Background

The following case file report was written by TBV Investigations’ researcher Jim Kerr.

On October 28^th, 2018, at approx 4:23 am, Esteban Zavala posted a live video to Instagram showing what he stated to be 5 UFO’s hovering over the city of Rosarito, Baja California. It was a foggy early morning in Rosarita with multiple illuminated objects that appeared to be hovering approx 100 ft above the ground. Later that day Zavala posted the same Instagram video titled, “UFO’s Hovering in Rosarito 2018”, to his YouTube channel named Esteban Zavala, (refer to the link below under credits). Within hours, Zavala’s video footage went viral worldwide across the internet, re-posted on UFO YouTube channels, UFO Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and more.

On November 6, 2018, John Greenewald, creator of “The Black Vault,” shared with his team of UFO Investigators an article titled, “One of the best UFO sightings filmed lately” which included Zavala’s video footage. We all viewed the video and came to the unanimous conclusion that what Zavala videoed were in fact street lights.

Even though the objects in Zavala’s video had already been solved and determined as street lights, we at TBV Investigations are publishing this information not only to educate the public but for necessary archival reference material.  Our report is important documentation regarding how easy one can mistake street lights in foggy weather conditions for Flying Saucers, especially newly designed and installed circular LED street lights.

The Evidence

Witness Zavala’s written statement from his YouTube Channel.

“Today October 28, 2018, I witness 5 UFOs hovering over Rosarito, Baja California MX. At around 4:23 am I was driving back to San Diego, California with my grandmother. We were having a normal conversation when she suddenly went mute and all she could do was point at the sky. I look up and see 5 of these things hovering over homes and the beach. I pulled over and immediately went live on Instagram to avoid speculations of video editing and such. Share your thoughts.”

Investigative journalist, Ales Backman, is credited for determining these alleged Flying Saucers were new circular LED street lights recently installed for illuminating a recently constructed highway interchange along highway 1D.

Backman drove to Rosarito and videoed the location of the lights.

Backman’s video posted to YouTube Channel  concienciaradio.

Below you will find screenshots from Backman’s video showing the circular LED street lights. Note the lens flare of the light fixture in the first photo.

Conclusion

After watching Zavala’s complete unedited video on his YouTube Channel, I truly believe he and his mother believed they witnessed multiple UFO’s over the town of Rosarito, Baja California. It is important to note that they were not traveling on the main highway 1D but a side road in foggy weather conditions. Had they been driving along highway 1D, I believe they would have seen that the lights were in fact highway lights.

I find it very sad that so many so-called UFO researchers and individuals on social media capitalized and exploited this video footage claiming the objects were real Flying Saucers. The aforementioned is a real problem in Ufology today and casts s a bad light on legitimate researchers. It is our goal at TBV Investigations to inform and educate the public and to reduce the exploitation of misidentified UFO sightings.

Credits / Special Thanks

Investigative journalist, Ales Backman. Thank you for taking the time to drive to Rosarito, video the sighting location and reveal the truth.

https://concienciaradio.com/

The post “Flying Saucers” Sighted and Videoed Over Rosarito, Baja California – October 28, 2018 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post “Flying Saucers” Sighted and Videoed Over Rosarito, Baja California – October 28, 2018 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.

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Background

The following case was submitted to The Black Vault / TBV Investigations on March 17, 2018, the day of the sighting.  It was assigned to Michael Kelly for analysis.

Witness Testimony

The following testimony was submitted by the witness:

“At 0559 3/17/18 I witnessed a large object shaped similar to the space shuttle but much larger enter the atmosphere. At first I thought I was looking at a falling star. I watched and waited for it to disappear but instead it turned bright orange and grew larger and brighter. I started to see a trail of orange sparks behind it. I lost it when it went behind a house. it was still night it was going towards the coast. it lasted 20/30 seconds i was alone, on my morning walk no photos, i didn’t have time to get my phone out I don’t know what this was. I just don’t think it was a plane because I couldn’t find anything about a plane crash on the news.”

The Analysis

by Michael Kelly, TBV Investigations

The description of the object getting larger and brighter as well as shooting off sparks is consistent with an object entering the atmosphere from space. The most likely scenario of an object entering the atmosphere would be a meteor, but other possibilities are satellites or similar artificial objects.

One likely possibility is a piece of the Chinese Tiangong-1 Space Station which crashed to Earth a few weeks after the witness made the sighting. This object broke into pieces and orbited the Earth a few times before crashing down on March 28th in the Pacific Ocean.

It is possible a piece of the space station entered the atmosphere before that date.

Below is a video of the space station as it enters the atmosphere, for reference:

Additional Information:  https://www.space.com/40101-china-space-station-tiangong-1-crashes.html 

As early as January of 2018 USA Today reported that the space station and its debris would likely fall to earth beginning in March, most likely between 43 degrees North and 43 degrees South latitudes. Bakersfield, CA lies at 35.3733° N latitude, so it is not inconceivable that some of the debris from this space station could have been visible from Bakersfield.

Conclusion

Without more information, this object is difficult to identify exactly, but it is almost certainly a meteor or man-made satellite of some kind. It was undoubtedly an object entering Earth’s atmosphere from space, so the possibilities for what the object could be have to exclude anything incapable of being in space like an airplane or hot air balloon.

My best guess is that the object witnessed by the observer was a piece of the Tiangong-1 Space Station.

The post UFO seen over Bakersfield, California – March 17, 2018 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO seen over Bakersfield, California – March 17, 2018 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Background

The following case was submitted to The Black Vault / TBV Investigations on April 22^nd, 2018. It was assigned to TBV Investigations’ researcher Monica Salazar. 

Witness Testimony

The witness submitted the following, short, description of their sighting and video: 

“Distant object, slow moving until the tail end of the video. Started out very bright then became dim as if moving directly away from me.”

The Evidence

The following video was submitted by the witness:

The Analysis

By Monica Salazar, TBV Investigations

I was able to communicate with the witness via email multiple times she was very cooperative when requesting additional info. 

This video was filmed using a cell phone with MP4 1080p capabilities with an average Bitrate of 13.1Mbps and as per the witness; it is at “max zoom” at x10. 

The video was analyzed frame by frame and at slower speeds through windows video editor and Android video shop; however, the video is pretty shaky and grainy making it challenging to examine. 

There were no audible sounds apart from the witness speaking and after speaking with the witness, she did add that the object appeared to be traveling upwards.

In one of the frames about 00:01 sec in to the video, you can see the object the clearest seems like circular shape almost doughnut like. Here is a screen shot:

Conclusion

After carefully examining the video and speaking to the witness, I would conclude there is simply not enough tangible evidence to deem this case solved.

The video is not very stable and since it is zoomed all the way, it is a bit difficult to determine what the object really is. Close by to where this video was taken there is a NASA Airport test facility, and even though there were no test flights at the time of the video (that I could find) it could very well be a NASA drone. 

In brief, I determine this to be “Unidentified, Insufficient Evidence” as there is simply not enough evidence plus the fact that the NASA test facility is close by makes it difficult to determine if it indeed is something unidentified. Overall, despite the video being difficult to analyze, the case is quite compelling and definitely worthy of a conversation.

It will remain archived here in hopes another witness may come forward.

The post UFO over NASA Crows Landing, California – April 21, 2018 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO over NASA Crows Landing, California – April 21, 2018 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Witness Testimony

Investigator Richard Kidd spoke to Lucy again on April 24, 2018, and she provided him with some additional information regarding some research she has been doing on her own. She stated that she hasn’t been able to find any other sightings in the San Leandro area that pertain to her and her son’s original sighting that she reported to The Black Vault. She did however, find sightings around the area that were more recent. 

Conclusion

Through my conversations with Lucy on the telephone, she is a highly educated and honest witness. I believe that she had indeed witnessed what she reported to The Black Vault. However, other than verifying that where her sighting occurred is an ongoing reporting area, her sighting could not be verified by additional witnesses or by other individual reports.

For this reason, Lucy case should be listed and “Unidentified – Lacks Sufficient Evidence” 

The post UFO over San Leandro, California – 2001 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO over San Leandro, California – 2001 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Background

The following UFO report was submitted to The Black Vault / TBV Investigations on December 18, 2017. 

Due to the age of the sighting, and lack of visual evidence, the case is added here without scrutiny, and used for reference and archival purposes.  

Witness Testimony

This happened when I was about nine or ten. My mother took my brother and myself to San Francisco from Mill Valley to do some shopping at the Army base. My brother and I decided we wanted to stay in the car. In those days the cars had large wide back windows so being bored I decided to roll down the back window and stretch out in the back window shelf and lay my head on the window sill and look up at the sky and the clouds.

I was kind of a day dreamer in those days. While looking up I noticed three white dots. They were just sitting there doing nothing. They were way up in the sky. As I watched them they moved in a circle around each other then disappeared. In those days I knew nothing about aliens or weather balloons or space ships.

After they left I forgot all about them until years later when watching a special on TV about the same thing at which time I was in my 20’s.

The second time I witnessed something was about 1978.

I was on highway 395 in Nevada driving North from Topaz Lake It was about 4 pm about eight miles north from the lake. This was a long stretch of two lane road at the time. I could see for about a mile down the road. As I was looking down the road about a half mile ahead a large ball of light, about twenty feet in diameter shot across the highway from west to east.

When I got to where I could stop and look where the light was there was nothing. Ill never forget it.

Conclusion

Due to the amount of time that has elapsed since the event, and the lack of visual evidence, this case holds no “conclusion” and is archived here for reference or for possible future corroborating witness testimony.

The post UFO over Presidio Army Base, San Francisco, California – May 14, 1958 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

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Background

The following case was submitted to The Black Vault / TBV Investigations on January 11, 2018. It was assigned to TBV Investigations team member Rob Mercer for investigation.

Witness Testimony

The following was submitted by the witness in the original report submission:

“While viewing Orion I sighted and photographed 3 objects moving together.  8” Meade with Zwo cameras linke to Surface Pro laptop. Captured three objects. “

The Evidence

Video compilation of the photographs

Photograph Gallery

The Analysis

I spoke with the witness by telephone regarding his sighting report, he stated that while looking through the camera he noticed the three objects moving together and began taking photos. Between 5:49:06 and 5:49:48pm PST he captured 14 images, which he submitted.

By the time I contacted the witness, he had already done research on his own and discovered the Amazonas 3 satellite was passing in the same area at the time.

Though the three objects appear to move together as one, it is apparent that they are not one solid object. Stars can be seen between them as they move.

A search of the Stellarium database showed three satellites (Amazonas 3, Echostar 18, and Echostar 16) moving through the same area and direction of the sky at that time.

Corresponding Cases

No other reports of this event were found.

Conclusion

It is my belief that what the witness saw and captured in photos, were most likely the three mentioned satellites moving together.

Meta Data

Meta Data was submitted for each photo. The settings were the same, and are located below:

[ZWO ASI224MC]
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Output Format=AVI files (*.avi)
Binning=1
Capture Area=1304×976
Colour Space=RGB24
Temperature=20.2
Hardware Binning=Off
High Speed Mode=Off
Turbo USB=100(Auto)
Flip=None
Frame Rate Limit=Maximum
Gain=400
Exposure=1
Timestamp Frames=Off
White Bal (B)=95
White Bal (R)=52
Brightness=1
Gamma=50
Auto Exp Max Gain=400
Auto Exp Max Exp M S=30000
Auto Exp Target Brightness=100
Mono Bin=Off
Apply Flat=None
Subtract Dark=None
Display Brightness=1
Display Contrast=1
Display Gamma=1

The post UFO over Lindsay, California – January 11, 2018 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO over Lindsay, California – January 11, 2018 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Background

The following case was submitted to The Black Vault / TBV Investigations on December 18th, 2017. It was assigned to TBV Investigations team member Rob Mercer for investigation.

Witness Testimony

“The photo attached is not of that day, just used to illustrate event. Also, lighting would be later in the afternoon, late afternoon coming from the right side, West, of photo (4:30-5pm, not noon as depicted in the photo)

I had stepped off my father’s porch to smoke a cigarette and turned towards the porch, (looking South), where my grandson & father were sitting, when I looked up to the sky above the horizon of the house and seen what at first, I thought were three geese flying in a circle and thought to myself that they were extremely high in the sky to be geese.

I called out to my father to come and see, and as he was stepping off the porch towards me the ‘geese’ tightened into a smaller circle until it became an oval shaped shiny ‘craft’ almost in an instant it then flew off towards the West, where the sun was lowering at this time of day.

It went across the sky quicker than anything I have ever seen anything move in the sky. My father hadn’t even made it off the porch when all that had happened, it all happened almost in an instant from the time I first seen the ‘geese like’ objects.”

Witness Sketch

The witness provided the following depiction of where the sighting took place, and what happened:

The Analysis

I spoke with the witness by telephone. She reported that the weather was clear. While looking south, high in the sky she noticed three small “geese like” objects circling slowly in the sky. They tightened into a smaller circle and became one as a shiny oval shaped craft. The object then shot off towards the west, size and distance were unknown. She stated that she has lived in the area near the airports for 40 years and is quite familiar with airplanes. 

The National UFO Reporting Center showed a report in their database from September 9, 2007 of a round blueish object near Antelope, Ca. at 9:30pm.

The object came from the west making two 90 degree turns and hovered at about 2500’.

The witness stated that this could have been the day of her event, and related.

No other reports were found.

Conclusion

Given the age of this report and lack of an exact date, this case is difficult research and conclude. For now, it is being recorded in the database as a historical case for information only.

The post UFO Sighting over West Sacramento, California – September 10, 2007 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO Sighting over West Sacramento, California – September 10, 2007 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Background

The following was submitted to The Black Vault / TBV Investigations on December 20th, 2017. The witness described the encounter as the following:

“This sighting took place in my backyard in Long Beach CA, Carson Park to be specific. I spend many hours per week sky watching in the yard and have seen and recorded many UFOs there.

When I first spotted the UFO it looked very bright and was moving steadily across the sky. There were actually two objects at first when I spotted this bright orb. From a distance it looked larger than a plane and again very bright. I then grabbed the camera and started recording the object. When it became clear in the lens I realized it was a somewhat of an elongated object and it was glowing white. From here I just tried to keep the camera steady and record the UFO as smoothly as possible. After a minute or so things got very interesting once it released what looked like a triangular formation of orbs from it’s main body. As you can see in the footage the orbs were actually pretty large and held this formation very steady as they ejected from the main object.

Many UFO sightings I’ve had have been triangle formations so this to me was a confirmation that this was likely a UFO and a signal of communication. After the triangle formation disbanded I bungled the camera and lost track of it in the viewfinder. I then got it back in the lens and followed it in the sky for a few more minutes. Towards the end of the video on my last zoom in the UFO started ejecting what looked like tons of small spheres from it’s main body. I was very surprised to see and have never seen so many orbs come out of one object. The smaller orbs formed a trail going through the sky and seemed also take different formations. It’s important to note I could only see the small spheres through the infrared camera I could not see them with my naked eye. I did my best to keep the camera steady and film the event taking place. As the UFO crossed my hard it went behind a tree and I lost track of it in the camera. In the last few seconds though I could see the object was just above my head about to go behind this tree and it looked very large and very bright! I moved to the middle of the yard to try and record the object more but unfortunately couldn’t manage to get the UFO back in the lens. I could still see it but it was heading out of range.

My arm was also very tired since I’d been filming for about 9 minutes. So I decided that was good enough and watched it go out of view towards the ocean. To this day it’s the most interesting capture I’ve caught on film. We see many UFOs at our house but this was by far the most exceptional. I don’t believe it to be skydivers or a military exercise. For one thing my infrared camera is a high end unit that has a 1345 mm telephoto lens designed for long distance shooting. The camera can easily articulate planes, helicopters, or anything in the sky with great clarity. We would for sure have been able to see that this was a plane or helicopter if it was a conventional object. This UFO also looked like many of the orbs we see and record with the bright, plasma type quality to it. They look like they’re alive in this type of plasmatic form.

There wasn’t any sound from the UFO. I could hear other airplanes flying at higher altitudes while recording the object. I live near long beach airport and see planes flying by all day.”

The case was assigned to TBV Investigations team member Christopher Connelly for investigation. 

The Analysis

Unfortunately, I am unable this object into a “shape” as throughout the video, it appears to be shifting, due to possible movement, camera angles or another reason yet to be identified.

The type of material the object was made of is impossible to determine, due to the film being in infrared.

Even though it is in infrared, it is impossible to get a heat signature from something at such a distance.

As the witness continues to watch the object, it appears to be moving slightly to the witness’ right.  As the object is being filmed, it begins dropping smaller heat signatures, or other objects, as it moves along.

Much like the main object, it is hard to make out the shape of these objects being dropped but they do not appear to be falling in a regular pattern.

At one time, you can see a triangular formation of three heat signatures falling to earth. Eventually, it appears that the object disappears behind the cover of a tree and filming ends at that time.

Corresponding Cases

The following case was filmed by the Long Beach Police Department on December 25, 2004, which looks very similar.  There is no context to the video, as it was found on YouTube, so it is hard to verify. But, it was uploaded in 2008, and appears to be very similar. The video can be found here: 

Possible Explanations

Skydiving Team – Recreational or Military

I reached out to local skydiving companies in the local area, but they would not give me any information in regards to any of the jumps.

About a hour and a half away lies Camp Pendleton, which is host to various Marine Corps and Navy units but from my military experience, I doubt that they would fly 1.5 hours out to perform jumps over Long Beach.

Another thing is that when a military or civilian jump is occurring, the craft is usually moving at a decent speed and the jumpers are dropped at intervals, not in sporadic formations that are seen in the video. There are cases of Special Forces performing small team jumps or even HALO (High Altitude Low Oxygen)  jump, but this doesn’t appear to be small teams.

I was unable to make out any sounds of the craft in the video and the witness states that there were none. I am unable to make any decision on the shape or color of the object due to the infrared and that this “jelly bean” shape may actually be its shape.

Conclusion

Due to the video, location of the sighting and the reoccurring sightings that have been reported with heavy supportive evidence, such as the object filmed by the Long Beach Police helicopter in ‘04 (see reference above), I have come to the conclusion that I am unable to identify this object using my range of scientific methods. I am unable to identify its origin as well.

The post UFO Ejects Multiple Objects, Filmed in Infrared, October 21, 2017 – Long Beach, California first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO Ejects Multiple Objects, Filmed in Infrared, October 21, 2017 – Long Beach, California appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Background

On social media, this particular photograph has been passed around in various Facebook groups and websites.

It depicts NASA engineers at Dryden, posing with an unidentified craft in the shape of a flying saucer.

The Photograph

The Analysis

The investigation on this, is very simple, and was easy to conduct.

The hoaxer who created the image, did not even bother to change the photograph identification number. On the photograph in question, you will note it says: E49-059 as a Photo Identification number.

A quick search of the NASA Dryden Photo archives, reveals to real photograph with this ID number, and the buildings, engineers, etc. are identical. 

The hoaxer simply did some fancy Photoshop work – and inserted in a flying saucer to the original photograph, after deleting the actual aircraft.

The Original Photograph

SOURCE at NASA Dryden

Conclusion

With the above evidence, this is clearly, a hoax. 

The post NASA Dryden Photo Depicts Personnel Standing with Flying Saucer / UFO first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post NASA Dryden Photo Depicts Personnel Standing with Flying Saucer / UFO appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.