Background

by John Greenewald, Jr. – The Black Vault – TBV Investigations

This photograph appears on the Facebook / Edge of Wonder Page, as posted on February 14, 2018. Although there may be an earlier post “source” — this post alone has nearly 15,000 shares and more than 1,500 likes at the time of this writing, it constitutes as “viral” and deserves a mention here.

Reason being, the photograph is a fairly provable fake. But, don’t let that stop the masses from “sharing” it with the world. Why? Well, it has to be real despite evidence to the contrary.  Why? Well, the post says it’s real. So, if you read it on the internet, it HAS to be true!

Here is the text of the original post:

It happened in Russia. 
They said this is not fake, what do you think？

cr. web

The Evidence

The Analysis

Doing a slight crop on the image, then conducting a reverse image search, multiple matches to an identical “apparition” are discovered.

First discovered, believed to be the source, is a graphite sketch appearing on moziru, and on a large list of artistic work using “Graphite” as the medium.

Second, is information about a music album in Spanish, entitled “Accidents – El Fantasma en mi” which has the following cover art:

Although there are slight variations between the two examples found on Google, the image in question above, of an apparition in Russia, is clearly an exact copy of the first example. Here is an overlay showing the image in question, vs. the first graphite drawing.

Both layers are on top of each other, which different color balances to differentiate between the two.

The hoaxer did skew the original artwork (they changed the aspect ratio) but it took only seconds to do the same thing in Photoshop, and see that the finger placement, body, etc. are a perfect/identical match.

Conclusion

With the evidence given above, this case is comfortably labeled a hoax.

The post Mysterious “Ghostly Apparition” appears in Russia (Viral Photo) first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post Mysterious “Ghostly Apparition” appears in Russia (Viral Photo) 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.

Background

On January 16, 2018, the following post went “viral” on the Facebook wall of Kurt Norris, who appears to be one of the originators and the root of this story.

Although I do not “blame” him for the misinformation regarding this case, the internet as a whole did that part all on it’s own by forwarding, sharing and reposting the photos, most with allegations that aliens were attacking or that the government was using a particle beam weapons.  Many posts claimed that Facebook was deleting the evidence, and urged others to forward/share/like etc. which fueled the popularity.

Here are some examples of the photos that surfaced with multiple misleading headlines:

The story deepened, because on the same night, a meteor was also seen in the same area.  The internet as a whole, began connecting the photos you see above, with the following video that surfaced (among others):

The Analysis

Internet lore deepened the mystery, but when dissecting the events, one can determine that the above evidence, is unrelated.  The meteor falling had nothing to do with the original photographs with the “beam” along with the third photo in the array above, which appears to be onlookers looking at a fire in the distance (but lacks a “beam”).

It was determined that this third photo (lacking the “beam”), along with others that surfaced online, were taken near a garage fire in Taylor, Michigan.  According to MLIVE, which reported on the fire:

TAYLOR, MI – A fire that destroyed a pickup truck inside a garage in the metro Detroit community of Taylor was not started by a piece of falling meteor fragment Tuesday night.

Fire crews were called to a garage fire at about 8:24 p.m., Jan. 16, on Merrick Road after the homeowner noticed smoke coming from the engine compartment of a pickup he was working on inside the garage, according to the Taylor Fire Department.

The fire started at about the same time a meteor reportedly entered the atmosphere and several onlookers near the scene assumed the garage was hit, officials said.

The original Facebook poster, which arguably started the online craze after garnering more than 37,000 shares (at the time of writing this), even said the photos were taken of the garage fire. He updated his post with the following, well after the story went viral:

*Two of the photos are from the garage fires in Taylor, MI… the shake and meteor was near Detroit area. The shake and sound was the sonic boom from the speed and going through the atmosphere and causing a 2.0 earthquake. The last picture I just saw circulating from people posting in Taylor, MI area but no one claimed to have taken the photo so it could be a fake.*

The photographs with the “beam” have also been determined to be photographs of a controlled burn from the Canton Marathon Oil refinery in Canton, Ohio. Fox 8 in Cleveland reported on this story:

CANTON, Ohio – Drivers and local residents saw a huge fire at the Marathon Oil refinery in Canton Tuesday evening.

But it was all planned, according to the company.

A Marathon representative told Fox 8 that the fire is called a “controlled flaring” and is used as a “safety valve.”  He adds that “operational circumstances often require it.”

The burn still made for quite a blaze that could be seen for miles and miles.

A light pillar is an atmospheric optical phenomenon in the form of a vertical band of light which appears to extend above and/or below a light source. The effect is created by the reflection of light from numerous tiny ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere or clouds. The light can come from the Sun (usually when it is near or even below the horizon) in which case the phenomenon is called a sun pillar or solar pillar. It can also come from the Moon or from terrestrial sources such as streetlights.

As the photographs seem to be easily explained, that leaves simply the meteor story.

Since none of the “beam” photographs resemble anything related to the meteor, and have other easily verified stories attached to them to offer a viable explanation, it is safe to say that the incidents are not related, and the video of the meteor, is explained simply, as a video of a meteor.

Conclusion

With the evidence above, I believe we can label the case a “hoax” perpetrated by social networks and click bait sites that help fuel the story, and the dissemination of it to the masses.

In short – don’t fall for the online hype. 

The post What was this strange beam of light in Taylor, Michigan? first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post What was this strange beam of light in Taylor, Michigan? appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Background

by Rob Mercer, TBV Investigations

The witness reported that while out observing and photographing the moon and several planets on November 4, 2016 at her home at approximately 7:20 pm, she noticed 2 bright red objects coming from the west in the southern sky.  Both objects were unwavering and flew in a controlled fashion while staying in a vertical position. The diameter of the objects appeared to be slightly larger than an aspirin held at arm’s length. Distance was hard to judge since the event to place with the sky as a backdrop. Due to the size of the objects, she assumed they were close.  Soon after, the witness noticed a large area of the sky in the same direction light up with multiple “flashing and blinking” lights, lasting several minutes. Part of the event captured on camera.

The event took place in Lewis Center, Ohio, approximately 20 miles north of Columbus and 12 miles from Port Columbus. Population 26,130, elevation 864’. The area in the direction of the sighting is mostly rural with small hills.

The temperature at the time was 51 degrees fahrenheit, the skies were clear, and the wind was north at 4 mph.

The website Stellarium showed the Moon, Venus, Mars, and Saturn all bright and visible in the south-southwestern sky. No satellites were visible.

The Evidence

The following videos were submitted to TBV Investigations by the witness.  The editing was also done by the witness.  It is noted that some of the text frames are very fast, and may need to be seen twice to fully read.

Original video with analysis by the witness:

Additional video slowed down:

The Analysis

The report was received over a year after the event took place. Searches were done by myself for correlating cases and other related reports that may have been shared, with nothing found. The witness is well educated, and as you will see in the following detailed report submitted by her, did an in-depth investigation herself before reporting it. She is an amateur astronomer and is well familiar with aircraft and their characteristics.

It is advised to watch the videos with lights off for more detail.

Witness Testimony

The following was submitted to TBV Investigations from the witness. It is published here unedited:

“The sighting, November 4, 2016, took place at approximately 7:22-7:26 pm EST to the south of my house. It began while I was standing in my back yard photographing astronomical objects. Thus, it was not some mistaken astronomical object as is often used to explain UFOs, because when it happened I was photographing Venus, Mars, Saturn, and the Moon and I labeled them on some of the photographs. I am an amateur astronomer, have worked professionally in photography, and because it was a clear night for good photography and several planets were visible at once, I had two cameras with me. The cameras were an iPhone 6s and a HiDef Camcorder that also records sound. I have made much wildlife, astronomical, and aircraft photography from this location and am very familiar with it. Everything I saw was against the sky, nothing was against background trees or anything.

The location is a family farm where I was born, lived for many years, gone out nearly every night after dark to check things, taken many photos and videos at this location, and have never seen anything like this.

It started when I was looking southwest at Venus and then saw two bright red glowing objects approaching from the west. They flew smoothly, were completely vertical in orientation to each other, were soundless, and there was no evidence of an airplane or aircraft lights. There were no strobe lights, green lights, sounds, or anything vaguely like an airplane. The object’s lights didn’t blink or change in intensity or brightness. The movements were in complete synchrony, and the objects looked exactly alike. From this first second of the sighting, I was mystified.

They approached Venus and because they stayed together so smoothly and completely, I thought they had to be connected. I watched for what would happen when they would pass Venus. They were in a position of one precisely above the other in a straight vertical line. When they went by Venus, it appeared that the top one was about a full Moon’s apparent diameter above Venus and the lower one about the same distance below Venus–the angular distance between the two was about a degree or more with Venus in the middle. They moved so synchronously that I expected them to be connected. Although I couldn’t see any connection, I thought they might be connected to each other by something thin in a barbell-like fashion.

But when they passed by Venus, I saw no dimming, so I didn’t know whether they could have been two objects moving in exact synchrony or whether they were like barbells and connected by a thin strand (that wouldn’t show up much when they flew past Venus). They didn’t even slightly sway in the wind and just moved smoothly and steadily together. They looked nothing like Chinese lanterns or any type of balloon.

They flew in a controlled fashion–they stayed in a vertical position. I don’t know how they flew–I didn’t hear engine noises, but they must have had some kind of power because they were red and glowing. I was amazed because they looked like something that couldn’t happen-like one would see in a cartoon or a computer simulation. Also because they took up such a large degree of arc, probably a degree or more, I thought they might have been close or of a huge object and expected a sound, but there was none. I don’t know their altitude, but they showed against the sky, not the background.

I had been taking photos of the planets with my iPhone in hand when I saw them. But I was so completely dumbfounded in amazement at first that I didn’t do anything except stand there frozen. When my brain finally re-activated, I realized I needed to take photos, so I took pictures–snapped three photos in very rapid succession at 7:22 EST each 5 seconds after the previous one. This was after the red objects had already passed. I think I didn’t see anything when I took these photos.

Then I noticed a huge area of the sky light up with all kinds of blinking, gyrating, dancing, flashing objects. This display took up a large area of the sky–maybe 20-30 degrees in width and height. It spread from the tree to my southeast to west of Venus, which was to my west.

Because the objects in this display were flashing and seemed to be moving around, I ran for the video camera to try to capture this motion. It took some time to run to the camcorder set it up, get it turned on in the dark, and wait for it to come on. It was mounted on a tripod. By the time, I had the camcorder going, most of the objects had flown behind a tree and a building to the east so I couldn’t see them. I thought the tail end of the objects was still there. I pointed the camcorder and tried to videotape the dancing objects. When I had seen them with my eyes they appeared to flash, move around–sometimes synchronously, blink, etc. All this was soundless. There seemed to have been a number of red and other objects that constantly changed configuration. These were definitely not like any standard aircraft lights. I took a 26-second video (although that doesn’t seem like much you can do a lot with it using a computer).

The size of this display of the group of objects was many, many times to large to be the lighting on an aircraft. A low aircraft (such as ones coming in for a landing at John Glenn Columbus International Airport–about 20 miles away) might to be about the apparent angular size of the Moon or smaller. The size of the Moon when compared to size of the display of the group of objects in the video images was very much smaller. Another estimation of the apparent size scale can be found at the end of a video. It shows the length of a car on the road in a wide-angle view. The car is approximately 0.13 mile away, but the length of the car is many times shorter than the display of the group of objects. If the group of objects had been the lighting on an airplane, the airplane would have been either tremendously large or so close it would be almost crashing into the camera.

There was nothing there that would cause a group of objects to appear. This is a large family farm area surrounded by agricultural fields with no one around. The neighbors are my relatives and I know what they are doing. I am very used to seeing airplanes, blimps, blimps with lighted sides, and all kinds of aircraft here and photographing them in the dark.

These objects seemed nothing like airplane lights or other commonly photographed objects. The sighting was nothing like viewing a drone–I have a drone, fly it, photograph with it, and repair it, so I am familiar with drones. The objects were nothing like lasers or flashlights, because these need something to reflect against to be seen (such as cats chasing a laser on a wall). What I saw were bodies against the sky. It was nothing like fireworks. I have recorded fireworks from this general position using this camera and they look nothing like this. This was nothing like Chinese lanterns–several Chinese lanterns have landed in the field I filmed in and I have them. They weren’t birds, because some glowed red, they blinked on and off, there was no wing motion, and birds don’t light up at night. I saw no green lights at all any time during the sighting and it is standard for aircraft to have green lights. I read that all aircraft built after March 1996 must have an anti-collision light system (strobe lights) turned on for all flight activities in poor visibility. There was no continuous track of strobe lights as is seen with an aircraft–just white flashes at random all over the sky. In addition, aircraft show a patterned sequence of flashing their lights and there was no form of pattern with these object’s blinking.

The white flashing objects were nothing like stars. When one looks at the sky, one can see stars and they often twinkle. But they do not completely disappear, and new stars do not appear in different places as they did in the video. The stars and planets have stable locations. Thus, the phenomenon wasn’t photographs of stars or twinkling. Both cameras can photograph stars at night. Also I have seen meteor showers and northern lights and this sighting resembled neither. I have also seen flares such as airplanes sometimes send out–I may even have one that I collected here years ago. These last longer than a split second and they travel downward, not in all directions.

The camcorder records sound very well, but there was no sound except for when I rustled the grass, fiddled with the camera, and from the road traffic.

I’m not sure about the colors–whether they were just red and white or whether there were more colors. The objects blinked in random patterns–nothing like an airplane.

The objects I watched by eye seemed to dart, dance, and gyrate, and because of that and the flashing, I had gone to the video camera to photograph the motion. In the video, the white objects seemed to just give very quick flashes and it appeared that what I captured of these were flashes. Occasionally, there appeared to be double white lights.

After I recorded the views, I brought the IPhone and camcorder into the house and e-mailed the camera photos to my computer, and downloaded the camcorder video tape recording in to the computer. I still have the original e-mails and camcorder tape. There was a game going on at the school several miles to the west, so I contacted someone there to see if anything had been released. The answer was no, and I didn’t think so to begin with but checked anyway. Later I called the airport to see if anything unusual had been flying here or if anyone had seen anything. They said no, and suggested calling the Bigelow organization that collects UFO information. I think I called them twice and left a message. They returned the call several days later, but I didn’t get back to them. I immediately on November 4 posted the video both on YouTube and Facebook and also did the next day in order to find out if anyone else had seen or knew anything, but I didn’t find out anything. The original November 4 YouTube videos and other posts are still on.

I also checked the weather

Wind Speed 4 mph (North)

Max Wind Speed 14 mph

Max Gust Speed 17 mph

Visibility 8 miles and from the North at 7: 51”

The wind was blowing from north to south. The objects traveled from west to east. If the wind were coming from the north, the group of objects would have been blown to the south and stayed in view if they had continued to be lit. Instead, the group flew behind the tree and building to the east and quickly disappeared. Thus, because they were not flying in the direction the wind would have blown them, they may have been operating under some form of power.

Because this was my backyard, I have taken many other videos in the same area, with the same lighting conditions, in wide and narrow angle views, with a tripod, including videos of different aircraft, and have not seen anything like this. For example, airplanes photograph as discrete continuous objects following a path; they don’t look like randomly scattered blinking lights. These other videos don’t show the white and red objects as seen in this one and could be used as control videos to compare normal videos to this one.

Immediately after I made the photography, I wondered if I had photographed anything, because this was difficult photography. It was dark, which made it difficult to use the iPhone and to even turn on the camcorder let alone focus it. But when I uploaded everything to the computer, I was amazed that everything had worked–the cameras had come on instantly and in focus.

I had taken three photos by iPhone immediately after the red objects had passed on 2016.11.04 at 19:22:27, 19:22:32, and 19:22:37. These three turned out well and although I thought I had photographed nothing because I did the photography after the 2 red objects had passed and I didn’t see anything when I took the photographs, the camera appeared to photograph some sort of splotches passing in front of the camera.

The videotape also turned out much better than I expected. I might have seen a few flashes when I made the video, but the actual video showed much more. When I clicked through it, one click at a time on full screen in the dark it showed many flashes and also a pair of red objects. I had set the camcorder to daytime photography to try to get the colors of the planets, this allowed me to photograph the objects in color, and it did photograph red and white flashes

When I uploaded the three photographs into the computer, I noticed bright spots in them that photographed the same way objects would. They were generally to the east of Venus. Although the photographs were taken only 5 seconds apart the spots were not in the same place, thus it appeared that they were moving (as the two red objects had done).

In order to check whether the spots were in the same place, I made computer transparencies and overlaid them. This showed that the spots were not in the same place in the photographs. Thus, they had been moving and this would make their outlines in the photographs less clear.

In order to find out if the spots were part of some natural background, I looked at the photos that were taken right before I saw the two red objects. There were several of these photographs and no such spots were visible on any of these photographs. Thus, the spots didn’t appear to be part of the natural background. They also wouldn’t be some form of camera artifact.

With this camera, I can easily photograph such objects as Mars and Saturn and have even photographed dimmer objects such as Neptune and asteroids, so I’m familiar with the camera’s performance. The stars and planets, of course, stand still whereas these objects were moving and thus more difficult to photograph-with less distinct outlines. I saw no airplanes at the time I took the photographs and I would have noticed them because I was looking at Venus. Moreover, it would be unusual to see three airplanes together at once, and I would definitely have noticed. The only things I had seen near Venus were the two red objects and that was a few seconds before I took the photographs. Also, I doubt if my camera would have taken photographs of birds or insects, because it was dark. The objects showed up as bright spots that looked like lit objects such as Mars. The trees photographed as dark bodies that were barely distinguishable from the background. In addition, the trees were much larger than birds and don’t more around.

Although the only objects I saw were the two red ones, it appeared that I had photographed several other things. Because I had seen the red objects with my eyes, I thought the spots might have also been objects traveling with the red ones. I think they weren’t the red objects because these had been exactly vertical and the spots I photographed were in more of a horizontal configuration.

Thus, it appeared that more unlit objects might have passed after I saw the two red ones. I didn’t see these when I took the photographs, so they might have been unlit but traveling with the red object/objects.

These spots were a bright color and this is how the illuminated objects, such as Mars had photographed. I think if I had photographed birds, they have appeared dark. Thus, I thought that the objects might have been emitting some form of light or other radiation that could photograph, but not be visible to the human eye.

I quit photographing with the iPhone, because the entire south part of the sky suddenly lit up with all kinds of flashing lights and I ran to the video camera. This also made me wonder if the bright spots were objects, because the flashing lights would have come from objects, but the only objects I had seen before this were the two red ones. Also, all I saw of the flashing lights were the flashes; I assumed the flashes were from objects that weren’t visible in the dark. Thus, perhaps the spots I saw were among the objects that flashed later but were not emitting radiation in the visible range or flashing when they passed Venus.

This photography suggests that some objects might have been traveling with the red ones, but I may not have seen them because they were not lit in a light frequency visible to the human eye. Immediately after this, however, the entire sky lit up with flashing, blinking objects. Thus, they may have changed their frequency (during the flashing) to one visible to humans.

Perhaps this could be a reason why it is sometimes reported that UFOs will suddenly blink out or disappear.

I was able to upload the video recording, which had photographed the tail end the group of dancing objects before they disappeared behind the tree. I was also able to click through this video one click at a time in full screen in the dark and also to modify the lighting on this video to study it further.

The video definitely showed some of the object’s flashing as distinct, obvious, bright objects with discrete boundaries. It also sometimes showed dimmer flashes, or bright flashes turning into dimmer ones

The video showed the blinking and color of the lit objects. These were red and white blinking objects, but no other colors were evident (but there may have other colors that just didn’t photograph). These objects appeared real because they showed up against the sky not against any background. The first two red objects that I had seen with my eyes shone a very bright red–sort of a blood red color. Two red objects that seemed to be together also showed up on the video, but these were not as red. However, a camcorder photographing in the dark might show a different color than the eye would see, even if it photographed the same thing.

The white objects would blink on and off at random times in random places over a wide area of the sky. (The photography was taken over the fields of a large farm. The neighbors were relatives, and no one was doing anything odd that would cause objects to appear at that time).

I had initially seen two red objects traveling to the east. Although I didn’t see this with my eyes when I took the video, it also captured two red objects that flew together and stayed on for a while–the video captured them three times. I don’t know if these red objects were the same ones I saw with my eyes at the beginning when they passed Venus. There were several rapid changes in configuration of the red objects and I don’t know whether this was caused by a red object darting from one place to another, or if there had been a larger object that turned on different red lights. I had seen no obvious connections between the two red objects in my original observation by eyesight but don’t know if these were what I was seeing in the video. Sometimes a third and maybe more red lights would be with the two that stayed together. Many of the flashes were very distinct and clear, whereas some were blurred. I don’t know if the blurring could have been caused by motion. I had very little time to film the trailing edge of the group, before they flew behind the tree (but it was still possible to slow down the recording on the computer and find a lot of detail).

The video showed red objects and it sometimes showed two that would stay on for a while and traveled together. I don’t know whether the two red objects that seemed to fly together in the video were also the first two I saw with my eyes (the possibly barbell-like ones that passed Venus). These were not vertical as the ones I saw by eye were, but were tilted and more horizontally oriented. These two red objects together showed three separate times on the video. Sometimes these two objects would be in different distances from each other and in different orientations. The two red objects that sometimes appeared together did not look like blinking airplane lights, because an airplane would travel away in a straight direction and generally have more than just red lights. If these were on an airplane, it was doing unusual gyrations.

I saw no strobe lights with the group of red lights that stayed together, such as airplanes have, and there was plenty of time on the video to see strobe lights.

At other times, I would see three bright, clear red objects on at once, like a triangle. I couldn’t tell whether there was anything connecting the objects. Sometimes I would see several red objects together and wondered if they could all be lights on one object. I also wondered if some of the objects had quickly moved from one location to another. There seemed to be brighter sharper red objects and some dimmer ones that were more like blotches, or maybe rapidly moving objects. I don’t know if there were other colors.

The red lights that traveled together in the video did not turn on or off at exactly same time (as seen in the slowed down video), although this timing was quite close to synchronous. In airplanes, such lighting would be synchronous. The first two views of the red objects that stayed together stayed on about the same amount of time, but the last one was shorter. And the time between views was less for the last one also. The distance between the red objects varied. Thus there had been no patterned sequence of blinking lights such as is on aircraft.

Other oddities were that the two red objects would completely disappear between flashes. Nearly all aircraft in the dark keep at least one steady light on all the time. Their blinking pattern wasn’t regular. Also, they were higher in altitude each time they appeared. They might have been traveling upward after they had passed me at what appeared to be a fairly low altitude. If aircraft are going over the horizon, they go down. These appeared to rise as if they had just taken off, traveled upwards, or were getting closer, but they didn’t look any larger as they would if they were becoming closer. And if these were the lighting on a craft, I should have continued to see them because there was a lot of time on the video for them to show up again. But I didn’t see them again–they slowed only three times.

In comparison to the red objects, when the white objects blinked, they would sometimes be on for just a tiny fraction of a second (they appeared and disappeared in one click), they generally seemed brighter and sharper than the red objects, and individual objects did not appear to move together as some of the red objects did.

These were nothing like strobe lights. Although a strobe light may flash on and off quickly as these objects did, a property of strobe lights is that they are regular. There was nothing regular in the flashing of these lights. In comparison, when one watches airplane strobe lights, the strobes continue in a smooth path along with the airplane. These white objects appeared and disappeared all over a large area of the sky. Their strobing wasn’t regular, nor did any strobes follow a continuous path.

There were some very distinct, bright red and white objects, but others also looked red and white, but dimmer and more blurred. I don’t remember from seeing them with my eyes if there were other colors. In general, they seemed stationary when they were lit up, but some were a little blurred as if they had started to move rapidly.

No object’s flashes were recorded in the same exact place, so I photographed nothing that was fixed or stationary. I think I taped only one blink twice in almost the same location.

There was no smooth movement like an airplane flying away from the camera. In several instances, an object would look double as if it were two objects together or had very rapidly moved while blinking on. The planets never appeared as double. Some of the object’s lighting seemed to have trails as if this were showing motion. Sometimes UFOs are reported as merging or coming apart. These double images suggest that the objects could be close together, or possibly even be merging.

There were several indications that these objects had some form of power. One reason is that the group took a definite direction and was not simply blown with the wind. The ability to move in a different direction from the wind indicates that some form of power is in use. Also, they glowed, and this glowing would take power. In addition, they were able to blink off and on. Blinking lights such as strobe lights use different forms of power and some form of control is needed to make the light flash on and off. The ability to light up and to flash indicates that some form of both power and control existed in these objects.

During the time the video was made, the camcorder was toggled between a wide (wide-angle) and a narrow (telephoto) field of view. The first portion shows a wide-angle view that includes the tree silhouettes below and to the left side of the picture. Venus and the Moon are a distance apart. Venus appears to move to the right, when the camcorder setting is changed from a wide to a narrow field of view (it doesn’t really move). A number of the flashes showed up in different places in the wide angle view and this showed how large a portion of the sky the flashes took up.

Because this wide view covers such a large angular distance, if this display of the group of objects had been of aircraft lighting, it would take up a much smaller angular distance. For example, the angle covered by the diameter of the full Moon is about 31 arcmin or half a degree. A close airplane would subtend about the angular size of the Moon. The display of this group of objects was many, many times the angular size of the Moon.

These object’s flashes could also be compared to the general background. I took the video of the tail end of a group of flashing objects that were headed east. Thus, there are more of these flashes on the left side. The background is dark with large irregular blotches of black, red, green, and purple that changed shape constantly and were dimmer and less defined than the flashes. The objects that flashed differ from the background because they are generally obvious, bright, and circular-shaped with well-defined edges, and smaller than the background blotches, rather than just large amorphous, changing blotches.

Because the background isn’t white, I think most of the white flashes are from objects. Unlike the background, the white flashes some are very clear, and sharp, although some are smaller and dimmer. The red objects that photographed the best were also circular-shaped with fairly well defined edges. However, both red and white objects could transform from well defined into less well-defined flashes. An instance here is where two of the red objects that traveled together began as sharply defined, but became less well defined later. At 00.08 – – 00.17 two sharply defined red objects and then three were seen at first. Then the third one blinked off, but the two continued together. But as they continued, they became less well defined. At 00:10 – -00.15 the two red objects that traveled together showed for the last time. On their last blinks, both objects showed as bodies that seemed to go to the left with trails to the right. Then they disappeared and didn’t show up together again, even through there was time on the video for this to happen. Perhaps they had sped off.

The white objects would often light up for only a small part of a second. They often would appear for only one click. Because they were on for such a small amount of time, it is best to go through the video one click at a time, else these very short flashes wouldn’t be seen.

The bright, clear objects with distinct outlines are most frequently on the left side and middle of the video images, because the group was heading east and few bright clear ones were on the right side by the time the video was taken. However, the right side could be used as a control to show what the sky would normally look like if no blinking objects were present. Although the sky is the same on the left and right side, the blinking white and red objects are generally visible on the left side. If these objects were some kind of camera artifacts, the objects would be visible on both sides. (When I had first seen the display it was to the west of Venus and heading east and then the flashing objects covered a wide area of the sky but they were drifting to the east and by the time I had the camcorder on, I was just photographing the tail end of the group. When I took the video, I thought it might be too late to get anything, but I did photograph some of it.) Thus, because the flashing was mainly on the left side of the video, the right side might be used as a sort of control for how the normal sky would appear. I have many videos that could be compared to this one and used as controls.

I disregarded the area at the bottom of the video, near the line of the tree silhouettes, when looking for object’s flashes, because there was some background lighting, which might have caused some form of photographic artifacts.

The video began with a wide-angle exposure. A white light appeared at 00:00 – -00.25. It was below the Moon and to the left of Venus. Because the camcorder was recording at the wide angle setting and shows both the Moon, Venus, and silhouettes of the trees, it demonstrations that even at this stage (as the group of objects flew east) that objects could appear far enough west to show that the display took up a considerable angular distance.

Two (or maybe 3) white objects appeared at 00:02 – -00:23, then more flashes appeared. Increased activity begins at about 00:07. One of several double appearing white blinks occurred at 00:08 – -00:17, another was at (00:08 – -00.07), and another at 00:015– -00:10. These may be two white lights that are near each other when they flashed. One white object flashed twice in about the same location (00:16 – -00.09 and 6 clicks later also at 00:16 – -00.09). At 00:11 – -00.14 four fairly dim white objects flashed; two of these were quite close together.

At 00:13 – -00.12, a white object appears in a wide view above a tree silhouette, and 3 clicks later another white object appears to its right and some distance away compared to the tree silhouette. Nothing was visible during further clicks. One trailing, dim white object appeared to show on the right side as late as 00:19 – -00.06.

The first two red objects appeared at 00:07 – -00.18, they then continue to appear together through 8 clicks until the furthest left one blinked out at (still at 00:07 – -00.18), then another one appeared below the former position of the left one (still at 00:07 – -00.18). After that two red objects appeared together again at (00:07 – -00.17), and then after another click a third red object appeared ((00:07 – -00.17). The two red objects appeared together again at 00.09 – -00.16. Sometimes a red object would appear by itself such as at 00:09 – – 00.16. At 00:08 – -00.17 two red objects that have stayed together are visible, in one click the one on the left becomes fainter and sort of appears as if it is moving down, in the next click a red object appears under the right red object that is still on, as if the left object moved to the right and under the right object which stayed lit. Because several red objects sometimes came on together, possibly they were lights on a larger craft. Sometimes they would form a triangle.

Both white and red objects sometimes appeared to have trails, for example white one at 00:03 – -00.22.

These red objects were sharp, but others sometimes appeared that were less sharp and I don’t know if these were just photographic artifacts, or objects with dimmer lights, or red objects in motion. Some of the white flashes were much clearer and more distinct than others. When I am recording stars or airplanes with this camera after dark, I see no flashing objects like this, so they weren’t camera artifacts. The main time there are camera artifacts on this camera’s videos is when the battery is low. These artifacts are normally rectangular-shaped and sometimes they contain colors or designs. They aren’t flashing objects like these. I just watched the video portions that were above the tree line at the bottom. There may have been artifacts along the tree silhouettes and higher because of background lighting.

I posted this video on YouTube on that day and have posted more several more times. Because one could see a lot less on YouTube than on the HiDef video, I just posted several slowed down, enhancements of the video to show what some of the blinking objects looked like and a general view: https://youtu.be/P1Cge5TpIyc. I also tried adding a HiDef video, but the YouTube ones didn’t have enough pixels to show much and I received no comments.

I think my iPhone was pointing in the general area of the southwest when I took the photos and the photos were in full high definition.

The camcorder was mounted on a tripod and pointing south. It was a Sony HDR-HC5 HDV 1080 4MP MiniDV Hi with 10x Optical Zoom and digital zoom. The recording was made in 1080p full high-definition video on DV cassette tape. The camera has night vision, but I had it set for day vision, so I could see the color of the planets. The video was transferred to an iMac computer using iMovie. The video is large, 425 MB, and I do not know how to send it. The YouTube video upload shows much less than the actual video.

I have the original photographs that I sent from my iPhone to my computer and the tracking information. I think I had GPS turned off, but the coordinates were latitude: 40.174204, and longitude – 82.964062. I also have the original videotape. My camera taped over the video, but I had downloaded it before this happened, and I have heard also that an original video can be retrieved even if something is taped over it.

A second reason I have not yet reported the sighting was that I had the photos on my iPhone, but then purchased a new iPhone. The technician assured me that everything would transfer from the old phone to the new one. But later I discovered that everything had transferred except these three UFO photos and several before. I felt terrible because I thought I couldn’t verify the photos. But I just (2017.10.11) found out about EXIF data and tried this with the photographs. This worked, and I was able to extract the digital information from the photographs, as shown below:

I used the Internet program camerasummary.com to extract the EXIF information and that for the first iPhone photograph is: “The image on the left is your original image and the image on the right is the thumbnail stored within the image file. Resolution Unit: Inches File Size: 621022 bytes File DateTime: 10-Oct-2017 12:45:22 Flash Used: No Flash Make: Apple Model: iPhone 6 Plus xResolution: 72.00 (72/1) 0 yResolution: 72.00 (72/1) 0 Software: 8.2 File Modified Date: 2016:11:04 19:22:27 Exposure Time: 0.250 s (1/4) (1/4) F Number: f/2.2 Exposure: program (auto) Iso Equiv: 500 Exif Version: 0221 DateTime: 2016:11:04 19:22:27 DateTime Digitized: 2016:11:04 19:22:27 Component Config: Does Not Exists Aperture: 2.2000001213747 brightness: 3718580.87 (4294960908/1155) Exposure Bias: 0.00 (1/256) Metering Mode: Spot Focal Length: 4.15 (83/20) Maker Note: NOT IMPLEMENTED subSectionTimeOriginal: 945 subSectionTimeDigtized: 945 Flashpix Version: 0100 Color Space: sRGB Width: 3264 Height: 2448 sensing: One-chip color area sensor Scene Type: Exposure Mode: Auto Exposure White Balance: 0 Zoom Ratio: 3.01 (816/271) Flength 35mm: 87 Screen Capture Type: Standard IsColor: 1 Process: 192 Resolution: 3264×2448 Color: Color Jpeg Process: Baseline.”

The photographs that I had originally mailed to my computer provided a complete EXIF. However, another portion of the photographs (not the UFO ones) did transfer from my old iPhone to the new one and these are still on my iPhone.

Several people looked at the photography. One person wanted something else called the raw data on the iPhone photos. I looked for this, but it was lost during the transfer because the three UFO photos did not transfer. Since everything on the old phone was transferred at once (not separately) by an electronic process, it is strange (and very irritating) that just the UFO photos didn’t transfer. It might be interesting to try to investigate this; I still have the receipt for the new phone.”

Conclusion

At this time, I am unable to determine what the witness saw that evening, and for now, it remains tagged as “Unidentified.”

The post Bright Red and White Flying, Flashing Objects over Lewis Center, Ohio – November 4, 2016 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

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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

On December 6, 2017, the witness submitting the following information to The Black Vault:

Hello John

About myself:

I am sound mind and body. I am 63, and just retired. Moved to Las Vegas in February of 2016. Goal was to go to Area 51, photograph mountains, and UFOs. Yea right!

I am ex Navy 15 years, and X Military Police for 3 years of those 15. I been shooting photography my entire life. I used a Sony A350. It’s 14 years old or so. But in good working condition. I just bought a Nikon D750 2 days ago. Lord knows how that thing works.

This report was shot with the Sony A350 a first generation DSLR. 

I am a good photographer, who likes to take pictures of weather and jets. So as you can guess I am always looking in the air. But not every day, to much of one thing is never good.

I have 2 separate incidents where I capture a UFO on digital film. But could you clarify what I saw??

The first time I saw a bright white ball of light leave the clouds at 230 in the afternoon,, while shooting airplanes at Nellis AFB.

I shot a series of 10 images until I no longer could see the object.

It came from behind a clouds, jetted down at a 45 degree decent and vanish, time elapse was probably 10 seconds… time enough for the card to write.

About 18 aircraft had landed, and there was a pause in the recovery. I think it thought recovery was done, but I knew there were more aircraft to be recovery, just because I was there for 4 hours.

Then it jetted out of the clouds… I just kept shooting until it was no longer… so I have 10 images of white spot. When I blew it up to 200x, it just looks like nothing, a cloud shifter.. but when I saw it, it had direction and speed.

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

The Analysis

by Christopher Connelly, TBV Investigations

From a subjective perspective, it is hard to determine the shape of the object in the photographs due to the distance and the possible changes in position of the object. I am able to see in one photograph, that the object appears to be disc shaped but in the others, it becomes hard to discern. The color appears to be silver or metallic, as it seems to be reflective of natural light. The witness described the object as “being of an irregular shape and a bright white ball of light,” which is fairly accurate of what I see within his photographs. I see no color changes within the photographs given to me, nor do I see any signs of other light sources on the object.

From the objective perspective, the witness stated that incident occurred around 1430 while he was viewing the return on aircraft to the Nellis Air Force Base, located in Nevada. Witness states that there were about 22 aircraft in total that were returning from a possible exercise and around when the 18th aircraft touched down, he turned to face North, when he spotted the said “object.” He stated that a white ball of light came out from behind the clouds and sped through the sky at a speed that did not match any of the active aircraft. He was able to get the pictures but eventually he lost sight of the object. He states that the object did not appear to be metallic but due to the distance of the object, he states that “it was hard to tell.” No return of object.

I contacted Nellis AFB in regards to getting their flight logs or past exercises in hopes of seeing what aircraft were in the air at that time, just in case they were visiting squadrons.  Note: This portion of the investigation is still pending as no response from Nellis has yet been given. 

Visiting squadrons may be different aircraft. Nellis is home to many different aircraft including the Thunderbirds, who are known to perform death defying maneuvers, F-22 Raptors, A-10 Thunderbolt II, F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-15 Strike Eagles. It is impossible to determine if the object that is seen in the first encounter, is one of these due to the quality of the photographs.

This is not due to the photographers skills as it may be due to the crafts speed or maneuvering.

It does appear to be metallic, but like the witness stated, due to the distance, it is too difficult to judge.

Possible Explanations

The witnesses descriptions were helpful but they don’t give any leads to the source of this object, unfortunately. I went over the photographs of the first encounter that he provided but I am unable to match them to any aircraft that I know of or that I could find. The witness states that this could have been a lens flare, but I am unable to determine that. 

Another possibility was that it was a UFO, which I cannot conclude due to the lack of evidence.

Michael Andrew McLimans, a fellow TBV Investigations team member, offered another possible theory for consideration.

Party City, Balloon Planet and other party supply stores offer a large balloon in the shape of a “6”. The shape could definitely match the object in the photos, and the question now, would be the size.

It is very hard to tell exactly how far the object is away from the camera. The largest “6” balloon found was about 3′ tall.  The question would be, how far would a 3′ tall balloon in this shape be discernible? 

Photo Gallery

The post UFO Appears Over Las Vegas, Nevada, May 15, 2017 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO Appears Over Las Vegas, Nevada, May 15, 2017 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

Case File Status: Likely Explainable

Background

Report by Christopher Connelly, TBV Investigations

On 12/1/17, I came across a post on Reddit that that caught my eye.  The author of the post (Machinegamer), wrote the following describing what we are looking at:

“Was having a drink with my boss in his office today. I’m a conspiracy theorist and he picks at me from time to time regarding some of the stuff I share with him. So he goes “did I ever tell you my ufo story?”

I was like hahahahaha ok thanks for making fun of me, his face got serious and he goes “listen to this story…”

So he said “20 or so years ago I was driving in northern Michigan near glen harbor (sic) at 2:30am in the middle of nowhere and all of a sudden my entire car lit up”.

He described this insane light and shrieking noise that hurt his ears… and he’s going on and on and im waiting for him to laugh and be all like gotcha!!

He had been taking pictures of northern Michigan cuz photography is his hobby, so he had a camera on the passenger seat of his car.

He said he got out and this craft was hovering over him for what seemed like a very long time, he was afraid. Then he remembers he had his camera, so he took it out and said he took pictures.

Still I’m waiting for him to laugh. I gave him a “ya ok” look…then he rolled his chair over to his file cabinet and started rustling around folders…

See the photos attached to this post…the hairs stood up on the back of my neck and my arms. My jaw dropped.”

The original pictures appear to come from an older model camera and the film was developed to what you see here. The only images available for investigation, was a photograph of the photographs, which is not ideal for analysis.

The pictures appear to have been taken at night, and there appears to be snow on the ground, leaning towards a low temperature.

It’s almost impossible to tell if there is any cloud coverage or any other meteorological formations. The ground is heavily illuminated, creating an almost complete coverage of the area. Light formations resembling pillars are seen rising from the middle of the illuminated area. The light has an almost blue color to it. It appears there are no other vehicles, personnel or animals in the picture.

There appears to be a sign to the lower right hand side of the photo, on the opposite side of the road, which may mean that these is a side road leading to this area or near it. The light appears behind the treeline but I cannot judge its distance from the witness. 

When I encountered these photographs, they were posted by an anonymous user of the website Reddit. This user was the coworker of the actual witness, so all details are coming from him/her. The actual encounter took place 20 years ago, date unknown. 

Per the co-worker: Witness was located outside of Glen Arbor, which is located in Northern Michigan. This area is known to be rural and a well known area that is the victim of hydraulic fracturing. The approx. time was 0230 when the witness was traveling down a snow covered road when his surroundings and his car began to light up. The witness then got out of his car to see a craft overhead. The witness described the craft as making no movement but sounding like a “Banshee.” No further information has been given.

The Analysis

There is no craft visible in the picture, but I can tell that there is a valley where the lights are coming from and upon further inspection, the lights do appear to be hitting some sort of low lying fog or small cloud formation. I believe that this may be a city, construction site or a fracking site. The lights resemble the amount of light that a small town or site would have.

The pillars may be explained by ice crystals, or “light pillars” which are defined as the following:

“A light pillar is an atmospheric optical phenomenon in the form of a vertical band of light which appears to extend above and/or below a light source. The effect is created by the reflection of light from numerous tiny ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere or clouds. The light can come from the Sun (usually when it is near or even below the horizon) in which case the phenomenon is called a sun pillar or solar pillar. It can also come from the Moon or from terrestrial sources such as streetlights.”

Based on the assumed temperature, forming in the air and the light reflecting off of such, this could be a viable explanation. With the witness being near the lake, I’d say that the temperature could easily be in the 20’s.

This “light pillar” phenomena is quite common in colder climates, such as Canada and Michigan where these photographs were taken.  

I have attempted many times to contact the witness, but have received no response. 

Due to this fact, it is difficult to put the story together, as it lacks many details and due to it being 20 years ago, human memory tends to fill in a lot of the gaps.

The Photographs

The post Strange Light Phenomenon, Northern Michigan, Circa 1997 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

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In the early morning went out on a balcony to breathe crisp air, something pushed on an idea to take picture sky.

Did 2 pictures with a difference in 5-6 sec, then noticed a quickly retiring object which had time to get on these 2 pictures. Noise and high light was not observed.

Round an object there is discharged of air, like plasma.

Photo Gallery

The post An unknown quickly moving object got in a shot in the early morning on July, 14, Ukraine first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

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