Events over the past thirty months [Please note: that is, as of October 1980.] have reinforced the idea that a solution to the UFO enigma might be facilitated by analysis of data from instrumented records made during events wherein experienced human observers witness aerial or grounded objects or phenomena which, according to their judgment, cannot be explained as having a prosaic nature.

During analysis of instrumented records from UFO events obtained by Project Starlight International's (P.S.I.'s) personnel and equipment, hitherto unsuspected transient or short-duration phenomena have been found. The repetition, regularity and pattering of the transient effects analyzed suggest a reliability in these data, and these effects may convey information about the nature of UFO events.

In addition to preliminary definition of specific physical aspects of UFOs, these records of transient phenomena suggest modification of methodology and/or design in specific systems of instruments which P.S.I. uses in the field. Thus, it is also the purpose of the paper to describe some modifications in instrument design and field technique.

Also let it be understood that this paper as published shall probably be modified, both as to informational content and as to illustrations, in the final version to be read at the 1980 MUFON symposium.

In the first broad category of recorded transient phenomena. in UFO events, the author will refer extensively to a Super 8 mm motion picture film taken by himself using an Elmo 104 camera. Film in the Elmo was Ektachrome type G, with an approximate 2,800 frames remaining to be used during the UFO event. The camera lens was at 34 mm when at full telephoto and at 8.5 mm when at full wide angle; film speed was 24 frames per second, and the light meter needle was pegging its limit at f22. The UFO event began at a time originally estimated as 3:26 P.M., C.S.T., and later re-evaluated as having more likely begun at about 3:28 P.M. Although the filming, itself, lasted just under two minutes (until all film was expended), the total UFO observation time was approximately 5 to 5.5 minutes. The filmed event occurred aboard Braniff flight #9, LaGuardia to Dallas-Fort. Worth International, on Monday, December 12, 1977, aboard a Boeing 727, from window seat 8A. The author's wife, Kitty-bo, witnessed the greatest part of the event through another window, by leaning across the tops of seats in row 7. This was possible because the tubular UFO was at only a small angular elevation above the horizon and the seats were in front of the wing. (They were unoccupied, but a stewardess had piled coats in them.) She, thus, watched the event out a window adjacent to seat 7A.

As indication of the situation of the aircraft, Braniff reports that at 3:26 P.M. the aircraft was about 70 nautical miles WSW of Memphis, Tennessee (bearing 244° on flight path J42), traveling 458 nautical miles per hour, technical air speed, or 407 nautical miles per hour, ground speed, or Mach 0.8, and at 39,000 feet. The ground was virtually covered with clouds, as viewed from window 8A - a few small breaks in the clouds beneath could be seen occasionally. The aircraft was sparsely occupied, probably due to the day (Monday) and early afternoon flight departure from LaGuardia.

When the UFO event began, the author's attention was caught by view of a rather black-looking sphere (except where the sun, at the upper right, was glaring off the UFO's upper right side). The object subtended about 4 to 5 minutes of arc. The sphere seemed to have a dome on top, and, maybe, on the bottom, also. Its angular speed was surprising because, obviously distant, it was passing the airliner rather rapidly, while traveling on a course that seemed only a few degrees more westerly than the aircraft's.

The object's angular speed in passing the airliner was sufficiently great that the author doubted he would be able to get the movie camera out of a briefcase beneath a seat and film the UFO before it would, he thought, pass in front of the airliner. Fortunately, just as the camera was almost out of the briefcase, the UFO seemed to instantly slow its speed. (One wishes all UFOs were so obliging!) Filming commenced. With gratification the author noticed via the see-through-the-lens view-finder that he could definitely see the dark object and the brighter crescent of sunlight reflecting off its upper right. Those details, he realized, would resolve on the film.

After some seconds of filming, the domed sphere suddenly disappeared from view, causing the author to raise his eyes above the camera to see if it had suddenly dashed out of the field of camera view. What caught his attention in the sky, about a small finger's width (at arm's length) above where the dark UFO seemed to have disappeared, made him unconcerned about finding the relatively small thing he had been filming.

There, on a later-computed magnetic azimuth of perhaps 221.5°, was seen a relatively gigantic, apparently glowing, iridescent, tubular thing, with perhaps a very slight metallic luster, which varied in the angle it subtended, from 90 minutes of arc (1.5°), down to about 30 minutes (the angular size of the sun or moon) depending upon the time in the observation. Both the author and his wife somehow received the impression that the tubular thing was oriented about 40°-45° off the visual plane. They could clearly see that its tilt (as viewed from their position) relative to the horizon was, on the average and as measured on the film,12° to 13°. The left end was uppermost, until it rotated around its center, as will be described later.

Twice during the filming, both the author and his wife saw a glowing "scroll" of luminous substance separate at high speed from the surface, condense to become a mass of glowing gas, and shoot off at very high speed to the right, at about a 10° to 15° angle to the long axis of the object. This is visible on the film also.

The large, bright object was filmed just under two minutes. As the film was running out, the bright tubular thing began to rotate around its midpoint, like some gigantic, glowing compass needle starting to revolve in the sky.

During the rotation maneuver, the tubular object retained the same tilt relative to the horizon; and when the rotation was complete, it seemed to have revolved about 130°. Now, the lower end seemed to be in the observers' general direction but pointed, still, downward from horizontal by about 12° to 13° - maybe even more.

Once pointing toward the observers, the light quality of the tubular object changed radically. From the end view, instead of being very, very brilliant and even iridescent, it seemed by comparison a dull whitish, maybe even with a very slight gray or dull metallic tint. The edge, quality changed with the maneuver also. In the new position, the edges, instead of being diffuse-looking, were darker, crisp, and even surprisingly well-defined. The gigantic tubular object seemed to hover in the new orientation for a while. Then it began what the author saw as a perfectly vertical ascent at slow angular velocity. His wife felt there was a slight tilt, off from vertical, in the ascent.

Out of film, the author tried to get the three stewardesses to go to a window and see the UFO, while his wife continued to observe the object. They looked at him as if he were trying to distract them and hijack the airliner. No stewardess moved toward the window. About the time of the author's second or third plea, the author's wife exclaimed with excitement, "It's gone!" The UFO had suddenly vanished at just the moment when its edges seemed to flash with a diffuse light.

Some weeks later one of the three stewardesses told a stewardess acquaintance of the author that, "We weren't about to go to the window. That guy's eyes were big as silver dollars, and his wife looked bug-eyed, too. We didn't know what they were doing!"

So, at least, we have a study of the appearance of the eyes of persons who are seeing or have just seen a very large UFO! But, seriously, the film turned out to be very valuable in the study of highly transient UFO phenomena, although overexposed perhaps one f-stop because the aperture of the Elmo does not close down below f22.

A tape-recorded account of the sighting was made the morning after, at the P.S.I. offices, and this was witnessed by several persons including physicist Daniel Harris, Ph.D., who signed the author's
drawings made during the account as a witness to the drawings and to certify that the account was given before the film was ever processed.

Then the film processing was documented by the author and a 'disinterested' person signing their names (while at the processing plant) into the emulsion on one end of the movie film (cassette type) before it was processed. This signing was video taped, as was the placing of the cassette into the take-up mechanism of the processing machine and the film's coming out, being held up to show the names, etc. The processing was done, in fact, in presence of several witnesses unassociated with the author or the Project.

The discussion of data in the 12/12/77 film as contained in this paper, is far from exhaustive of the film's contents. This paper's scope of study should be viewed as only very introductory in nature. Other papers hopefully, can follow.

In this paper, henceforward, the author shall refer to himself in the third person, or as 'the photographer' etc., preferring the impersonal style of presentation.

Thus, the first broad category of recorded transient effects to be discussed can be generally classified as optical in character:

(1-OP) Some UFOs emit light flash effects (documented in daylight and nocturnal UFOs) of relatively high intensity but of so short a duration as to fall below the visual perceptual threshold of humans and, at times, near the limits thereof. Thus, while an object is clearly visible, pulsed light emission can occur of such short duration as to be unnoticed by human observers. In two cases wherein a visible, daylight UFO was clearly seen, unseen flashes apparently saturated or near-saturated the image in a majority of frames. Such phenomena can affect the human nervous system. In one case wherein the surfaces of two UFOs flashed at about twenty times per second, one of the P.S.I. personnel with a high visual-perceptual threshold experienced difficulty in focusing his eyes upon the objects and felt almost dazed while looking at them. 
 

OP-1A                                           OP-1B                                     OP-1C

PHOTOS OP-1A shows spherical UFO with sunlight reflecting off upper right. PHOTO OP-1B shows sphere apparently covered by plasma in below-visual threshold flash over entire surface. OP-1C shows sunlight on upper right of sphere (Note light and dark bands visible in sunlit portion.) during ascent, with what appears to be plasma downflow, beneath, resembling a white tornado. 12/12/77

                    OP-1C (Detailed Drawing)                               OP-1C (False Color Version)