out the window of outside and those 4 lights would be there?

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On 5/15/2024 at 10:02 AM, the13bats said:

So just in educating me, I could take say 4 pics of one light moving the came each time a little bit then take a pic out the window of outside and those 4 lights would be there?

Simple answer, yes. 

Longer and more correct answer?  Yes, but also anything else that was captured by the film (or sensor) in *all* of the exposures would also show up - if the detail is bright enough. - you lose a LOT of light when reflecting in window glass..

Allow me to explain by referencing this (Salem) image. In order to get that effect, the only thing in the other exposures needs to be the lights - if they showed anything else (like the light spill immediately around the lights, the light fitting itself, or furniture or some other lights...) all of those would also appear in the double exposure.  So to get the result we have here, the photographer would need to choose lights that have little or no background or other 'giveaway' details - eg, a street light in the dead of night would be an ideal choice.  That would make the multiple double exposure much easier.

Note that there is another approach, and that is called "dodging and burning", where you do some trickery when you're printing the image from the negative. That's pretty tricky to do.  But it might also explain why nobody seems to know where the negative went..!

 

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1 hour ago, ChrLzs said:

it might also explain why nobody seems to know where the negative went..!

Thanks for the 101 and it's weird how many such photos lose the negatives like Sandra's of champ lake monster, the negative in that case she felt was evil and ritually distroyed it.

Perhaps when eot returns with the 60 witnesses reports we can learn more about this one.

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14 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

Allow me to explain by referencing this (Salem) image. In order to get that effect, the only thing in the other exposures needs to be the lights - if they showed anything else (like the light spill immediately around the lights, the light fitting itself, or furniture or some other lights...) all of those would also appear in the double exposure.  So to get the result we have here, the photographer would need to choose lights that have little or no background or other 'giveaway' details - eg, a street light in the dead of night would be an ideal choice.  That would make the multiple double exposure much easier.

Or by accident one of the exposures did blow out the lights without exposing any details around them. I can imagine those conditions in a dark office especially with a dark ceiling.

Regarding the loss of light when shooting window reflections, remember that there was a screen on the other side and the exposure was at least three stops longer than what would be a normal exposure of an overcast day. The screen would even the indoor/outdoor light levels somewhat. We know that something was eating a lot of light coming through that window or Alpert remembered the exposure incorrectly.

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Earl, where'd you go?

On a previous thread on this topic, you said:

Quote

I look at witness statements, how long they had to view the object/s, examine to see if their stories mesh, look to see if it is possible to be a conspiracy. 
If the object/s are in view long enough and the stories that the witnesses match, then it is a sure thing that they tell the truth. simple. Case in point, the 4 UFO's over Salem Coast Guard station. 

Those 4 UFO's hovered for some minutes at low altitude, about 50 witnesses' descriptions marched each other as well as the picture. 
We don't really need the photo, eyewitness testimony is enough. 

Admirable ... but please cite those rather specific claims, because some of us rudely think that we do need that photo, and that eyewitness testimony counts for ****. However, if it is really 50+ witnesses, and they all 'march' {sic}, then I'll be suitably impressed.

But, gotta be staright up - I think that claim is something other truth.  Citation required, or if not, I'll be most interested in the excuse.  Perhaps you may wish to apologise, as I will if you post the cite.

Edited by ChrLzs
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On 5/18/2024 at 8:26 PM, ChrLzs said:

Earl, where'd you go?

On a previous thread on this topic, you said:

Admirable ... but please cite those rather specific claims, because some of us rudely think that we do need that photo, and that eyewitness testimony counts for ****. However, if it is really 50+ witnesses, and they all 'march' {sic}, then I'll be suitably impressed.

But, gotta be staright up - I think that claim is something other truth.  Citation required, or if not, I'll be most interested in the excuse.  Perhaps you may wish to apologise, as I will if you post the cite.

He outright lied about gellar on the Carson show I proved without question he lied, his defense? He called me names called me the liar , he lied some more then went ad hominem, cried victim had a tantrum etc

He has a total lack of credibility and integrity.

 

Edited by the13bats
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7 hours ago, the13bats said:

He outright lied about gellar on the Carson show I proved without question he lied, his defense? He called me names called me the liar , he lied some more then went ad hominem, cried victim had a tantrum etc

He has a total lack of credibility and integrity.

These types have invaded UFOlogy in recent years and have dragged it down to childish shouting matches. I remember when investigators like Jacques Vallée would remain professional when people challenged them on their false conclusions. It shows that the study of UFOs has really gone nowhere in eighty years.

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1 hour ago, astrobeing said:

These types have invaded UFOlogy in recent years and have dragged it down to childish shouting matches. I remember when investigators like Jacques Vallée would remain professional when people challenged them on their false conclusions. It shows that the study of UFOs has really gone nowhere in eighty years.

I didn't get in on it myself but heard Jeff meldumb of Bigfoot believer fame and Fortune came here got asked questions he didn't like and tantrumed off. I've heard he does that at the lectures he attends .

We are in an era where the campfire tales are placed in the folder of things like easter bunny and Santa. There is no reason a dear believer can't prove their claims, lame empty cops outs like, it doesn't work that way or bats isn't special enough to accept paranormal, the lenes cap was on, you should have been here yesterday, etc don't wash, they are laughed at then
The believers have melt downs and go on the attack yet we are called the meanies and bad guys.

I stopped getting trolled into childish fighting, I have a long ignore list.

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