VIDEO CAMERA SHUTTER EFFECT? OPTICAL DISTORTION? DEBUNKING THE DEBUNKERS

Info. taken from Rense.com. Direct link can be found here.


Many have suggested that once one has zoomed-in to the extreme with conventional digital camcorders or digital cameras, the artifacts of bloom, specifically the circular field with donut like hole in the center, along with intensely colored light variance, are products of the shutter aperture in these cameras, and what we're actually seeing is a complete distortion. We've heard these same claims about saucer, disc and triangle shaped shutters causing such effects on intense zoom.

Though this cannot be completely dismissed, as examples in the past have shown serious and peculiar distortions in overzoom/focus related to shutter shape, the STS-75 image - shot by NASA cameras without any extreme zoom or focus problems (as the image of the tether is in fine focus even for several miles!) -begs the question: Isn't this far too great of a coincidence that the shutter-effect in the UK photos matches the exact same "notched" UFO (estimated to be some miles in diameter) with the same pulsing lights and waveform patterns of energy AND the hole-like artifact in the center? It seems very unlikely, and it appears that the 2001 and 2001 UK images have captured the very same remarkable and monstrously sized craft. Not only does the STS-75 footage substantiate the UK images from a totally unique vantage (ie, miles above the earth with expert equipment), but one can clearly see in the Quicktime footage #2 above that whatever the bright object is being videotaped at the start of the clip, when it is seen against the backdrop of the neighborhood - a yard lamp, house and tree for some reference - is extremely bright and extremely large. Anyone who has ever tried videotaping at night knows stars, even the brightest, scarcely even register on tape. This object was massive in size and intense in light. Christoffer Walther also informs us that the Sony 700 camera of these most recent clips had additional zoom capabilities, not just standard zoom.If anyone has information on the shutter shape of the Sony 700 and can document it, please forward to mailto:webmaster@rense.com We'd like to report on this aspect, even though it does not appear to be involved in the UK images at all. We would almost bet our bottom dollar the shutter is tri-fold, not circular, which under distortion of zoom/focus would leave a triangle shape, not the amazingly detailed disc with its lights, phenomenal electric aura and surface artifacts which perfectly match the STS-75 craft shot just outside the earth's atmosphere by NASA shuttle crew.

Notch Analysis

The "notch" appears hard to see in many of the images, likely due to the brilliance of the UFO itself, but as the following color and contrast enhancements demonstrate, the notch is definitely present. Submitted by

Timothy Hill:

'I took a frame from the video and tried to pull more details from the disk. The attached gif animation is the result of a few of my findings. I added a black border to frame the object for better viewing. As you can see in almost all of the pictures there is a notch missing from one side of the disk, much like the so-called "Dropa" stones. I am a little skeptical about the whole Dropa story because the background is VERY muddy. I cannot, however, dismiss the similarities between the STS video and this object.'



Researcher Has Contact Bambi Performs Video Test On Stars To Disprove Zoom/Blur Effect As Responsible For UFO Image

We have now attempted to re-produce the "Derbyshire" phenomena, by using the same video recorder that was used to capture the footage 3 weeks ago; by zooming onto a bright star in the night sky and attempt to distort the star by using the zoom mechanism on the video recorder. These sessions have been made using the same video recorder as the original sighting. That is, the same physical device, same lens, same zoom. It has been shot under the same weather conditions, that is dark cold clear evening/night.

TEST Footage I

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesC/OrionsBelt.qt (right click, save as)

Bambi zoomed in onto the largest and brightest star in the Orion belt; as far as the zoom capability would go. Max ZOOM.

Result: Negative.
The camera is not able to get a close zoom-up of the star; and much less capable of distorting the picture by over-zooming or zooming while out of focus. This has absolutely *nothing* to do with the "Derbyshire" -like sighting and footage of the phenomena. The Orion star is absolutely far too far away.

With this result, we decided to give it another try. This time I asked her to go outside, find the brightest star in the entire nightsky, film it and zoom in as far in as possible.

TEST Footage II

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesC/brightstar.qt (right click, save as)

Result: Negative.
This time the she zoomed in once again to the fullest capacity of the recorder. The result is slightly better than the Orion one. But far, far from resembling the UFO footage in any way.

The star in question (possibly Venus or the north star), is way too far away. Which is really not a surprise.

No colors, no patterns. Just a regular white view of a star.

---

Here follows an analysis of the footage clip "moonref.qt" (See clip 4 above)

Watching the "moonref.qt" clip, we have a quite large moon at the top of the view; no stars at all seem to register on the video recorder even though it is completely dark *and* completely clear skies. This could be due to two reasons.

1) we have a pretty bright moon which "pollutes" the dark sky with light

2) we have a video recorder that has rather *small* lense to gather light

The recorder is able to zoom and enhance, but that is a completely different thing than being able to *gather light*. That has to do with the size of the lense that recieves and registers the light.

There are a few other lights than just the moon. These are all located on the ground, and not in the sky. There are various background lights from a nearby city.

And then there is A SINGLE other light in the sky.

Only one object in the sky registers on the videro recorder other than the moon. Does that mean there is no stars out? No. It means the video recorder does not collect the faint light from those other natural stars in the sky, because its lens does not possess the ability to do so, with the sky so "polluted" with the light that comes from the moon.

The one object other than the moon, appears to be located *inside* the earth's atmosphere and seemingly as far away as a regular bright star.

It is rather big, it gives of a great amount of light, even while "polluted" by the moonlight.

I am certain it is located inside the earth's atmosphere, and not that far from the witness. How far the object is exactly is hard to say. But it clearly is NOT as far away as the Orion star or the "Brightest star in the nightsky."

It registers *clearly* even without zoom on the video recorder as the clips demonstrate. It is obviously NOT a normal planetary or star object. This object gives off more light than a normal star in the sky.

The original photographer (Bambi's friend at the party) proceeds to zoom in on the object. This time the video has no problems in reaching in close to the object for detail. Even from a large distance you can begin to make out the patterns (see single frame example above near lamp light)

While zooming in, the patterns do not change, like a distorted view would. On the contrary, the patterns become clearer and clearer.


CONCLUSION

The woman, Bambi, who had the sighting is not in doubt that the phenomena was something out of the ordinary. She is 100% convinced that it was NO star, NO planet and NOT some other natural object in the sky that caused the phenomena. It changed shape. It moved around. It was seen during the day as well. Moving. The hard thing is to tell other people about this, it's hard to explain what happened to someone who was not present and did not see this with their own eyes.

That is what she has attempted now. She contacted me about 2 weeks after the sighting, unsure what to do with the footage. We decided upon doing a complete public disclosure of the sighting and the footage, regardless of wheter or not it would benefit us, financially or otherwise.

Many people witnessed these events, from the guests present at the party, Bambi's friend who filmed most of the footage, to the garbage men who on their own spotted the object in daytime.

Bambi herself does not claim that the footage depicts an alien entity of some sorts. She does not know what it is, but is inclined to think it is either some sort of new phenomena or object, or phenomena/object that previously has not been sighted. There is no real indication in her point of view that this infact should be an alien entity. Rather, it is something we do not understand yet, but her hope is that we will accept it, regardless.


More debunking of dubunkers

Comments from: Keith Mayes, 1-18-2

I see that in relation to the recent UFO video clips some 'tests' have been carrid out to 'prove' that is not an artifact of the lens system. Christoffer from Denmark tested the camera by zooming in on some bright stars and noted the same effect as the video could not not reproduced. He claims this means that it must be a UFO. The 'test' is absolutely meaningless. A star is a point light source and cannot be enlarged, as he pointed out himself. Jupiter though presents a large 'solid' object and is easily enlarged with even modest equipment. It is, apart from the Moon, currently the largest and brightest object in the sky, and was in January when the video was taken. I am an ametuer astronomer and have been for over 30 years. I have specialised in astro-photography for the past 20 years. The night video of the 'UFO' is nothing more than Jupiter, it is easily recognisable to an astronomer by its size, brightness and position in the sky for an observer in the UK at this time of year. When zoomed in, it will show just the image that you have shown as a UFO. The so called tests on stars were meaningless, do the test on Jupiter then tell me it was a UFO. "

RESPONSE

Keith - That's interesting, We didn't know Jupiter bobbed and weaved in the sky, or traversed so rapidly from one part of the sky to the other in minutes. What a planet! We were also unaware that Jupiter could also appear exactly the same to conventional camcorders in October, too - as in the Derbyshire/Bonsall footage. That's one amazingly mobile and sneaky planet. We're also curious how the same Jupiter got into those STS-75 NASA shots (especially since there were hundreds of Jupiters, if you've seen the video). Curious! Something sure took one heck of a bite out of Jupiter, too.

Sky & Telescope states: Jupiter is at opposition (opposite the Sun in our sky) at the beginning of the month, so for all of December and January it appears about as big and bright as it gets. Use as little as 40x or 50x magnification on your telescope, and Jupiter will look as big in your eyepiece as the full Moon does to the naked eye. But higher powers will probably work better. Wait until late at night when Jupiter climbs high in the sky for the sharpest, steadiest telescopic views of its dark cloud belts and bright zones.

I'm sure Christoffer and Bambi couldn't have missed such a glaringly bright object to run their tests on -- which were done on the 17th, if ole' Jupiter is the brightest thing in the sky throughout December and January. They had to settle for what WAS there... the brightest star in Orion and the "clearest star in the nightsky" - which would have been... JUPITER, according to you and Sky & Telescope ("It is, apart from the Moon, currently the largest and brightest object in the sky"). So TEST II footage IS a shot of Jupiter... and it did NOT become what was formerly videotaped when zoomed, much less unzoomed. If not, where was Jupiter when they shot their test footage? We would like to see someone submit a video image of Jupiter that looks like the frames below. No super zoom-in... just straight on, natural, as these images reflect. We find this assessment as incredulous as the woefully oft repeated "venus" "swamp gas" and "flock of Geese" explanation always tossed at UFO sightings and photos. BTW, UFO stands for "Unidentified Flying Object." And that is precisely what they videotaped.


1st picture: Close lamp in frame focused, and glaring UFO clearly visible; little or no zoom. JUPITER?? Not very likely. (lampst452 k.qt)

2nd picture: Incredibly bright object over house at considerable distance - no zoom - no other stars apparent (Hqufofilm1.qt)

A debunk from SkyNet, from Mike Farrell:

Dear UFO Video Enthusiasts,

I'm no expert on video equipment,
so I must concede to someone who is.

http://www.ufovideo.com/database/crap.htm

Please check out this new page by Tom King
(Arizona, USA) who can certainly back up his
technical claims with many years of video
expertise and experience. He put this page
together just to answer dubious claims
posted on the Jeff Rense website recently
concerning "camera artifacts" on those new
UK/UFO images and the STS-75 Tether UFO images.

And while you're, there take the time to look over
his excellent website called SKYNET.

Thank You, Tom King!

Let's get these "technical considerations" settled
for once and for all.

RESPONSE:

Tom, like many others, has done an excellent job of actually shoring up the claims of our content, rather than duplicating or tearing down what has been displayed at rense.com. But his efforts are applauded. It was a good attempt at duplication, but it falls far short of what we have offered here. There's nothing inexplicable about Tom's experimental shots and examples. Yes... video cameras at night, out of focus, and/or zoomed, can produce spheres of blurred, colored light and even some odd artifacts, including the appearance of a disc with an apparent "hole" or "notch"... or even half of it missing! We don't deny this at all.

We do NOT deny that distortions take place on video at night, in shots out of focus, or zoomed. We do NOT suggest that what is being seen is actual surface relief or texture in Bambi's footage -- or even a "flying saucer" (though we feel the STS-75 evidence represents a shocking coincidence, and we are convinced of its absolute authenticity!). We ARE saying... it IS a UFO... it is unidentified, it did fly (we accept our contacts testimony) and it is an object and it was not Jupiter, as the test shots proved. Tom's shots of Jupiter only scarcely approximate a possible type of distortion that can take place. It does not explain the other enigmatic elements of Bambi's footage, or why Jupiter would be so intensely bright for Bambi, and move unlike stars in the sky, while Tom's Jupiter is dulled, entirely unbrilliant and only slightly resembles what is presented here. Daylight and night footage both have been presented. Anomalies generated in the videos from Bambi have NOT been duplicated, thus far. Only approximated. And just because someone can shoot a star and make it blurry so it looks like a blob with a dark center doesn't say anything to what Bambi caught on tape, as her star test footage reveals.





What we have yet to see produced by anyone is DUAL effects, as our contact has produced. Foreground objects, even lighted objects, in focus, without zoom, while the mysterious "object" displays not merely one, but several appearances, one of which happens to be the so-called "zoom distortion" appearance claimed by Tom and others to be a routine failure of the camera to focus properly on a light source. How is this possible? Yes, anyone can zoom or blur a star or bright light and WILL get 'similar' results... a circle, some bracket-blocking effect depending on the camera type, unique colors and perhaps even a "hole" in the center of the blurred light. But what we have not seen is reproductions of what we see on these videos... only close proximites and those substantially less interesting that those from Bambi/Christoffer. And, no DUAL effects. The Dual effects are part of what make these UK images entirely unique.

Again - we are not suggesting that the object in the videos looks precisely like what the camera is picking up. We are simply awed at the unparalleled quality and enigmatic brilliance and unduplicatable artifacts we see, under the conditions given and the accompanying testimony which we see not reason to dismiss as "nonsense," much less lies. Remember, Bambi both saw AND videotaped a strange, bright object that moved. It was not a slowly moving, naturally traversing object in the night sky such as Jupiter. We believe Bambi is quite capable of telling the difference between the movement of stars in the sky and the movement of what caught her attention to videotape the enigma.

Those visiting Tom's page at http://www.ufovideo.com/database/crap.htm, crudely labeled "crap.htm," will notice two things.
(1) Tom clearly has never seen the STS-75 video footage. Anyone who has could not make this statement without being utterly blind: "In some of the Space Shuttle videos you can see strange objects moving around. Quite a few of them aren't in focus. I know because I posted a lot of these videos 5 years ago. I studied them carefully and can easily recognize the effects of the "UFOs" you see below."

I don't know what videotape Tom has seen, but it sure wasn't STS-75 "Smoking Gun" evidence, as there is absolutely no way the myraid of pulsing, clearly defined, well in-focus UFOs flying by the tether in the footage could be the result of blurring, zooming or any other camera defect/effect. Plenty of people have seen stills of STS-75... and yes, they leave much to be desired. We have no rights to show the footage, unfortunately. Those who have seen the videos, however, know they're seeing something NASA doesn't want to discuss and blacked out in its transmissions. The STS-75 footage is, in a word, shocking. I think to even suggest that STS-75 footage is the result of blur or some other camera defect is simply preposterous.(2) Tom's images are lacking many of the elements seen in Bambi's footage, yet he's claiming he's shot the exact same thing.

We welcome every opportunity to challenge these images featured, and by no means plan to hold them up as sacred cows protected from analysis by others. Rense.com has a solid reputation for reporting both UFO frauds as well as openly admitting mistakes and revising all necessary data when something can be conclusively demonstrated to be something other than what we think it might be. We're interested in the truth. We invite every skepticism and scrutiny and experiment. Unfortunately, Bambi in the UK has captured something on video tape, multiple times, which others cannot accurately duplicate, which defies some basic conventional wisdom (ie, how you get a street lamp in focus while the claimed distortion "effect" is clearly visible on the object, even at an unzoomed distance, while NOT effecting foreground objects, lights, etc. If one light distorts as such, all similar and/or relative lights should also likewise distort with similar effects. That's just using your logic bean, folks.)

Neither Christoffer or Bambi, or Rense.com, is claiming these are images of a space ship from another world. We are saying it is a Unidentified Flying Object videotaped with some extraordinary characteristics which are worthy of attention and examination, and we bring to bear against it remarkably similar imagery as STS-75 as examples and reference.