UFOs Filmed from Helicopters and Planes. Not So Fast! Mick West 2024-10-21 | UFOs Filmed from Helicopters and Planes. Not So Fast!
Twentynine Palms - The Two Photo Locations Mick West 2023-07-08 | Here's a quick video explaining where the two sets of photos of flares in the Twentynine Palms "triangle" case were taken from.
Can we see the Bottle Drop Data? Please? Mick West 2023-06-19 | For a few months now, I've been asking Brandon Fugal (the owner of Skinwalker Ranch) if I could work with a very small amount of data generated by one experiment - the helicopter bottle drop.Recently this was asked of both him and lead SWR scientist Erik Bard, and they suggested I might not fully understand it, or what to do with it. But I very much would, and this video is an attempt to demonstrate that, to help move the process along. I know that one bottle collected an NMEA track. I know how to convert that into an interactive 3D recreation with animation. I know how to analyze the data to demonstrate if the bottle did actually bounce off something in mid-airAnd I'm not asking for the data for just me. I'm asking for a public release, so I can't manipulate the data without anyone noticing. So, why not?Source of the question and Eric's response youtube.com/watch?v=d_8IWUlR38c&t=754sPoll on if the data should be released:twitter.com/MickWest/status/1649860293928030213
Some Thoughts on David Grusch - Alien Whistleblower Mick West 2023-06-12 | I was invited on NewsNation to be the skeptical respondent to Dave Grusch's one-hour interview. Unfortunately, I only had a few minutes, and the questions were along the lines of "why do you think Grusch is lying". I'd made a lot of notes in advance, so I thought I'd take advantage of this prep and record my thoughts in a big brain dump! Turns out I would have needed 45 minutes to cover everything. The full Grusch interview and article/transcript: newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/we-are-not-alone-the-ufo-whistleblower-speaksMy response segment: youtube.com/watch?v=xER7WLaAw-E00:00 Background, Dave Grusch01:25 Lack of Evidence01:47 The Extraordinary claims02:09 Aliens have murdered humans02:33 Football Field sized Tardis?03:12 Italy 1933/1944 Vatican03:32 Vast Conspiracy04:00 Agreement with the Aliens04:27 Problem: This was all Cleared by DOPSR06:55 Maybe it's not true?08:00 The cover-up problem10:19 Do the math on crashes13:59 AARO don't see UFOS15:00 Congress should investigate15:53 "The Program" might be a crash retrieval program17:53 The Art Bell "Metamaterial"18:32 A systemic and cultural failing in the IC19:24 UFO Mythology20:36 ARRO, Kirkpatrick, Title 50 Clearance21:58 Dimensions, Quantum Physics, Travel23:15 Gimbal, pixel saturation, Travis Taylor29:29 The Omaha Sphere video31:10 The usual suspects - Kean and Blumenthal35:00 Ross Coulthart35:51 Garry Nolan37:01 Lue Elizondo37:20 Eric Davis38:00 Hal Puthoff39:44 The Woo (Paranormal)43:40 It would be great if true! 44:58 We may never fully know
Discussing the David Grush UFO Whistleblower Saga with Pete Dominick Mick West 2023-06-08 | This discussion is from episode #860 of Stand Up With Pete Dominick: standupwithpete.libsyn.com/860-mick-west-on-ufo-conspiracy-theoriesWe discuss the current saga of the UFO Reverse Engineering "whistleblower" David Grusch, and what I really think about what's going on.Pete's Channel: youtube.com/@PetesBigMouthTV
Aguadilla - UFO Analysis with Lines of Sight Mick West 2023-05-24 | This is a presentation I gave at the Inaugural Limina Symposium, Feb 5, 2023. Analysis of 2D video presents the challenge that if the size of an object is unknown, then it can be at any distance. It is, however, constrained to a series of lines of sight. In this video, I discuss how lines of sight are extracted from video data, and how this can be used to determine various possible trajectories. With the Aguadilla UFO video, I demonstrate that there exists a traversal of the lines of sight that is an approximate straight line, and matches exactly the wind that day. This lends significant weight to the hypothesis that the object was something like a pair of wedding lanterns. 00:00 Introduction01:26 Start of talk 01:37 What is a "Line of Sight"?02:54 Why use LOS in UAP investigations?04:54 Specifying Lines of Sight13:22 Example #1 Hayle Beach17:03 Example #2 Aguadilla24:11 Other footage of wedding lanterns by the airport24:35 Objections to the lantern hypothesis25:40 Flame obscured by thin paper in IR. 26:03 SCU's analysis and mistakes27:36 Review of Aguadilla UAP literature29:12 Summary31:56 Q&ALimina is a publication of the Society for UAP studiessocietyforuapstudies.orgOther videos from the symposium can be found here:societyforuapstudies.org/videosAnd on their YouTube Channelyoutube.com/@societyforuapstudies/videos
Twenty-Nine Palms UFO - Flares Identified Mick West 2023-05-23 | A video of five lights over Twentynine Palms, California, videoed by military personnel, gives the illusion of a triangular craft. The illusion breaks down as the lights shift position. A discovery by John Greenwald leads to video of what looks exactly like the lights from another angle. It seems like this mysterious UFO is just five flares. Original videos at the Weaponized podcast: weaponizedpodcast.com/news-1/mojave-triangle-uapGreenwald's discussion: youtube.com/watch?v=D_piRRyCCKMGreenwald's Tweet on discovering the flare video: twitter.com/blackvaultcom/status/1661052262981185536The DoD flare video: dvidshub.net/video/791782/wti-assault-support-training-4-b-rollDoD flare video on YouTube (for date confirmation) youtube.com/watch?v=Hr5Z2VyIryoSource of the "7 minutes" burn time for flares. dvidshub.net/news/136860/vmgr-352-lights-up-night-sky-battlefield-illumination-missionAnother source: LUU-19B/B IR Flare, 7 minutes burnt time: towndock.net/files/LUU_Parachute_Factsheet.pdfMetabunk discussion: metabunk.org/threads/claim-the-mojave-triangle-uap.12967Reddit discussion: reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/13q4kcz/twentynine_palms_ufo_flares_identifiedmick_west
UFO Football - A Friendly Back and Forth Mick West 2023-05-12 | People often send me UFO videos that puzzle them. I'll usually take at least a quick look and give my initial impression. In this case, Mark sent me a video of a bright UFO arcing over a (British) football match as the final whistle blew. I quickly identified what it might be, but Mark disagreed, so I had to dig deeper. Quite a bit deeper!Eventually, after some friendly back and forth, it was resolved and a few lessons were learned. Video Source: twitter.com/itvcalendar/status/1622663920098975759Matching video: youtube.com/watch?v=SqHOrxdKC9E&t=714sThe kick. youtu.be/P94sp-Tapx8?t=587
Embossing the Truth at Skinwalker Ranch Mick West 2023-05-11 | A recent episode of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch claimed that a shiny metallic orb was following close to the owner's helicopter. They even got Utah's Attorney General to endorse those claims. But it wasn't following the helicopter, it wasn't even close to it. More significantly, it wasn't even a shiny sphere - that was just an artifact of the filter they used - the emboss filter. It was just a bit of random airborne clutter that just happened to drift into the frame for a few seconds. The scientists on the team should have known better.Original clip from Season 4, Episode 4: youtu.be/bLr97CzfTLY?t=374
A Hunters Close Encounter with a UFO - Spider Silk Lateral Highlights Mick West 2023-05-06 | This UFO video looked amazing. It was a flying saucer, invisible to the naked eye, hovering by some trees, with bizarre cycling bands of light. But I quickly recognized it as something I'd only recently discovered - highlights on spider silk that form shapes just like this and are unexpectedly perpendicular to the thread.Original Video: youtube.com/watch?v=218n5y9WwWc
Skinwalker Ranch Blob - Just a Reflection? Mick West 2023-05-04 | In Season 4, Episode 3 of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, a mysterious blob appears on one camera when filming a rocket launch.Described as something anomalous, the "blob" looks like an internal camera reflection of the rocket's bright exhaust. You can see the same reflection descend as the rocket rises; there are other examples with the same camera. Unfortunately, the full video is not shown, possibly because it would be pretty obvious that it was just a reflection.You can see most of the "Blob" segment here: youtube.com/watch?v=Vw6oXQcu0Zk
Unidentified Submerged Object - Small, or Far Away? Mick West 2023-03-24 | This looks like a large object moving under its own power, but I think it's actually small, close to the camera, and just drifting in the water. I identify other objects in the video doing the same thing. This was just the largest.Original footage:youtube.com/watch?v=IIQBbiukMsAOriginal video and discussion from @TahoeDeep youtube.com/watch?v=O_Lg595f8II
UAPTF Briefing Slide Shows Only Stars Mick West 2023-03-16 | A slide in a presentation prepared by Jay Stratton to brief congress about UFOs contains only two stars. Yet it's labeled as UNK UAS (Unknown Unmanned Aerial Systems)I demonstrate how you can prove this.Original Mystery Wire image of the slide: mysterywire.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/106/2021/04/NAVY_FILMED_PYRAMID_UAPs.jpgMystery Wire article: kxnet.com/news/national-news/mystery-wire-podcast-pyramid-shaped-ufos-swarm-above-navy-destroyerQuote from that article: "The new images were gathered by the Task Force and obtained by investigative filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, who confirmed their authenticity. Mystery Wire has independently confirmed that the visual materials are included in the briefing presentation prepared by the UAP Task Force.“This (video) was taken on deployment from the USS Russell,” Corbell said. “It shows what they described as vehicles. And they made a great distinction. They made sure in this classified briefing, they made a great distinction that this is not something that we own either a black project, this is not something of a foreign military, that these were behaving in ways that we did not expect. And that they were you know shaped non aerodynamically. Like pyramids, these are flying pyramids!”"Original Video, FOIAed, via The Drive: youtube.com/watch?v=Ybakt2q2zQwFOIA request, with links to files (note there's another similar file, 3004..., showing different stars): foiaonline.gov/foiaonline/action/public/submissionDetails?trackingNumber=DON-NAVY-2021-004596&type=RequestRaw WMV file from the Pentagon: metabunk.org/f/170411ZJUL19.INTERACTION%20WITH%20UNK%20UAS.RSL.001.UNCLASS.wmvRaw file converted to mp4: metabunk.org/f/170411ZJUL19.INTERACTION%20WITH%20UNK%20UAS.RSL.001.UNCLASS.mp4Drive article where the videos were released (lots of additional documents and context) thedrive.com/the-war-zone/navy-releases-videos-from-mysterious-drone-swarms-around-warships-off-californiaMetabunk discussion: metabunk.org/threads/pyramid-ufos-in-night-vision-footage-are-bokeh.11695Minor Correction: At 3:34 I say "seven feet above the deck", which should obviously be seven hundred feet, as on the slide caption.
Sutter Buttes UFO Solved & Balloon Identified Mick West 2023-01-29 | This was pretty obviously a balloon. But people were confused by the weird shape and the dark regions. Making it brighter and stabilizing it made it a lot clearer and eventually let us track down what the balloon was. Crowdsourcing works again!And no, it's not the most serious UFO case. But it was a fun little puzzle and a great showcase of how crowdsourcing is often the best way of figuring out little mysteries like this.
Las Vegas Light Pillar Map Mick West 2022-12-27 | Rare atmospheric conditions over Las Vegas created a map of the city out out light pillars in an ice cloud layer. But only above uplights.It's not a UFO, but it is actually quite extraordinary. A once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon called a Light Pillar MapMetabunk discussion:metabunk.org/threads/las-vegas-ufo-lights-in-clouds-above-the-north-strip-light-pillars.12817Shenzhen light pillar map: express.co.uk/news/weird/1317598/China-UFO-mystery-lights-Shenzhen-Weibo-viral-aliens-sightings-latest-news
Wisconsin Spotlight UFOs Solved! Mick West 2022-12-21 | Videos of some UFOs in Wisconsin that looked like spotlights turn out to be spotlights from a local Christmas Lights display, despite being hyped as UFOs by the Daily Mail!Flanders Family Christmas Light Show: facebook.com/FlandersChristmasLightShow
High Speed Fly-By UFO — Solved! Mick West 2022-11-11 | This UFO video is very unusual looking. They are filming out the plane window when suddenly a huge streak of light flies past at incredible speed. What the heck is it?People quickly noticed that the ground was moving way too fast. It's actually a time-lapse movie, running about 8 times as fast as normal. So the streak of light is probably the motion blurred lights of another plane, flying in the opposite direction.But which plane? Flarkey contacted the video owner and they gave him a flight number (Air France 179) and time, about 5:20 UTC on October 8th. This allowed him to track down a good candidate for the other plane: Fed EX 1273. The two planes cross at a shallow angle, and the FexEx plane is just 1000 feet above the Air France plane, which is perfectly legal, but looks odd when the planes are so close. I downloaded the ADS-B GPS tracks of both planes and dropped them into Sirec, my Situation Recreation software. I adjusted the video to play at 1/8th speed, and adjusted the view to match the lights from the cities seen in the video. Then, bingo, we got a match, it's the Fed Ex plane. So what are the lights? There's four visible, we can tell how long they flash for based on the motion blur, the length of the streak. This white one was a short flash of a bright white strobe. It's so bright it makes these reflections in the triple paned aircraft window. The thin red light is the port side wingtip nav light, then the thicker red light is the red anti-collision light on the belly of the plane. Then in the last frame we see the white wingtip nav lights on the backs of the wings So that was fun, looked amazing at first, and quite confusing, but turned out to be something fairly straightforward. Sitrec is an interactive tool, and you play with this scenario yourself, I'll put a link in the description. There's a whole bunch more in there too, so have a poke around. Original Video and Flarkey's Twitter discussion: twitter.com/AlineCvt/status/1590355510406287360Siterc: metabunk.org/sitrec/?sitch=afr179(Use the "Sitch" menu to try other scenarios)
Brazil UFO Flap Solved! (Starlink Again) Mick West 2022-11-10 | For several days now Pilots in Brazil have been reporting UFOs, which have also been caught on this Web Cam. It's looking South, and the objects are moving mostly from right to left. This is the same thing as in my last video, Starlink satellites. Not the bright Starlink launch trains, that's a different thing. These are deployed Starlink satellites, and you only see them when you look towards the poles (north or south) and where the satellites are low on the horizon and can just reflect the sun at a shallow angle. Like last time, I teamed up with Flarkey to synchronize the video with actual Starlink data. We can identify three stars at the start of the video, and use that as an overlay in Stellarium. Since it was just yesterday I used the current Starlink data, and recorded several minutes in real time. This was then synced with the video, and like last time we see a perfect correlation, where every flaring light matches a satellite. Time, position, speed, and direction. It's 100% Starlink. So once again we're getting a lot of media attention, and a lot of distracted pilots, for something that's 100% explainable. Hopefully with all this attention, pilots will become familiar with phenomena. But I expect reports to continue, probably for several years. Airlines and aviation authorities really need to educate pilots on what they might be seeing in the sky.Previous video with Night Vision footage from the US: youtube.com/watch?v=Ea8BCl2yVU0Metabunk Thread: metabunk.org/threads/multiple-ufos-observed-from-south-brazil-mostly-starlink.12753
These UFOs are Starlink Flares, 100% Mick West 2022-11-05 | Jimmy's original video: youtube.com/watch?v=e-WDx7byI0kAbout 1AM on August the 14th, 2022, Jimmy Church was on the second floor balcony of his house in Palmdale, California, using a night vision device to look for UFOs. He spotted some to the north, and started filming them. On November 3rd, he shared the video on Twitter and someone (sorry I can't find who) suggested to me that it might be the same Starlink flares that pilots had been seeing and mistaking for planes flying in racetrack patterns.A starlink flare happens when sunlight reflects off a flat surface on a starlink satellite. These particular flares are reflecting off the bottom of the satellite, which is parallel to the curve of the earth, and so the reflection mostly misses the ground - which is why, up until now, only pilots at high altitudes had reported them. But Jimmy's night vision device was able to see the much dimmer flares that were visible from the ground. Over on Metabunk we'd noticed that these flares were mostly observed when looking north, towards the big dipper, with the sun directly below the satellites. Due to the tilt of the earth, there's always some satellites that are in sunlight in the summer, when viewed from Palmdale and similar latitudes. Jimmy gave me the approximate time of the video, and Flarkey used the in-the-sky.org site to get an exact match of two flaring satellites at the start of the video. Flarkey also found the correct historical Starlink position data using space-track.org, and I loaded that into Stellarium I identified the stars in the video, the bright one on the left is Doo-bee, part of the big dipper, and I used the stars to overlay a screenshot of the video onto Stellarium, set the time, and pressed play.Result - All of the flaring lights line up with starlink satellites, in the exact same spot, and at the exact same speed. Interestingly, neither in-the-sky.org nor Stellarium thought that all these satellites would be visible. This is because they are right on the edge of sunlight, so any small variation in the calculated shape of the Earth or errors in accounting for atmospheric refraction, could put a satellite in or out of shadow. But since we see they match perfectly, we know that the sun is actually hitting them. These are all Starlink satellites.These starlink flares are only dimly visible from the ground, but are a lot brighter seen from 40,000 feet, from a plane. So we are going to continue to get reports of these moving lights from pilots for the next few years until everyone is aware of the issue. So I suggest that the FAA and the airlines issue advisories to air traffic control and to pilots to minimize distractions and disruption. The frequency will lessen over the winter, due to the tilt of the Earth being away from the sun, but if nothing is done then this exact same flurry of reports will flare up again next summer. Metabunk Thread: metabunk.org/threads/jimmy-churchs-starlink-ufos-in-palmdale.12751Full Synced video: youtube.com/watch?v=cT7UeZI-6OY
Why Racetrack UFOs are mostly Starlink Flares Mick West 2022-10-23 | Over the last few weeks there have been several sightings and videos by pilots, describing what have become known as "racetrack" UFOs. The pilots describe distant lights that seem to be orbiting in circles or a racetrack, a common type of holding pattern. These sightings are generally in the North, by the big dipper, and generally seem to go from left to right. Multiple people have determined that the most likely explanation for these is Starlink satellites, simply because the lights don't go in circles, or a racetrack, they go in a perfectly straight line. They are also in the same place in the sky as some matching Starlink satellites, flying in the same direction, and at the same speed.00:00 Introduction00:13 A "racetrack" is a type of holding pattern00:22 Multiple people say it's Starlink00:42 Pilots disagree01:04 Normal Starlink "trains" are different01:30 How we can tell it's not circling01:57 What's happening is the sun reflecting off the satellite02:18 The flickering color looks like a star, or something in space02:28 Why Starlink and not other satellites?02:46 Using in-the-sky.org to find Starlink satellites03:28 The sun is directly under the satellites04:02 Eyewitness accounts that don't match the Starlink explanation04:27 Reframing as just a flight safety issue and UFO-reporting stigmaMetabunk threads:This video: metabunk.org/threads/why-racetrack-ufos-are-mostly-starlink-flares.12714F-18 Pilot (Hulsey) metabunk.org/threads/retired-f-18-pilot-reports-5-uaps-pacing-his-aircraft-over-channel-islands-8-18-22.12616MUFON 124374: metabunk.org/threads/mufon-report-124374-commercial-airline-pilot-videos-2-objects-circling-starlink-flares-racetrack-illusion.12586Sighting over the pacific: metabunk.org/threads/claim-another-sighting-of-racetrack-uaps-over-the-pacific-probably-starlink.12704Mark Handley's Starlink animation: youtube.com/watch?v=bKj4GDNhH0Q
How Metabunk Tracked Down the Kansas Tic Tac Mick West 2022-09-08 | A video cropped up of a white Tic-Tac UFO seen from a plane. Like most of these videos, the culprit was just another plane - too far away for the camera to make out the wings. But which plane? Metabunk's "Skydentify" forum was up to the task, identifying the planes involved with limited and sometimes conflicting information. I also demonstrate how the Sitrec tool can take the ADS-B tracks from the plane, and show exactly what one plane looks like from the other. Proving 100% that these were the planes in question. Metabunk Thread: metabunk.org/threads/explained-kansas-tic-tac-shaped-ufo-plane.12630
The US Navy Thinks These Stars are Drones. Mick West 2022-06-18 | A recently released video shows a Navy team leader videoing four lights, he describes them as possible drones. However, they were actually easily identifiable stars. Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, Scott Bray, seems to repeat this in testimony to a congressional committee. Did the Navy, and the UAP task force never actually figure it out?Video with four stars: youtube.com/watch?v=Ybakt2q2zQwExplanation of the Triangular shape: youtube.com/watch?v=-r2oaQWmqkkVideo release to The Drive: thedrive.com/the-war-zone/navy-releases-videos-from-mysterious-drone-swarms-around-warships-off-californiaMore videos: youtube.com/c/MickWest/search?query=bokeh
Gimbal UFO - A New Analysis Mick West 2022-03-14 | The "Gimbal" UFO is the poster child of modern UFO videos. Leaked in 2017, and officially released in 2019, it's considered by many to show a genuine anomalous craft, exhibiting flight characteristics beyond current human technology. But is it? There are four observables in the video, four things you can check yourself, that demonstrate that the most likely thing we are looking at is actually a camera artifact. It's probably an infrared glare, hiding the hot object behind it, and rotating only because the camera rotates when tracking the target from left to right. This does not mean it's not a "UAP", or that it's not unidentified, or that it's not an amazing craft - it just means it's not actually exhibiting any incredible behavior, and so this opens the door to more mundane possibilities, like a distant small jet, just flying away, the heat of the engines (viewed up the exhaust) creating a large glare in the thermal camera. Edward Current's analysis of possible target flight paths.youtube.com/watch?v=rGzJ9dx3n4oSimulator: metabunk.org/gimbal00:00 Introduction00:22 The Four Observables01:18 What's going on01:59 What I'm not Addressing02:27 A full 3D recreation03:01 The ATFLIR camera03:25 Field of View less than the Moon.03:55 External Gimbal Axes05:05 Tracking left to right05:45 Why the rotation?06:45 Incorporating Bank in the sim08:15 Rotating the camera rotates the image08:47 Derotation09:07 Real world derotation09:22 Glare examples10:21 Glare does not rotate10:43 Glare derotated "rotates"11:06 Dero does not rotate it alone11:27 Differences between sim and video12:05 ATFLIR's inner mirrors12:51 Minimizing roll13:23 Incorporating the glare angle in the sim13:46 Observable #1 - No rotation while banking15:23 Observable #2 - Bumps before rotation16:01 Observable #3 - Rotating patterns16:24 Observable #4 - Derotation match17:12 TL/TW? Implications if it's not a glare.... 17:58 Background information19:23 Patent limitations20:06 Creditsrealityseaker's original research on the first 20 seconds.twitter.com/realityseaker/status/1396908124729069568Metabunk Discussions:Investigation the role of pitch and other facts in the glare angle, Markus.metabunk.org/threads/calculating-and-visualizing-gimbal-angles.12237Edward Current's work on a full 3D model of the object's movement:metabunk.org/threads/gimbal-blender-simulation-with-clouds.12209realityseaker and Edward Current on the initial lack of rotation during banking.metabunk.org/threads/does-the-beginning-part-of-gimbal-debunk-the-claim-that-the-object-rotates.12068Using OpenCV to track the cloud motionmetabunk.org/threads/automated-motion-tracking-in-videos-like-gimbal-and-gofast.12299Credits:Many Thanks to Markus Pitch, Graphs, Data, etc Edward Current 3D Path analysis Chris Lehto Early Feedback Mendel Analysis Robert Hildebrandt ATFLIR Model jplaza Analysis jarlrmai Analysis dimebag2 Analysis Multiple Anonymous A variety of helpAnd many more, thank you all for the helpful analysis, valuable feedback and criticism, and useful discussions.Source codeIf you just want to read the code, then it's mostly in a single file:metabunk.org/attachments/index-html-zip.50217If you want to edit/run the code, and look at the data, then there's a full zip of the project directory. It needs to be run on a server (which can be a local server) due to the local file loading.metabunk.org/f/gimbal-source-code-and-data.zipThere's one additional external dependency, the Three.js library, and a variety of utilities from the examples/jsm folder. Here's the version I'm using. This should be in a folder three.js in the root of the server (which you can obviously change in the code).metabunk.org/attachments/three-js-zip.50218
Quick Debunk: Arizona Light Streak UFO Mick West 2022-03-05 | While these images might look like a giant streak of light in the sky above some mountains, they actually show something on the ground - the Solana solar power station in Arizona. It's hazy, so you can't see the ground, but the super-bright reflected sunlight shines through. Images source: youtu.be/OqZh-0oayqc?t=191Solana power station: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solana_Generating_StationLocation: google.com/maps/place/32%C2%B055'00.0%22N+112%C2%B058'00.0%22W/@32.9004007,-112.8968457,4883a,35y,280.5h,56.74t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x30b6cabc80e1c05d!8m2!3d32.916667!4d-112.966667?hl=en
Three Row UFO over the South China Sea - Probably Flares! Mick West 2021-12-04 | These "UFOs" consisting of three diagonal rows of appearing and fading-away lights looks very confusing at first. But if you compare it to existing video of flares, then it all makes sense. Probably just three military planes dropping flares. Copy of original video: youtube.com/watch?v=c8A1tGBOK9k"Flares at Night" video: youtube.com/watch?v=c5hunxT7MEU&t=36sWhich I first saw posted on Reddit, by "comandante-marcos": reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/r8q34l/20211124_ufos_filmed_from_the_flight_deck_over/hn7b6e1/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3Similar "flares from invisible plane" video: youtube.com/watch?v=8A7MW5q5KgQ
César Escolas UFO is a Fly Mick West 2021-11-30 | Small, or Far Away? Flies are often mistaken for something further away, and hence a big and fast UFO . But they are just flies. Here's a great example from César Escola.Escola's Instagram Post: instagram.com/reel/CWzEPNEA8oe
Explained: Black Triangle Near The Sun Mick West 2021-11-28 | This video supposedly shows some alien spaceship orbiting the sun. The video was taken with the STEREO-A satellite's Extreme Ultraviolet camera, and shows a triangle shape that has been there for years. You can go to Helioviewer.org, select STEREO-A, and EUVI, and you can see this for yourself, and make timelapse videos of it moving. It's actually a camera flaw, probably a speck of dirt on the sensor. We can tell this because there's other similar black dots that move in sync with the "triangle". Here's one. Here's another. This is simply the biggest one. But why does it move? We see that the speck moves with a regular pattern. Over the course of a year it moves back and forth along this short arc. It repeats this every year. This is because the sun's rotational axis, like the earth's, is tilted a bit, about 7 degrees. The images from Stereo A are corrected to keep the axis vertical - otherwise it would swing left and right. At the most the sun is tilted 7 degrees to the left, then six months later (since Stereo A has a one year orbit just like the Earth) it's 7 degrees to the right, because we are now viewing the sun from the other direction. If we measure the amount of rotation of the specks, we see a total of 14 degrees, 7 left, plus 7 right equals 14.If we remove the rotation of the specks, then we see the actual plus or minus seven degree tilt of the sun as we view it from different points in the one year orbit. That's all there is to it. Not an alien spaceship, just some specks on a camera orbiting the sun, which is still pretty darn cool!Helioviewer: helioviewer.orgNASA Page on STEREO-A Sensor defects. stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/artifacts/artifacts_camera.shtmlVideo of the example dust speck mentioned by NASA: metabunk.org/f/2020_01_01_16_09_03_2020_12_07_14_41_00_EUVI-A_171-hq.mp4A detailed look at the EUVI camera. secchi.lmsal.com/EUVI/DOCUMENTS/5171_15.pdf
Utah Drone UFO - A Meta-analysis Mick West 2021-11-23 | Several people took a bash at analyzing the Beaver, Utah, drone video of a UFO that zips by the camera. Some nailed it immediately (not me!), some got it wrong, and then changed their minds as more information came in, and some just got it wrong, then left. Here I look at the various analyses and how they eventually converged on the most likely explanation - that the UFO was something very small, like a bug or a seed, just meandering along in the in air, with most of the apparent speed coming from the drone itself.Raw Footage: tinyurl.com/637kuv20Spreadsheet: metabunk.org/attachments/beaver-ufo-size-distance-speed-xlsx.48017Point Consciousness Analysis: youtube.com/watch?v=sszECCzhDTsJay Lamm's Analysis: youtube.com/watch?v=o4bqTlwLwwAPropellerhead (Rob) Initial Analysis: youtube.com/watch?v=cFN7KofHpcY Propellerhead (Rob) Initial Analysis Math: youtube.com/watch?v=scdK5xcbV-kRob's "Another Way to See it": youtube.com/watch?v=uahYDEPm5s0Rob's visit to Beaver: youtube.com/watch?v=E7Ya1CBH7Nk
Donut UFO - Quick Explanation - Its Bokeh! Mick West 2021-11-16 | Out-of-focus stars (or other small lights) are a common source of "UFO" photos and videos. Sometimes they look like "orbs", and sometimes they have rings in them that make them look more "donut" shaped. Here I demonstrate how you can duplicate the effect with your phone.Diffraction rings explained: telescope-optics.net/diffraction_pattern_and_aberrations.htmGood example of Venus out of focus: youtube.com/watch?v=ydvsLzLYZM0
Zac Cichy and Mick West discuss The DNIs Statements on UAPs Mick West 2021-11-12 | What's the significance of the Director of National Intelligence mentioning things coming "Extraterrestrially" while talking about UAPs? Is "UAP" a loaded term now? How should the government better talk about the UAP issue?Yesterday Zac Cichy and I both watched the "Our Future in Space" talk at the Ignatius Forum. After a brief exchange on Twitter, we decided to have a recorded chat so we could explore out differences with a bit more nuance than tweeting allowed. Audio file (mp3) version of this video. metabunk.org/f/Mick%20West%20Zac%20Cichy%20-%20UAPs%20and%20DNI.mp3Zac is host of the Project Human podcast, currently on Hiatus, but lots of great guests and thoughtful conversation in previous episodeshttps://www.projecthuman.fm/Gillibrand Amendment: congress.gov/congressional-record/2021/11/04/senate-section/article/S7808-1OUR FUTURE IN SPACE: cathedral.org/event/our-future-in-spaceyoutube.com/watch?v=UWyPk_f8aAAAvril Haines' Comment on UAPs, 32 minutes into the above. Yeah, I mean, I think the bottom line is that we don't understand everything that we're seeing. And that's probably not surprising to anybody in many respects. But it is, it was a report that really, Congress asked us to produce a report that assessed what we saw as the threat, essentially, from unidentified aerial phenomenon. And what our sort of best understanding was of the different reports that we had identified and it stretched over from, I think, 2004, through to 2021, the different reports that you identify, that you indicated 144 of them, and we had different categories, as you said, so one of them was airborne clutter and other was natural, you know, phenomenon. Another was foreign adversaries. A fourth one was related to sort of US government or industry developmental programs. And then the fifth one was "other". And that basically indicated that we were pretty sure we weren't going to be able to characterize every single one of these reports in the various categories that we've identified, because, frankly, we were not able to understand everything about it. And a large portion of that is based on the fact that we don't have a consistent way of reporting this information, we need to integrate, frankly, a lot of data that we get, we need to get better at collecting information that's useful to us from different sensors that are available to us. And we have to deepen our analysis in these areas. And that's something that, you know, frankly, probably also doesn't surprise you in the sense that that's how we typically approach our intelligence work. And the main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about are basically safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues. But of course, there's always the question of, is there something else that we simply do not understand that might come extra terrestrial? Extra terrestrially?
How To Identify Stars in a Photo With Astrometry.net or Stellarium Mick West 2021-11-09 | I got a few requests for more detail on how I tracked down the stars in the "Hyperspectral Mothership" video (youtube.com/watch?v=_JSPTYZuNf4) . So here's all the details. Warning: a bit technical. The version of Stellarium I used: stellarium.orgThere's also a web version, which does the same thing, but with a different user interface. stellarium-web.org Astrometery: http://nova.astrometry.net
Hyperspectral Mothership - A Quick Debunk Mick West 2021-11-07 | Just because an expert tells you something is hyperspectral video of an alien mothership dropping off cargo, it does not mean that's probably what it is.
Investigating a UFO that (seems to) Zip Past a Plane Window Mick West 2021-11-05 | This looks at first glance like a motion-blurred object streaking past a plane. But closer examination shows that this cannot be the case as it does not trace a contiguous line. So it's probably fake.Here's the Feb 3 2013 version youtube.com/watch?v=rki8SkbxDHAHOWEVER there's also a Feb 2, 2013 version from a clickbait channel:youtube.com/watch?v=QTmpWKJjazkFound by @ufoofinterest youtube.com/watch?v=FF6PYn4xHksReddit Thread: reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/qlluxf/ufo_flyby_passenger_reaction
Poltergeist Ghost Glass - A Replication Experiment Mick West 2021-11-05 | A glass "mysteriously" glides across a table, live on TV? Ghosts? Of course there really isn't any great mystery here. You can google "glass moves by itself" and you'll find scores of examples and explanations. It's a glass table, so very smooth. Condensation drips down the glass forming a thin layer of water on the table, reducing friction - and a bubble of air can be trapped, which warms and expands, loosening the seal. Then any slight vibration and a very slight slope to the table does the rest. But giving the explanation is one thing, can we duplicate it? I give it a go in my bathroom, with mixed success.
Tracking Down a Tic-Tac UFO Mick West 2021-11-01 | The latest video of a Tic-Tac UFO (no relation to the Navy Tic-Tac) is actually a plane. In this video I show how I tracked down the actual plane and exact location.
Dr Bartholomew Pulls No Punches With Havana Syndrome Mick West 2021-10-22 | Dr Robert Bartholomew put it all on the line with his assessment that Havana Syndrome is mass psychogenic illness, a form of mass hysteria. Full video: youtube.com/watch?v=xrQs-ZX-wv0
TFTRH #56 - Robert Bartholomew: Havana Syndrome and Mass Psychogenic Illness Mick West 2021-10-22 | Robert Bartholomew has a PhD in Medical Sociology, and is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He's an expert in Mass Psychogenic Illness and the co-author with Rober Baloh of the book "Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria"Havana syndrome is a loose set of fairly generic symptoms that are being blamed on some kind of attack. It started with personnel at the US embassy in Havana, but has since spread around the world. Dr Bartholomew thinks it's an example of Mass Psychogenic Illness - people are being asked to look for odd health events and strange sounds, and so of course they find them. But there really no good evidence of any kind of attack. Bartholomew thinks the intelligence community is largely aware of this, but an unbiased examination is being avoided for political reason.Dr Bartholomew's website - rebartholomew.com
UFO Weather: How to find wind direction for older UFO reports. Mick West 2021-10-12 | When evaluating a UFO video, especially one that might be a balloon, it's really useful to get the exact weather where there supposed UFO/balloon was. There's a number of ways you might go about this, but you need to understand the pitfalls and uncertainties before you just pick a number. Weather Underground historic ground level weather: wunderground.com/history/daily/KTUS/date/2019-11-23earth: earth.nullschool.net/#2019/11/23/1200Z/wind/isobaric/850hPa/orthographic=-110.66,29.79,4862/loc=-111.450,31.560UWYO soundings: http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html
Mylar Balloon UFOs on Thermal Cameras - Hot or Cold? Mick West 2021-10-08 | Mylar balloons often look unexpectedly hot or cold on thermal cameras. This is because they are highly reflective of heat. When you look up at them against the sky, they look "hot" because they are reflecting the ground and the sky in the background is very cold. When looking down, like in the "Rubber Duck" UFO video (which may or may not be balloons) then they look very cold because they reflect the very cold sky. In low resolution videos (like Rubber Duck), they look entirely cold.
DHS Rubber Duck UFO - Initial Analysis Mick West 2021-10-07 | This UFO video created a little buzz on UFO Twitter, but unfortunately it's not very impressive. It does give some interesting opportunities for analysis, so that's what I do. Result: it seems to be a relatively slow moving object, like a drone or a bunch of balloons. Beyond that it's rather hard to tell. So it's an actual UFO, just not a very impressive one.Metabunk Thread: metabunk.org/threads/dhs-rubber-duck-footage.12054Full Video: youtube.com/watch?v=PmbrRvd25G0Falch Analysis with Lat/Lon for 1 minute: youtube.com/watch?v=xWXCMA2a8Sg&t=0sSlightly better video: theblackvault.com/casefiles/alleged-dhs-rubber-duck-uap-footage-november-23-201900:00 Intro01:20 SPD is NOT the speed of the object, it's the camera ground track speed02:00 What does the display show?03:14 Ground track data04:25 Extracting data05:20 In Google Earth06:50 Circling Plane08:41 What is this? 09:04 Cold Temperature10:26 Balloons top of the list10:44 Drone?11:18 Low Information12:41 Identifying the plane14:23 Lue Elizondo and the Balloon theory14:38 Thermal Imaging 17:16 Is it interesting?
Quick Debunk: Dog Train Tracks Rescue Mick West 2021-09-28 | A viral video that appears to show a dog being rescued from an oncoming train is (as most people suspected) fake. There's a number of ways we can tell this, but it all boils down to shadows.
TFTRH #55: Avi Loeb and The Galileo Project Mick West 2021-08-10 | What is a University professor doing investigating UFOs? Professor Avi Loeb of Harvard University heads the Galileo Project, which seeks (in part) to identify the nature of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena by establishing a network of telescopes and instruments with the goal of obtaining the first unambiguous clear photos of UFOs.We talk about the demarcation between science and pseudoscience, the rationale for the project, the challenges it will face, and how it all fits into Professor Loeb's personal philosophy.0:00 - Introduction0:05 - A Professor Of Science2:19 - Avi's articles and love of philosophy4:28 - Philosophy of science. Demarcation7:45 - Say I have a million dollars. Why should I give it to the project?15:22 - How many telescopes, and where to put them20:17 - Is photography the way to go?25:21 - What existing data justifies the need for the project?28:50 - The vagueness of the UAP report. 32:10 - Photos or Video?32:50 - How will you know where to aim the telescope.35:10 - Filtering on Motion or Images?37:02 - Can you triangular with two close telescopes?40:16 - Triangulating with full-sky cameras44:14 - The Space Fence and multistatic radar45:55 - Private sector multistatic radar46:20 - Anecdote about secrecy and error bars50:39 - The search for satellites52:22 - If it's classified, would they let you do it?53:34 - PR and Science Communication59:35 - A proof of concept photo of a drone?1:02:07 - What if you don't find anything?1:04:28 - Science should be exciting The Galileo Project: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileoPodcast page: tftrh.com/2021/08/10/episode-55-professor-avi-loeb-the-galileo-projectTranscript: otter.ai/u/abtJtNRU8RbBdUeUu50j9pb7m7Q
A Response to Dave Falchs debunking of the Gimbal Rotating Glare Theory Mick West 2021-08-06 | Dave Falch has a go at debunking the Gimbal "rotating glare" theory in conversation with Chris Lehto. This is my response, explaining that they debunk nothing, because they don't really seem to get it. Original: youtube.com/watch?v=6PYPtjj01Qs&t=0s
TFTRH #54 - Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko: Pastels and Pedophiles Mick West 2021-08-05 | Mia Bloom is Professor of Communication at Georgia State University with a PhD in political science from Columbia University. Sophia Moskalenko is a research fellow at Georgia State University and a researcher at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Together they wrote the book Pastels and Pedophiles - Inside the Mind of QAnon. We discuss how the book came about, the historic roots of the QAnon conspiracy theory, how QAnon has changed with the "Save the Children" narrative to attract more women, and what tangible steps can be taken to help individuals and to help improve the overall situation.Pastels and Pedophiles: sup.org/books/title/?id=34673Mia Bloom: twitter.com/MiaMBloomSophia Moskalenko: twitter.com/sophiamoskalen1
Chris Lehto and Mick West Discuss UFO Videos Mick West 2021-07-26 | Chris was an F-16 pilot for 18 years. He and I have both done work analyzing UAP videos. We've disagreed on a few points. Here we get together for the first time to discuss those disagreements, the times we agree, and the things that still need figuring out.00:00 Start, technical difficulties11:45 Actual Start13:08 Why did Chris change his mind about FLIR1 shooting off?29:37 The IR Shape at the Start, Glare?37:09 Gimbal Roll. Underneath or Sideways44:07 Why didn't Underwood regain lock?52:18 Rotating glare in FLIR1 like in Gimbal? 59:53 Can it actually be a glare from a plane?1:03:48 TV Mode image, a clear Tic -Tac? Perpective.1:11:20 Gimbal vs. Flir1 gimbal rolls near 0°1:16:14 Rotation of the light pattern in the sky in Gimbal1:19:30 The shape of the glare, and does it change as it rotates?1:21:44 A defined edge - an example with the sun1:32:10 The "Glowing Aura"Chris's channel youtube.com/channel/UCVNKdkLzWuy1oLuCuCv4NCA
Debunking a Trivial UFO Takes Off! Video. - Why? Mick West 2021-07-12 | Someone asked me to debunk this UFO video. It was obviously just the camera moving, and yet I decided to do a quick-take debunk anyway. I did this because it seemed like a lot of people thought it was an actual rapidly moving UFO. Also because the video contains some nice examples of common things that happen in other "UFO" videos. Original video: youtube.com/watch?v=d1MBdW5sIOk
A fake TR-3B UFO in the woods Mick West 2021-07-03 | This video was created by a 3D artist who posts on YouTube as "VFX". It's been re-uploaded a few times as an actual UFO video, and fooled a few people - even people commenting on VFX's channel!Original [REMOVED]: youtube.com/watch?v=aORjsg8pI6INew video demonstrating car wireframe. youtube.com/watch?v=3QFlySuuX-8Looking at the repeating textures in the road shows that it's a CGI fake.
UFO/UAP LIVESTREAM W/Kent Bye Vs. Mick West Mick West 2021-07-03 | A lively discussion (starting 6:28) where Kent Bye explains my lack of epistemological humility in the field of UFOs. It's the UCR show with host Luis Jimenez and co-host Michael Mataluni, along with Rather B. Squidding. Original: youtube.com/watch?v=BawsgO9-kesAll UCR Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/LuAngelesKent's Slideshow: slideshare.net/kentbye/kent-bye-vs-mick-west-a-debate-on-uap-evidence-skepticismAll Links for Singularity Lab: https://linktr.ee/michaelmataluniLink for Kent Bye: http://voicesofvr.comLink for Steven Greenstreet: https://linktr.ee/sgreenstreet UCR Shows are streamed live on Mondays and Wednesdays at 4 pm PST and 1 pm PST Fridays.
Quick Take on New UFO video from Corbell Mick West 2021-06-30 | A shaky video, of things that require a lot of magnification. So small or far away. Often out of focus. Low information. My initial impression is that these look like distant planes, flying directly towards the camera (except that one). They have lights that seem to match. That's my #1 hypothesis. Matches with traffic in the area. But could also be military planes that don't show up on planefinder.net (ADS-B)#2 is drones, but I hesitate there, as the lights look very plane-like.
UAP/UFO Report - Initial Assessment Mick West 2021-06-26 | I'm pretty happy with the UAP report. I think it gives a reasonable assessment of the situation - but you can't just read snippets of it. You've got to consider the whole thing. Here I go through it, explain what it means, and what I think the implications are.Report: dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf
TFTRH #53: Jason Colavito - UFOs and the Invisible College, How Did We Get Here? Mick West 2021-06-23 | Jason Colavito is an author and journalist with a focus on "alternative archeology" and, more recently, the UFO cultural phenomenon. In May 2021, he wrote the article: "How Washington Got Hooked on Flying Saucers" in the New Republic, describing how "a collection of well-funded UFO obsessives are using their Capitol Hill connections to launder some outré, and potentially dangerous, ideas."Jason's historical research into the underpinnings of the current UFO/UAP flap is a vital component in understanding what is going on, and how we find ourselves in this situation. Going back to the 1960s and 70s, he traces a path from Jacque Vallée's extradimensional hypothesis and Hal Puthoff's paranormal research, through Robert Bigelow's wide-ranging involvement via Harry Reid, to the current efforts of Luis Elizondo and Chris Mellon.How Washington Got Hooked on Flying Saucers - newrepublic.com/article/162457/government-embrace-ufos-bad-science
