Background

The following case was first submitted through the UFO Reporting hotline for The Black Vault / TBV Investigations. It was assigned to Jim Kerr for investigation and analysis.

Witness Testimony

By Jim Kerr, TBV Investigations

The witness stated in essence; this incident took place in April 2015 between 7:00 and 8:00 pm, but he can not remember the date in April. The witness and a friend were sitting inside a parked car engaged in conversation at the corner of Metzler Road and Lamoille Highway in the city of Elko NV. The sky was clear, with no rain or wind, and the temperature was cool.

While seated inside the car, he observed an orange light approx 85-90 degrees overhead slightly moving in different short directions but remained in the same location in the sky. Using his Windows 10 cell phone camera he began videoing the sighting. After several seconds the orange light turned white then opened up like a cube-shaped portal slightly larger than his fist held at arm’s length. The light inside the portal changed to orange and blue and was swirling around like food coloring mixed with water going down a sink drain, but the two colors did not mix. Suddenly the object began to take on the shape of an orange cube. It transformed into this cube similar to someone printing a cube with a 3D printer. The size was slightly larger than his closed fist held at arm’s length. Within this cube, at least two side profiles of human-like faces appeared. The faces appeared to morph changing slightly in shape and size. After approx one minute the portal closed vanishing into the night sky. The witness stated he was convinced he and his friend had witnessed a paranormal event of unknown origin.

Telephone Interview

On 02/27/2017 at 9:17 am. I conducted a recorded telephone interview with the witness.

The Evidence

On 02/20/2019, the witnessed emailed me two links to his YouTube channel of the video he filmed of the portal. Both videos are of the same object. The first video is the unedited footage. The second video the witness enlarged to see the object more clearly. Note; to protect the witness anonymity, I am not posting direct links to his YouTube channel in this investigation.

Unedited Video Footage Submitted by the Witness

Edited Video Footage Submitted by the Witness

The Analysis

By Jim Kerr, TBV Investigations

Weather and Astronomical Data

Due to the fact, the witness could not remember the exact date of this event; I am unable to research and report weather and astronomical data for this sighting.

Summary and Analysis of Witness’ Statement and Video Evidence

The witness couldn’t remember the day, but in April 2015, between 7-8:00 pm, he and a friend observed a portal open in the night sky that, in the witness’ words, painted or 3D printed swirling colors within a cube-shaped portal. Moments later, profile images of human-like faces then appeared. The entire sighting and video of the event lasted less than one minute. The witness believed he had witnessed a paranormal event of a portal opening in the night sky.

I spoke to the witness twice along with a recorded telephone interview and exchanged several emails. The witness’ story never varied in detail, and he seemed sincere in relating his sighting. When I first viewed both his original video and edited video, the video was dark due to being videoed at night. In the edited, cropped, and enlarged video, I could see what he described as the profile of human-like faces but suspected the objects might fall into the category of pareidolia.

Conclusion

The witness’ own video footage revealed that his sighting and claims are without any doubt a hoax. During the hours of darkness, he videoed a house with two windows, with a tree in front of the right portion of the house, and a vehicle parked in front of the house. Most likely, after viewing his video, he decided to hoax a paranormal event in the sky telling tall tails of portals, swirling colors, cubes, and the faces of human-like entities.

My conclusion: Solved; Hoax. Filming a house at night claiming it was a paranormal portal in the sky.

The post Paranormal Portal Opens Over Elko, Nevada – April 2015 (Hoax) first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post Paranormal Portal Opens Over Elko, Nevada – April 2015 (Hoax) appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Background

On October 26, 2018, this case was submitted to The Black Vault. It was assigned to TBV Investigations’ research Jeremy Enfinger for analysis.

Witness Testimony

The witness/photographer submitted the following information:

I was picking my grandchildren up from elementary school when I noticed everybody looking up in the sky I too looked up there and saw what I saw on the photos. The sighting date listed above (in the initial report) is wrong it was in 2014 I believe it was April. I couldn’t change sighting date on your program.

The sighting was reported to have occurred near the intersection of Thornton Rd. and Estate Dr. in Stockton, California around (or near) April of 2014. Four photos were submitted of an anomaly in the sky witnessed by multiple people (appearing in some of the photos).

The Evidence

The Analysis

Metadata analysis indicates the images are the original files, and EXIF metadata was able to be extracted. The image was taken from a Samsung SGH-T599N (5 MP) at a resolution of 1920 x 2560 pixels, using automatic exposure control with ISO 50, an exposure time of 1/2915 sec and an F-stop of 2.7. With the jpeg quality being 97%, there is no indication that the image file has been compressed. The flash was not utilized.

The time stamp on the metadata indicates it was taken May 9, 2014 at 14:14 hours. Due to initial research, no photo manipulation techniques were employed.

Initial impressions indicated the photo was not manipulated, and no evidence of motion was present when comparing images. There were, however, subtle changes in appearance around the periphery of the anomaly which caused me to consider some sort of meteorological or atmospheric disturbance.

After retrieving the metadata, multiple Google searches for “UFO Stockton, California, 2014” and “Clouds in Stockton, California, 2014” for the months of April and May of that year yielded several results. Image results were found that matched the appearance in these images and multiple news article links varied in headlines from May 9 to include “UFO sightings” to descriptions of cloud formations that can cause this kind of appearance.

Conclusion

After consulting the numerous articles citing this phenomenon, it can be summarized as a “Hole Punch Cloud”, which appears as a large, circular gap that usually appears in cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds. Also called a “fallstreak hole”, it can happen when moisture in a cloud is at a temperature that’s below freezing, but the moisture itself is isn’t actually frozen. According to the Huffington Post, these formations can also be caused by aircraft passing through certain types of clouds.

References

Here was a FOX 40 submitted photograph from the same timeframe:

The Huffington Post also ran a story about it:

Also CBS Sacramento was another resource that covered it:

YouTube user MrPhath posted a video of it as well:

Original Metadata Information

Each photo was submitted to Fotoforensics, but for the purpose of this report, I will only include the link to one as the JPEG quality and metadata are corroborated in comparison.

Photo #1 Metadata (from FotoForensics): http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=d6040af2eb054b5764d749de34163b5000b459b0.1704869

JPEG last saved at 97% quality (estimated).

Quality determined from the quantization tables that encoded the JPEG:

JPEG Q0: Luminance

JPEG Q1: Chrominance

The post UFO Photographed in the Clouds over Stockton, California first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO Photographed in the Clouds over Stockton, California appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

The following report was created by Dylan Santiso of TBV Investigations.  It can not be reproduced in any way, without prior permission.  The photographs are copyrighted to their respective owners. They are used here under fair use, as they were originally posted publicly on various media outlets.

Background

On December 29th, 2017 RT News Channel, reported on what some social media users in Lipeskt, Russia called a, “UFO”. Please see the RT Article titled, “UFO Traverses Night Sky”in Western Russia”: https://www.rt.com/news/414244-ufo-lightball-spotted-russia/

“First, there was a bright spot in the sky, then came the light – similar to that of a spotlight – and then it exploded. What was it?”, a witness to the Lipetsk sighting asked, as reported by RT.

A similar sighting was noticed and reported by many in Los Angeles, California and surrounding areas.

As reported by the New York Post and others news media on December 22, 2017, “A space satellite launch sparked a brief UFO scare in Los Angeles Friday night after startled viewers gawked at an unidentifiable streak of light soaring across the night sky.”

It turned out that the Los Angeles sighting was a Space X Falcon 9 Rocket Booster. The Los Angeles sighting is near identical in description and video accounts to the Lipetsk sighting and shares many of the performance characteristics that have been seen, videoed and photographed in sightings of similar nature around the world, which are usually near military and corporate launch pads.

The Los Angeles sighting footage can be seen here:

The Analysis

In this case the videos and pictures say it all. This is some type of rocket that was seen under the correct circumstances that caused the object to illuminate. The “bright spot” followed by the “explosion” was almost certainly caused by the jettison of a Russian Rocket Booster. 

Further evidence is shown by a post on the popular Space.com website, archiving the space launch activity throughout the globe on specific dates.  On the day this sighting took place, Space.com reports on their Space Calendar:

Dec. 26: A Ukrainian Zenit rocket with a Russian Fregat upper stage will launch Angola’s first satellite, the AngoSat communications satellite, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Conclusion

The position of Kazakhstan in relation to Russia, coincides with the location of the sighting (just south of Western Russia) and potentially the flight path of the rocket.  The exact path and direction of this launch was not found for this report, but we feel confident that this solves this case, as the time and dates (and physical descriptions) match.

We believe that given the above evidence, we can mark this case as solved.

The post UFO Sighted in the Night Sky over Western Russia, December 25, 2017 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO Sighted in the Night Sky over Western Russia, December 25, 2017 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Background

by John Greenewald, Jr., TBV Investigations

On the night of December 22, 2017, The Black Vault received numerous emails and telephone calls about a mysterious object, or objects, over the greater Los Angeles area.  

I live in this area (specifically, Castaic) and witnessed the event first hand.  Having grown up in the San Fernando Valley, I witnessed launches of rockets from Vandenberg Air Force Base numerous times. 

The object that created quite a stir was a SpaceX launch of their Iridium 4 Mission, scheduled for this day. According to SpaceX:

Nuclear alien UFO from North Korea pic.twitter.com/GUIHpKkkp5

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 23, 2017

Iridium 4 Press Kit

https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/iridium4presskit.pdf

Full SpaceX Launch Broadcast

The post UFO Over Los Angeles, California, December 22, 2017 (Solved) first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO Over Los Angeles, California, December 22, 2017 (Solved) appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

IT WAS almost a case for the X-Files’ Mulder and Scully, when an unidentified flying object was spotted hovering in a field in Colemans Hatch back in April 1998.

Carpenter Lawrence Praill, 32, was working at Casablanca Plant Nursery in Hartfield Road when he saw a silver sphere hanging seemingly unaided in a next door field.

Mr Praill told the Courier. “I saw the object, which was about 50yds away through the hedge at about 3pm.

“But I thought I was seeing things so I had to take another look.
“I then tried to ignore it but curiosity got the better of me and I ventured over.

“I was very cautious because all I could see was a sphere with bright yellow flashes on it, which appeared to be in the middle of disc. It looked very eerie, but I was curious.”

But when Mr Praill approached the UFO, he realised it was not of extra-terrestrial origin. On closer inspection the sphere was being suspended in the air by a large white balloon, it also had the remains of two other balloons – one red and one white – and parachute attached to it.

Mr Praill added: “When I saw the balloon and parachute I just laughed through relief as I was quite scared when I first noticed it. I brought it back to the nursery and took it apart, but there was nothing inside.

“We really want to find out what it is and where it is from as it is a complete mystery. But between us we think it is probably a weather balloon.”

But a Met Office spokesman denied the object was connected to British-run weather experiments.

He said: “Our weather balloons consist of a single orange balloon attached to a polystyrene box which contains the equipment.

“But I do not know what this is although it could be an amateur experiment.”

The post UFO spotted in field in Colemans Hatch first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO spotted in field in Colemans Hatch appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.