ACCELERATION Bruce S. Maccabee, Ph.D. ABSTRACT Visual and photographic
sightings of UFOs carrying out "impossible" high speed
maneuvers are presented for study. For the first time we
are able to quantify the amazing acceleration of these
craft. PROLOGUE Herbert C., Army private, was
stationed at ACCELERATION Lillian Sargent, housewife, was
standing in the back yard of her Greenfield, Mass. home
in June or July of 1947 (exact date unknown). She was
about half a mile west of a steeply rising small
mountain that forms the eastern border of ACCELERATION It was hot in the summer of
1956, but during one night no place was hotter than the
Air Force bases at Bentwaters and Lakenheath in ACCELERATION During the night of November
16-17, a 747 jumbo jet freighter was flying
southwestward over ACCELERATION It was about 1:15 a.m. on May 1,
1988 and Ed Walters, standing on the shore of the Santa
Rosa Sound with his special stereo "SRS" camera, was
about to take a second stereo picture of a UFO which he
had just photographed hovering over the water. As he
sighted through the viewfinder he was surprised to find
that it wasn't there any more. He took his eye away from
the viewfinder to look for it and realized it was over
his head. Suddenly everything went white...an abduction
had begun. 5 Subsequent analysis of the
stereo pair of photographs showed that the object was
about 450' away when he first saw it. Seconds later it
was stationary over his head. (need I say it again...?) INTRODUCTION What are these things that
come...and go...in the night....and in the day...so
rapidly that we have a hard time seeing them? The Shadow Knows........but he's
not telling, so we'll have to figure it out by
ourselves. Aside from shape and speed, the
most unusual...and unbelievable...UFO characteristics
which have been often reported are the "right angle"
turns and the sudden disappearances of apparently solid
objects in the clear sky. Of course, the witnesses who
make these reports are not perfect observers. Perhaps
the turns were not perfectly abrupt, they
only appeared to be. Perhaps the
objects did not disappear in the sense of material
objects vanishing without a trace, perhaps
they only appeared to vanish. Physics
and technology, as we know it, indicates that it is
physically impossible for substantial objects to make
instantaneous turns or disappear while in plain view.
For this reason, conventional scientists have "solved"
the problem posed by these observations by rejecting the
UFO reports altogether. Ufologists have accepted the
reports, perhaps reluctantly, while making excuses for
these seemingly impossible feats of the UFOs. Nevertheless, these reports are
made by credible people. Many years ago (1947) Lillian
Sargent, my grandmother, reported to her family that she
saw two round, silvery "flying saucers," each of which
made (what appeared to her to be) a right angle turn.
The saucers were at a reasonably high elevation angle as
they moved westward and then abruptly turned north, so
she was in a good position to see the turn. Now, grandma
was not an aerodynamics expert or even a mechanic, but
she knew that something was not right here: "things" do
not make right angle turns. Turns are curved.
Nevertheless, she stuck to her story. Hence, we are left
with the quandary of believing a grandmother's report
while doubting the "right angle turn." (If you can't
believe your grandmother, who can you believe?
Rhetorical question, only.) (Footnote: this was at a
time when many people were reporting sightings
throughout the Disappearances in the clear sky
are equally enigmatic and have been reported since 1947.
The first official reference to the ability of UFOs to
travel at high speed, and even to disappear, is in the
draft of an intelligence collection memorandum written
for Brigadier General Schulgen by Lt. Col. Garrett in
October, 1947. (This memorandum, which was released to
the public by the Air Force in 1985, was written in
response to General Nathan Twining's letter of September
23, 1947, which said that flying saucers are "real and
not visionary or fictitious" and outlined reasons for
collecting intelligence information about flying
saucers.) Lt. Col. Garrett based his statements on
sightings, not by housewives, but by "many competent
observers including USAF rated officers" and listed a
number of "commonly reported features that are very
significant." This list includes "the
ability to suddenly appear without warning as if from
an extremely high altitude" and "the
ability to quickly disappear by high speed or by
complete disintegration." (emphasis
added) Sudden appearance and disappearance could be two
aspects of the same capability: extremely high
acceleration or deceleration. (Note: the suggestion that
a flying saucer could disappear by "complete
disintegration" indicates just how puzzled the top Air
Force officers were by the sighting reports. For the
purposes of this paper, I assume that visual
"disintegration," suggesting at the very least the
termination of the of the light reflecting or light
blocking (opaque) characteristics of a solid, stationary
object, does not occur. Of course,
I could be wrong!) A high quality report of a
disappearance event was made to Dr. James McDonald6 and
later to the American Society of Newspaper Editors 7 in
1967 by William Powell, a general aviation pilot, and
his traveling companion, Muriel McClave. According to
Mr. Powell, they were flying northward at about 4,500'
near Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, on May 21, 1966 at 3:15
p.m. when they saw an unidentifiable object following
some jets that had just taken off to the north from the
Naval Air Station at Willow Grove. Powell at first
thought it was an aircraft, and then realized that he
could see no vertical tail fin. "I couldn't determine
any tail on this object. And the more I kept peering at
it, I sort of whimsically thought it was a flying
saucer," he told the newspaper editors. "Hey Mick
(Muriel), look at that flying saucer out there," he said
and she immediately looked and saw it. Then they saw it
make what appeared to them to be an abrupt, flat (no
banking, no slewing) right turn of about 160° and head
toward their plane. As it approached from the left side
of the aircraft, the angular size increased and Powell
tried to "envision some wires or something hanging down
from it that looked like a weather balloon or elongated
weather balloon, but it was exactly what I had heard and
read about...so-called UFOs." The sky was clear except for
some cumulus clouds above, and the visibility range was
estimated at 15 miles, so they had a clear view of this
object. Powell estimated that it came to within about a
hundred yards of his aircraft before it passed by to the
right. "It was a saucer shape with a slight raised dome
on top. It was all, all very defined, very clear," he
told the newspaper editors. Powell and McClave
independently told McDonald that the disk-like device
had a "glistening white rounded dome on top and a red
conical apron below, circular in planform, and moving
with its symmetry axis vertical. It had no wings, tail,
propellers or jets. No markings or apertures were
discerned."7 Powell
estimated that it closed at an airspeed of about 200 mph
and passed to their right and slightly below their
altitude. He estimated the diameter at 20 feet; McClave
thought 40 feet. "It was just like looking at a
Cadillac," Powell told McDonald. It passed by in a
steady motion with no wake, no exhaust and no smoke. Because of the construction of
the cockpit windows in the Luscombe Silvaire he was
flying, Powell could not easily see the object after it
passed to the right. He told the newspaper editors that
"Miss McClave...actually saw it disappear. It never got
out of her vision until it all of a sudden disappeared
after the aircraft (i.e., the UFO) was on the right hand
side." According to McDonald, "both had the distinct
impression that after the object passed several tens of
degrees aft of the beam it suddenly vanished from sight.
To all of my queries as to whether this seeming
instantaneous disappearance might have been only a
matter of extremely high angular acceleration out of
their field of view, both could only reply that they did
not have that impression. They felt that it had
instantaneously vanished while in full view." A THEORY OF DISAPPEARANCE So, what happened? Did the
object suddenly vanish into another dimension (whatever
that means)? Did it disintegrate (whatever that means)?
Or could it have actually traveled away so fast that the
eye couldn't follow it? In the past I have conjectured
that an object traveling at a high enough angular rate
of speed might seem to "disappear." Specifically, I have
guessed that a nominally reflective object without a
bright solar glint which is seen against a brighter
background and which travels its own length in a time
much less than the "natural shutter time of the eye"
would be at least very hard to see if not effectively
invisible. This is because the rods and cones, special
cells within the retina at the back of the eye (mainly
cones for daytime viewing), take only so many "pictures"
per second. This reasoning would apply also
to very faint light sources or low contrast objects seen
against darker backgrounds. However, it would not apply
to bright light sources which leave a "trail" or retinal
image, as, for example, tracer bullets or meteors, which
can be observed even though they move very fast. UFOs
seen at night as lights can, of course, "disappear" by
the simple means of turning off the light sources (or
perhaps by shifting the radiation frequency out of the
visible range of the eye.) The photoreceptors within the
retina are spread over the whole area of the back of the
eyeball. The whole area, which corresponds to the whole
field of view of the eye, is made up of thousands of
tiny subareas which can be called "resolution areas"
which are described in more detail below. Each
resolution area collects light and "takes a picture"
over a period of about 1/25 sec = 0.04 sec (the
"twinkling of an eye"). In analogy to a camera, this
could be called the shutter time (or integration time)
of the resolution area. Because of this shutter time,
periodic or occasional variations in brightness which
occur in times shorter than 0.04 sec, or at frequencies
greater than 25 times/second (1/0.04 = 25), are
difficult to see. Hence, to make motions seem
continuous, movies are run at 24 - 28 frames/sec and TV
and video runs at 30 frames/sec. As another example of
the "shutter time" of the eye, consider watching a fan
speed up. Initially the blades are obvious as they go
around, but eventually they become a blur. As a third
example, you can't see a bullet come out of a gun while
looking across the direction of travel. To pursue this further we must
first consider the obvious: we only see things because
of differences. Various objects are apparent only if
there are contrasts between things within our field of
view. If all objects were the same color and brightness
and uniformly illuminated we couldn't distinguish
between them. This is obvious to everyone. What is not
so obvious is that the detection of a small object at a
distance is crucially dependent upon not only the
contrast between the object and its background, but also
upon the size of the object as compared to the distance
and upon how long it stays at one location or,
inversely, how fast the object moves. To understand the process of
seeing a moving object, first consider the definition of
angular size when the size of the object, L, measured
perpendicular to the line of sight, is much smaller than
its distance, D, i.e., L < D/5 or 5L < D. Under
this condition the angular size, measured in radians
(rad), is approximately equal to L/D. Hence a 10' object
at 100' corresponds to an angle of 10'/100' = 0.1 rad
and the same object at 1000' has an angle of 10'/1000' =
1/100 = 0.01 rad. A more convenient term for small
angles is "milliradian" or mr: 1 rad = 1,000 mr; 1 mr =
1/1,000 rad. (For the purist the angle in radians is
actually equal to pi/180 times the inverse tangent, in
degrees, of the ratio. However, for angles less than
20°, the inverse tangent of the ratio multiplied by
(pi/180) is very nearly equal to the ratio itself.)
Note: 1 rad corresponds to about 57° 1° = 0.0174 rad =
17.4 mr. Next, consider that at any time
the total angular visual field of the eye can be divided
into many small roughly square angular areas, the
resolution areas mentioned above, which act more or less
independently to provide information to the brain on the
brightness and color of whatever scenes happen to appear
within the resolution areas. (This is analogous to the
"pixels" or picture elements in a TV camera system. Each
pixel provides information on brightness and color of a
tiny fraction of the scene being viewed by the TV
camera.) The lens on the eye "converts" each resolution
area on the retina to a "resolution angle" within the
field of view of the eye. The resolution angle is the
smallest angle over which the eye can determine that an
object being viewed has size and shape and is not just a
"point." If an object subtends an angle less than the
resolution angle then it appears to be a "dot" (unless
the object is much brighter than the background, in
which case it will seem to have a greater size than it
actually has because of optical aberrations and light
scattering within the eye). The size of the resolution angle
varies from person to person and, for any given person
it varies and with lighting conditions. At the center of
the field of view (the foveal region) which is about 2°
(35 mr) wide, it is generally in the range 0.2 to 1 mr
(0.011° - 0.055°). A person with typical eyesight might
have a resolution angle of about 1 mr, whereas a person
with extraordinarily good eyesight might have resolution
as small as 0.2 mr. Moving outside the central region
the resolution angle rapidly increases in size because
the lens of the eye provides proper focus only at the
center of the field of view. To literally see this
effect, focus on a word at the center of this sentence
and try to read the words to the left and right of it
without moving your eye. (I can read one or two words to
the left or right, but that's all.) Now let us work out an example.
Consider a 10' square object, oriented with its edges
vertical and horizontal, at 100'. Its angular size in
vertical and horizontal directions is 10'/100' = 0.1 rad
= 100 mr. Hence it covers, or is "seen" by, about 100 to
500 resolution areas (1 mr to 0.2 mr) in the vertical
and 100 to 500 in the horizontal, depending upon the eye
of the observer and the lighting conditions. Such an
object, if stationary or moving slowly, would be very
obvious to the observer under normal lighting
conditions. A 10' object at 1000' would cover 10 to 50
resolution areas vertically and horizontally, still
enough for the object to appear to have size and a
square shape. However, at 10,000' the 10' object might
appear just barely larger than a point to people with 1
mr resolution and at 50,000' (nearly 10 miles) it would
have an angular size of 0.2 mr and would appear as a
point, not as a square, to everyone. If the contrast
against the background were not great enough it might
not even be visible to most people. Within this small
angle an object which itself is not a bright light, or
at least of much greater brightness than the background,
must appear for more than 1/25 sec in order to be
clearly detected. Now let us consider an object of
substantial angular size that moves transverse to the
line of sight at some angular velocity. (The angular
velocity is equal to the actual velocity or speed,
perpendicular to the line of sight, divided by the
distance.) At any instant it is being seen by many
resolution areas because it has a large angular size
compared to a resolution area. Over time, it crosses
from one resolution area to another and so on. The
amount of time any one resolution area can see the
object could be as great as, but no greater than, the
sum of the object's angular size (in the direction of
motion) plus the size of the resolution angle, all
divided by the angular velocity. To give a specific example,
consider the daytime detectability of a jet airplane
moving transversely to the line of sight at a distance
from the observer whose resolution angle is 0.5 mr. Let
it be 50? long in the direction of motion, traveling at
the speed of sound (1,100'/sec = 750 mph = "Mach 1") and
let it have a good contrast against the sky background.
(Note: a clear atmosphere is assumed. Atmospheric
effects reduce contrast between an object and its
background the farther the object is away. This effect
is not considered here.) Assume first that the distance
is 100,000' (19 miles). It would subtend an angle of
50'/100,000' = 0.5 mr. The speed of 1,100'/sec would
correspond to an angular velocity of
(1,100'/sec)/100,000' = 0.011 rad/sec = 11 mr/sec ( =
0.6°/sec). Therefore it would be seen by any resolution
area (0.5 mr) for no more than (0.5 mr + 0.5 mr)/(l l
mr/sec) = 0.09 sec. This is more than twice the shutter
time of the eye, 1/25 sec = 0.04 sec. Hence this plane
would be detectable. However, a further factor comes
into play: tracking or "panning" by the eyeball. If the
observer detects the presence of the moving plane and
then causes his eyeball (or the combination of eye and
head) to rotate with the motion he can cause the plane
to remain continuously within a resolution element and
thus increase the probability of detection. Since the
angular speed of the plane is only 11 mr/sec the
observer would easily be able to track it with his eye
and head. Now let us consider the same jet
plane moving past at a distance of 1,000' or 1/100th of
the previous distance. It ought to be a lot easier to
see at that distance, right? Let's find out. Now its
angular length (apparent size) is 100 times greater
because it is "100 times closer" (50'/1,000' = 0.05 rad
= 50 mr) but its angular speed is also 100 times greater
(1,100 mr/sec). If we now add the eye resolution area to
the object's angular size and divide by the angular
velocity we find (50 mr +0.5 mr)/1,100 mr/sec = 0.046
sec which is half the previous time.
Since this is one "eye shutter" time it would still be
barely detectable. Previously the tracking rate was only
11 mr/sec or 0.6°/sec. Now it is 100 times greater. Can
your turn your head 60° in one second? Certainly, so
once again you could follow the plane as it moves across
your field of view, but your head would be turning
continuously. And you better not blink! What would happen if the same
plane passed by only 100' away? (I know, that's too
close... you'd run away before it got near.) Because the
angular size and speed ratios both depend upon the
distance, the time within a resolution element would
again be 0.045 sec, but now you would have to turn your
head at a whopping 600°/sec to follow the plane as it
crosses perpendicular to your field of view. If you
don't like headaches, I wouldn't recommend it. Of course, in a typical
situation with a jet plane the observer would know it
was coming and could prepare to follow it with his eyes,
starting when it first appears far away. At that time it
would be traveling at a relatively slow rate as measured perpendicular
to the sighting line (i.e. the
component of speed perpendicular to the sighting line
would initially be small). As it approached, the angular
speed would increase, as would the angular size, and the
observer would have to turn his head and eyes faster and
faster to follow it. (Here I am assuming the plane flies
along a straight track past the observer, with the
closest approach being 100'.) Then it would be just a
blur as it zoomed by, but as it traveled into the
distance the observer could once again track it as the
speed component perpendicular to the line of sight would
decrease. But, what if the observer
weren't prepared? What if he were watching a stationary
jet which "instantaneously" accelerated to an angular
speed of 1,100 mr/sec without any prior warning? In this
case it would be gone out of his central (foveal) field
of view (35 mr) in about 1/30 of a second, i.e., before
he could react. He would see a streak to the side,
that's all...assuming he didn't happen to blink at the
time of acceleration. Now consider an example that is
comparable with an actual sighting ("Martin Allen") to
be described: an observer (0.5 mr resolution) is
watching a stationary, 10' diameter spherical object at
a distance of 1,000'. Its angular size is 10 mr and so
it covers a circular area that is 20 resolution areas in
diameter. Suddenly it accelerates at a uniform rate in a
horizontal direction perpendicular to his line of sight
and achieves a speed of l,100'/sec in 1/2 sec. By
acceleration at a uniform rate I mean that the increase
in velocity per unit time is constant: it takes 0.5 sec
to start from zero and reach 1,100'/sec, so the velocity
increases at a rate of (1,100'/sec)/0.5 sec = 2,200'/sec
every second. We could say that the acceleration
constant, a, is 2,200'/sec2 (which
is about 68 times the acceleration of gravity or 68
"g's"). At any time, t, after motion begins the velocity
is given by v = (a)(t). If we break this into 0.1 sec
intervals we can see how the velocity increases: at the
end of the first tenth of a second it is traveling
220'/sec, at the end of the second tenth - 440'/sec, at
the end of the third tenth - 880'/sec, and so on to
1,100'/sec at the end of 1/2 second. Dividing by the
distance, the angular acceleration is l,100'/sec2/1,000'
= 1.1 rad/sec2 = 1,100
mr/sec2 and the angular
velocities become 220 mr/sec at the end of the first
tenth of a second, 440 mr/sec at the end of the second
tenth, etc., and 1,100 mr/sec at the end of 1/2 sec. Now we must ask, what is the
maximum time that a resolution area could "see" this
object? The longest time would be for a resolution area
which lies along the (central) horizontal diameter which
is 20 elements (10 mr) wide. (Any resolution elements
above or below the central diameter would "see" the
object for less time
since the object is circular.) Let d be the angular
distance moved in time t. We solve the constant
acceleration law, d = (1/2)a t2, where a =
2,200 mr/sec2, to find the time: t =
SQR(2d/a). (SQR = square root.) The angular distance
moved in completely crossing a resolution area is the
sum of the angular diameter of the sphere, 10 mr (20
resolution areas), plus the size of the resolution area,
0.5 mr, or 10.5 mr. To cross this angular distance
requires t = SQR([2 x 10.5 mr]/[2,200 mr/sec 2])
= 0.098 sec. The observer would barely see this but he
probably wouldn't be able to react fast enough to have
his eyes start to follow it (typical reaction times to
an unexpected event are 0.1 - 0.3 sec). To cross the
next 21 resolution elements would require only 0.04 sec
more because the object velocity increases rapidly with
time. {By this time the sphere has moved a total of 21
mr. To move that distance required t = SQR([2 x 21
mr]/[2,200 mr/sec2]) = 0.138 sec. Subtract
the time required to move 10.5 mr from the time to move
21 mr: 0.138 sec - 0.098 sec = 0.04 sec.} This time is
less than the "shutter time" of the eye so the sphere
has effectively disappeared in about 0.138 sec. The
speed continues to increase and by the time 1/2 sec has
passed the object has traveled 137 mr (8° or about 137')
and is moving at 1,100 mr/sec. At this speed it moves 21
resolution elements in only (10.5 mr/1,100 mr/sec =)
0.0095 sec which is about 1/4 of the "shutter time". It
would essentially be invisible against the sky
background. The observer would have gotten the split
second impression of motion, but by the time he reacted
to that impression it would be "gone." If the observer
happened to blink just as the acceleration began he
might think that the object had simply disappeared or
"disintegrated." STILL PHOTO CONFIRMATION OF LARGE
ACCELERATION The previous discussion provides
a theoretical basis for believing that high acceleration
of an opaque body seen against a lighted background
could account for verbal descriptions of UFOs
"disappearing" or "disintegrating" while in plain view
of the witnesses. I will now present physical
(photographic) evidence that also supports the high
acceleration hypothesis for UFO disappearances. Three previous still photos, all
taken by Ed Walters in Gulf Breeze, Florida, contain
evidence of extreme UFO acceleration. The UFOs in two of
these (January 24, 1988 and March 8, 1988) were seen by
Ed alone. 5 Each
of these photos has the image of an "Ed-type" object
which has linear streaks upward to the top of the
picture. The streaks were created as the object zoomed
upward while the camera shutter was open. The linear
streaks decrease in brightness in the upward direction
indicating an acceleration of the craft. Whereas he took the previous
photos when he was alone, he took a photo of an
accelerating bright red UFO on January 8, 1990 while
eight or so other witnesses were present.8 The
witnesses reported that the light was at the center of a
much larger circular object which was seen as a
silhouette against a background of dull grey cloud
cover. The object would alternately hover and then dart
to a new location not far away and hover again. Ed's
photo shows an overexposed compact image of a red light
with a broad red line extending rightward from the
overexposed image to the edge of the photo. Since the
camera was on a tripod the thick line must have been
made as the UFO darted away to the right after remaining
stationary for most of the shutter time (4 sec). The
width and brightness of the red line diminish with
distance along its length toward the right. This means
that the UFO light was not simply a point light but
rather a light of some size and that it underwent a
large acceleration. The acceleration is estimated to
have been greater than several times that of gravity.8 VIDEO EVIDENCE OF HIGH SPEED
DISAPPEARANCE Up until 1993 there had been no
video evidence to confirm the conjecture of large
acceleration. But in the spring of that year an astute
witness who prefers anonymity obtained a videotape that
demonstrates large acceleration. The full report on this
video has been published in the MUFON UFO Journal.9 An
abbreviated version is presented here. Martin Allen (pseudonym) first
saw the UFO at about 1:30 PM on March 24, 1993. It was
traveling north to south past his house on Pensacola
Beach. He thought it was a "fat, round-looking cruise
missile" from Eglin Air Force Base10, 11." A
few minutes later he saw another (or the same) one and
this time he realized that it wasn't a cruise missile.
It was "crown shaped with a bottom layer". Since he had
now seen it twice coming from the same direction he
decided to try to videotape it if it flew past again. He
set up his 8 mm videocamera (Sony CCD M8; fixed focus;
29° field of view) on his deck and pointed it in the
direction which the "missile" had gone and left the
camera running. The camera ran for two hours, the
duration of the videotape, When he reviewed the video he
saw only some helicopters flying along the beach. The
next day he set the camera up again and "I went into the
house and went to the bathroom. When I started to return
to work - about 1:30 - I saw the UFO moving fast from
the east. The video camera caught it."10 The video of the object lasts
for 29 frames - almost one second - and shows an object
which moved at a steady speed so fast that its true
shape was stretched and distorted by the speed as it
passed from left to right through the field of view of
the camera. The actual speed is indeterminate since the
distance was unknown. However, by assuming that the
altitude was constant and using projective geometry I
determined that the track of the object was not straight
and that, if it were only 1,000 ft. away when it was
first picked up by the camera, then it probably was
traveling several thousand miles per hour
(proportionally faster if at a greater distance). The witness next saw the crown
shaped UFO hovering southeast (about 160° azimuth, 40°
elevation) of his house on March 31, 1993 at about 2:00
PM. He ran to get his videocamera and three batteries
(he didn't know which one was charged). He placed the
camera on the railing of his deck to steady it and
turned it on. The UFO was motionless. In the video one
sees the tops of hazy clouds moving from right to left,
whereas the UFO image stays near the center of the field
of view. The first battery ran out after about 40
seconds and he quickly replaced it, but the second
battery was dead. He replaced that with the third
battery and videotaped the UFO for another 9 seconds or
so at which time it suddenly zipped
away so fast that the witness
could barely see it go. He was startled and uttered an
expletive (deleted). In replaying the video frame by
frame I found that the disappearance was actually the
result of an extreme acceleration toward the right
combined with a loss in contrast against the background
sky. The extreme acceleration made the motion impossible
to follow with the eye (or camera) and the high speed
decreased the time that the image spent at any point on
the focal plane. The decreased image time on the focal
plane reduced the contrast with the background sky
making the blurred or streaked image very difficult to
see. About a week later (April 2,
10:15 AM) the witness again saw the UFO hovering near
his house. This time he knew that none of his
videocamera batteries were charged, so he ran for his
Polaroid 600 camera. He was able to take one picture
from an outside stairway looking nearly straight upward
at the object before it again accelerated to an
extremely high speed and zipped out of sight. This shows
that the crown shaped UFO really is more like a layer
cake with the top cylindrical layer larger in diameter
than the lower layer. There is a "hole" in the bottom
which is red. Again the distance is not known. If it
were 1,000' away then its maximum diameter was about
11'. A black and white copy of the photo is presented in
reference 9. Careful analysis of the March 31
video imagery shows that there was an extremely high
level of acceleration. The images of the UFO are very
easy to see while it is stationary. There is a bright
spot at the upper right, a glint caused by sunlight
reflected from the object, and darker areas near the
bottom (darker than the background sky). The image has a
compact nearly circular shape with a width and height of
4 - 5 mm on the 13" monitor screen. Tests showed that
the effective focal length (EFL) of the camera-video
monitor combination is about 535 mm. The size of the
image, 4 - 5 mm, therefore corresponds to an angular
size of (4 to 5)/535 = 0.0075 - 0.0093 radians. If the
distance to the object were known, then simply
multiplying the angular size in radians by the distance
would give the actual size as measured transverse to the
line of sight. Unfortunately there was no triangulation
during this sighting, so the actual distance is not
known. However, if the object were at an assumed
distance of 1,000', then it was about 7.5' to 9' wide.
If it were 2,000' away it was twice as large, and if it
were only 500' away it was half as large. It was
proportionally larger or smaller as the assumed distance
is made larger or smaller. Once the object starts to move
it becomes difficult to see because the image stretches
and fades against the sky background. In spite of the
difficulty in determining the boundaries of the blurred
images, I was able to estimate the distance from the
right side of the object in the last stationary frame to
the rightmost end of the image in each succeeding frame
after the acceleration started. These measurements
provide estimates of the angular distance traveled each
frame time, 1/30 = 0.033 sec. These distances increase
as time goes on. There are five frames of data before
the object leaves the field of view. I plotted the estimated
distances of the right edge of each image relative to
the right side of the image in the last stationary frame
on log-log paper (see reference 9) in order to determine
the nature of the acceleration. I found that the slope
of the log-log plot of distance vs time seems to be
nearly linear with a slope of 2. It can be shown by
mathematical analysis that this means the acceleration
was approximately constant and that the distance as a
function of time was, therefore, representable by an
equation of the form x = (l/2)at 2,
which is the "constant acceleration law" that was used
above in the discussion of UFO disappearances by
acceleration. In this law a is the "acceleration
constant." When a = "g", the acceleration of gravity, 32
ft/sec2 or 9.8 meters/sec2,
this equation describes how objects fall in the constant
gravitational field close to the surface of the earth
(excluding the drag effect of the atmosphere). As an example of the constant acceleration law, consider Figure 1 ![]() which shows several
graphs. Two of these at the right side are labelled
"Freely Falling Object." To create the upper falling
object graph I twice videotaped a small ball as it fell.
By replaying the tape frame-by-frame I was able to measure
the distance downward on the monitor screen from the
moment of release to within a temporal accuracy of about
one tenth of a frame time or 1/300 sec and a distance
accuracy of a couple of millimeters. The measurements from
these two experiments are represented by small squares.
Although small experimental difficulties, which are common
in simple experiments like this, kept the two experimental
data sets from agreeing exactly, it is clear that both
experiments produced distances downward on the monitor
screen (measured upward on the graph) which are close to
the predictions of the constant acceleration law which is
represented by the solid line through the data points.
(For the expert: the gravitational acceleration law, (1/2)
gt2, where g = 32'/sec2 was
appropriately scaled by the distance from the camera to
the falling ball (12.8') and this scaling yielded an
angular acceleration constant of 2.5 rad/sec2.
The equation (1/2) 2.5 t2, after multiplication
by the focal length, 535 mm, predicts that actual distance
that the image would
move after time t has elapsed.) The lower of the two
falling object graphs, which is the solid line lying
closest to the horizontal axis (lower right), shows the
predicted distances on the monitor screen if the ball had
been 1,000' away, as assumed above for the distance to the
Martin Allen object, rather than 12.8'. Clearly at that
distance the ball would have hardly appeared to move in
the 1/2 sec of elapsed time presented on the graph. Now contrast this with the graph
marked "Martin Allen." I have drawn a solid line though
the data points (triangles). Note that the solid line
has a continuous curvature, just as has the graph for
the freely falling body. This curvature is the signature
of an object which is being accelerated, that is, the
speed is steadily increasing. The angular acceleration
constant which fits the Martin Allen data (the leading
end points of the elongated images of the UFO) is about
15.8 rad/sec2. As pointed out above, the
distance to the UFO is not known, so that actual
acceleration constant in ft/sec2 cannot
be determined. However, if it were 1,000' away then the
acceleration constant was about 15,800 ft/sec2 or
almost 500 times the acceleration of gravity. (If the
distance were more or less the acceleration would be
more or less in proportion to the distance.) For a
"graphic" illustration of what this means, compare the
Martin Allen graph with the lower of the two freely
falling body graphs. The image of a freely falling body
1,000' away would travel about 2 mm on the monitor
screen in 1/2 sec. In the same amount of time the UFO
image would move about 500 times farther, 1,000 mm, a
distance which would lie far beyond the boundaries of
the video screen. Motion which obeys the constant
acceleration law is also consistent with the following
velocity equation: v = at, where v is the velocity.
Hence after three frames (3/30 = 0.1 sec) the angular
velocity was about 1.59 rad/sec. At 1,000' this would
correspond to 1,590'/sec, which is greater than the
speed of sound at sea level (1,090'/sec = "Mach 1"). By
the time the object left the screen after 5 frames (5/30
= 1/6 sec) it was moving at about 2.65 rad/sec. If it
were 1,000' away it was traveling at 2,650'/sec or more
than Mach 2. As is usual for high speed UFO sightings,
the witness heard no sound associated with either its
hovering or departure. ED WALTERS VIDEOS Ed Walters had not seen any UFOs
for quite a while when he began to notice some strange
objects appearing briefly north of his house, which is
on the south side of the Santa Rosa Sound and looks
northward toward the Gulf Breeze peninsula. On the 15th
of November, 1993, he was working in his office when he
noticed a strange object hovering in the sky to the
northwest, possibly over the Santa Rosa Sound or over
Gulf Breeze. He grabbed his Sony camcorder and ran
outside and videotaped it as it hovered. The image is
very small, about 1.5 mm in size on a 270 mm wide
monitor and appears as a spot that is slightly darker
than the white cloud background. Although the camera
jiggled, as is evident from the motion of the background
scenery, the sudden motion of the object is apparent
because it moves in a direction that is nearly
perpendicular to the jiggle motion of the camera. The
image is so faint, being just slightly more apparent
than the random electronic TV noise, often called
"snow", that it is difficult to accurately measure its
position. Ed saw another UFO on November
18 but didn't get any video. He then decided to set up
his old video camera on a tripod in his office to be
available when needed. He used his old camera, even
though it needs an external VCR to record the video,
because it has a zoom lens. (This videocamera predates
the popular "camcorder" which has the camera and the
recorder together in one "box.") At about 4:35 PM, on
November 23, Ed was working in his office while watching
the Sally Jesse Raphael (SJR) show on TV when he saw a
strange object, which he thought was a UFO, appear in
the sky. As quickly as possible he turned on the
videocamera. However, the object disappeared before he
could point the camera in its direction. Hence the
beginning of the video shows him pointing it in various
directions looking for the UFO. (Throughout the video
one can hear the TV in the background. At the beginning
of the video the TV was transmitting advertisements
typical of the break in a show at the half hour point in
time. Then the SJR show resumed.) At 30 seconds into the
video he stated that he was going to leave the camera
running in case it should come back. He resumed his work
while watching TV (the sound of the TV can be heard in
the background) and was no longer looking out the
window. About 40 seconds later, 70 seconds into the
video, the object appeared again as a small darkish
object at the upper right side of the screen. It
traveled in a steady motion downward and to the left,
crossing the screen - about 10° of angular distance - in
57 frames of the video which corresponds to 1.9 seconds
(at 30 frames/sec). (If it were at the distance of the
far shore, 8,000 ft, it traveled at about 200 mph.)
Thirteen seconds later Ed said "Ooop, oop, oop. There it
is! Right out there." Immediately he began to turn the
camera to point it at the UFO. In a few seconds he had
it in the center of view of the videocamera. The scenery
below the UFO is the shore and horizon line on the north
side of the Santa Rosa Sound. Unfortunately the image is
too small and poorly defined to show any details of
shape. However, Ed gave the following description of the
UFO as he looked through the telephoto lens of his 35 mm
camera (no film in the camera!): "it looks like an egg
on the top and an egg on the bottom and... huh!... a
bunch of ball-like things around the outside." (Note:
this description matches the shape of the UFO he
photographed along with an F-15 jet on January 12,1994;
see reference 12.) The UFO remained motionless until
about 2 min and 55 seconds into the video, at which time
it disappeared in one frame. During the last 20 seconds
of the video Ed said he was going to the closet to get
some film for the camera. To do so he had to look away
from the UFO for several seconds. It was gone when he
returned to the camera. He did not see it disappear. I
have not been able to find any evidence of motion of the
UFO. It just simply disappeared. However, I cannot rule
out the possibility that it moved so rapidly in some
direction that its contrast against the sky diminished
to a value comparable to that of the electronic noise.
(Note: the disappearance is not a result of the camera
being turned off and back on again after it was gone
because the sound track on the video is continuous.) Over the next couple of days Ed
saw brief flashes of light in the daylight sky around
Gulf Breeze. (Note: other MUFON members, the 'Gulf
Breeze Research Team,' also saw brief flashes, although
not necessarily at the same time as Ed.) About noon on
November 27 he decided to take his camcorder and go to
the Pensacola beach to see if he could film anything
away from buildings and houses. When he got to the beach
he turned on the camera and left it on continuously as
he walked on the beach. He first panned around the area,
showing the tall apartment houses to the east of him,
perhaps 2 miles away, and the white beach running
east-west. A motor boat went past heading east. The
glint of the sun off the waters of the Gulf to the south
of him was apparent. As he was walking westward and
looking around he suddenly noticed a UFO approaching
from the north, over his right shoulder. He moved
quickly toward the sand dune (north of him) as the UFO
moved to a location in the sky east of him. He knelt
down on the sand and pointed the camera eastward, thus
capturing the UFO and also the sky and distant buildings
which he had videotaped only a minute before when there
was no UFO. All this time the camera was running and
recording the sounds of the ocean and of Ed describing
what was happening. The UFO image is about 4 mm wide by
2 mm high and has a bright glint on the right side,
toward the sun. (The angular size is about 7.5 mr by 3.7
mr which corresponds to 7.5' by 3.7' at 1,000' for
example.) Because of its relatively large size and
considerable contrast against the blue sky one would
think that it would be visible at least as a streak if
it moved. However, after remaining stationary for a
minute or so, in one frame it disappeared. The
implication is an acceleration so great that the UFO
moved a considerable distance in 1/30 sec. (Jeffrey
Sainio, analyzing the video field by field - there are
two fields per frame - could see only a slight change in
the field before it disappeared indicating a
considerable motion in 1/60 sec.) THE SHADOW KNOWS Just how great is the
acceleration of a UFO? The video evidence described
above provides evidence of large acceleration, but since
the distances to the UFOs are not known the actual
accelerations could not be calculated. However, now,
thanks to "the shadow" we can calculate an actual value. As of July 13, 1995, Ed had not
seen a UFO since April, 1994 (see reference 13). But on
July 13 he saw a strange object flash through the sky
northwest of his house. Thinking that maybe the UFO
would appear again, he set up his old videocamera, with
its telephoto lens, on a camera tripod in his office.
Since he didn't know when the UFO might return he
decided to just turn the recorder on and tape
continuously. He initially thought he would tape at the
'extra long play' speed, which would give him six hours
of video. However, fortunately, he decided to use the
standard play setting on the video speed because this
speed gives better resolution. So he began a daily
regimen of starting a two hour tape in the morning, say
at 10:00 AM, and then returning to review it two hours
later. His method was to rewind the tape and then review
it at high speed, hoping to be able to spot a UFO if it
appeared briefly. He would then rewind the tape again
and place it back into the VCR to record the next two
hours. He did this two or three times a day for the next
several days. During the afternoon of July 14
he started the tape at 10:00 a.m. and again at 2:00
p.m.. Shortly after 2:00 PM he called me up and told me
that he had briefly seen a UFO again and that he was
trying to catch it on tape. When he reviewed the tape
two hours or so later he found that he had recorded his
side of the phone conversation. Furthermore, he found
that farther on in the tape he had recorded a very small
image of a very oddly shaped object... a UFO that he had
not seen at the time of its appearance because he was
busy. The next day he showed it to Bland and Carol Pugh
but told no one else. He did not even tell me about this
sighting, which occurred after our conversation. During the next several days he
repeated this procedure of recording two hour tapes
several times each day. Unfortunately he was in the
habit of rewinding and reusing tapes. I say
unfortunately because in some way, not clearly recalled,
he managed to record over the July 14 tape. He doesn't
recall exactly when this was, but it might have happened
on July 18 when he saw the UFO appear again and
scrambled to insert a videotape and record it. Whatever
the explanation, the fact is that the recording of the
July 14 UFO no longer exists. He was, by this time, in the
habit of just letting the tripod-mounted camera point in
a fixed direction and record while he pursued his daily
activities. Since he was just pointing it in a single
direction he was faced with a decision of whether to use
the zoom capability of the lens or to use the wide angle
setting. He knew that the zoom setting narrows the field
of view, thereby reducing the chance that the UFO might
enter the field of view of the camera, while at the same
time providing larger, more detailed images of any UFO
that might enter the field of view. On the other hand,
he knew that the unzoomed setting provides a wider field
of view, thereby increasing the chance that the UFO
would be within its field of view, but that the UFO
image would be small and indistinct if it were far away.
Eventually he decided that there already were enough
videos showing small, indistinct images of UFOs, so he
would take the chance that the UFO would pass through
the smaller field of view of the fully zoomed lens. On the 18th of July Ed saw the
UFO again but did not get a video since the UFO did not
pass into the field of view (he didn't realize this
until after the sighting was over). He kept up his
surveillance-by-video for several more days and then, on
July 21 he got lucky! Not only did he see the UFO,
giving him an opportunity to turn the camera on and
point it in its general direction, he also managed to
briefly record the UFO itself with the full zoom. He was working at his desk
listening to tape recorded rock music at about 9:30 AM
to 9:40 AM (he wasn't sure of the exact time) when he
first noticed a flash in the sky and he saw a strange
object travel quickly from west to east, passing north
of him over the Santa Rosa sound or over Gulf Breeze. It
was gone too quickly for him to turn on the camera.
Suddenly it appeared again, once more passing through
the sky to the west, although this time not in a
continuous motion (it temporarily reversed direction
once). He turned on the camera and immediately described
what he had seen just moments before. The audio channel
of the videotape recorded Ed's description while the
video channel recorded the scenery, including the waves
moving roughly westward on the water of the Santa Rosa
Sound, the trees on the distant shore about 7,600 ft
away and the sky above. TRANSCRIPT OF THE AUDIO CHANNEL
Ed didn't tell me about this
video until a week and a half later, on August 2. He
told me that he hadn't mentioned it because he didn't
think the video was very important since the UFO only
appeared briefly and since it had an overall shape
similar to what he photographed numerous times in 1987
and 1988. In other words, it appeared roughly like an
inverted layer cake, with a short bottom section that
had a diameter smaller than the main upper section
(similar to the UFO photographed by Martin Allen). The
bottom of the lower section was what he had called the
power ring during the 1987 and 1988 sightings because it
was very bright underneath. However, there were no
lights visible in this case on either the top or the
bottom. He said the color was not bluish-metallic like
the 1987-88 UFO, but, instead, it was brownish. He said
that the appearance of the UFO in the video was very
brief as it moved into the field of view and back out
again within a second. What impressed him the most was
the ability of the UFO to reverse its motion in such a
short time. As we talked Ed got more
interested in the video and wanted me to estimate the
size of the UFO. Therefore I asked him to do an
experiment. (Ed, unlike any other UFO witness I have
worked with, has done many experiments over the years,
including experiments that would have exposed his photos
as hoaxes if they had been hoaxes.) I needed to
calibrate his camera-video screen combination to
determine its effective focal length. Ed placed a
yardstick at a distance of about 30 feet from the camera
(outdoors on the patio overlooking the Santa Rosa Sound)
and determined that it's image was a little bit wider
than the 11" wide video screen. That meant that the
field of view of the camera-screen combination was about
3'/30' = 0.1 rad or about 5.7°. Then, by stopping the
videotape and looking at the UFO in one frame he was
able to determine that the UFO image was about 1/2"
wide. Hence its angular size was about [(0.5")/(11")] x
0.1 rad = 0.0045 rad, which corresponds to about 4.5' at
1,000', 9' at 2,000', etc. He had the impression that
the UFO was about as far away as the tree line on the
opposite shore of the Santa Rosa sound, a distance of
about 8,000'. At that distance the UFO would have been
about 34' wide. (This initial estimate is only 7' larger
than the value determined after the careful analysis
described below.) In order to observe the shape
and color and to measure the size of the UFO, Ed had to
run the video backwards and forwards several times. He
commented to me about the fast reversal of motion which
seemed to occur in only two or three frames. And then he
said something which came as great surprise, even a
shock, to me: "I think I see a shadow." When he said
this my alertness level increased several fold because
the existence of a shadow could mean that there was a
possibility for the three-dimensional location of the
UFO! But the UFO appeared to be in the sky above the
distant shore. Where, I wondered, could there be a
shadow? "What?" I asked. "You mean a shadow on the
water?" "Nope. A shadow on the trees." This caught me by
surprise. How could that be? I asked Ed to measure the
height, on the TV screen, of the UFO image above the
shoreline and above the trees. Ed did so. It was about
5" above the distant shoreline and several inches above
the tree line on his monitor screen. That meant that the
UFO must have been just at the right height above the
water to cast the shadow on the trees! Furthermore, the
sun must have been in the direction of a line drawn from
the shadow to the UFO. I quickly turned on my computer
and called up an astronomy program (Expert Astronomer,
distributed by Expert Software, Coral Gables, Florida,
33134) which indicated that at 9:30 AM the sun was at an
azimuth of about 90 degrees and at 9:40 it was at about
91 deg. Ed then used a compass to determine that the
camera was pointing at an angle of about 310 degrees
magnetic (which turned out to be within a degree or so
of the geographically determined azimuth). I knew that
with these data and an accurate measurement of the
horizontal spacing between the UFO and the darkened area
I could determine the actual location of the UFO in 3-D
space.... if the darkened area actually were the shadow. A few days later I received a
copy of the video. I studied it carefully and determined
that there is, indeed, a roundish, rapidly moving area
that slightly darkens the tree images as it moves first
to the right and then to the left, just as the UFO moves
to the right and then to the left. This darkened area
first appears at the left of the screen a fraction of a
second after the UFO has entered the field of view. The
darkened area moves to the right, decelerates and stops
moving at the same time that the UFO decelerates and
stops. Immediately after stopping the darkened area then
accelerates and moves to the left, again in synchronism
with the motion of the UFO. In other words, the dynamics
of the darkened area generally match the UFO dynamics.
The similarity in motion of the darkened area and the
UFO is strong evidence that the dark area is, in fact, a
very weak shadow of an opaque body, the UFO. But is it
in the right place as determined by the sun? To answer
that question I carried out more careful calculations
based on careful measurements of the video images.
Figure 2 ![]() shows the video frame with the UFO at its rightmost position. Figure 3 is a computer enhanced
image by Jeff Sainio which shows the location of the
shadow area along with the UFO image. ANALYSIS OF THE VIDEO Ed's video of the yardstick at 30' provided the needed angular calibration: a distance of 10" at 30', with an angular size of 0.0278 rad or 1.60°, created an image 7.5 cm long on my 13" (diagonal) monitor screen. This corresponds to an angle calibration factor of .021 deg/cm or 0.021 deg/mm. At my request Ed made and videotaped a square grid several feet in size. This experiment showed that the horizontal and vertical magnification factors of the optical-electronic system are same, so there is very little lateral distortion of the image. I measured several important distances within the frame when the UFO and the (assumed) shadow were at the farthest to the right and not moving. These distances were measured on a computer-enhanced video frame provided by Jeff Sainio and are illustrated in Figure 4 ![]() the vertical distance from the water line to the center of the UFO image - 12.8 cm; the vertical distance from the water line to the center of the shadow image - 1.1 cm; the horizontal distance from the center of the shadow image to the center of the UFO image - 7.6 cm. Because of the problems of fuzziness of the images it is difficult to determine the exact center points so these measurements could be off by (+/-)0.1 cm. These measurements were then combined with the measured sighting direction (310° +/- 1°) and the solar azimuth (90° at 9:30 AM or 91° 9:40 AM) to determine the location of the UFO, assuming that the darkened area is, indeed, the shadow. Figure 5 ![]() illustrates the geometry
of the situation. To be perfectly exact one would set up a
three dimensional model since the UFO was above the water.
However, the angular elevation of the UFO image is only
12.8 cm x 0.21°/cm = 2.69° above the distant shoreline, so
it is allowable to use a planar triangle approximation,
i.e., as if the UFO were on the water surface. The
illustration shows the locations of the camera, the shadow
on the trees and the UFO. Two sighting lines emanate from
the camera location and travel toward the UFO and the
shadow, respectively. The third line emanates from the
shadow and points in the direction of the sun. This line,
of course, passes through the location of the UFO. The
angle between the sighting lines from the camera is
determined by the 7.6 cm horizontal distance between the
shadow and a point at shadow level that is directly below
the image of the UFO: 7.6 x 0.21 = 1.6°. The size of the
acute angle between the sighting line to the assumed
shadow and the direction to the sun at 9:30 AM when the
solar azimuth was about 90° is 310° - 270° = 40°. At 9:40
AM the solar azimuth was about 91° and therefore the acute
angle would be 1° less, or 39°. All three angles of the
triangle can be calculated from trigonometric
relationships using the angle values 40° or 39° along with
1.6°. The distance from the camera to the assumed shadow
on the trees was estimated from a map to be about 7,600
ft. Finally, using the law of sines the other sides of the
triangle can be calculated. For 9:30 AM the result is
based on solving these equations:
where H is the horizontal
component of the distance from the shadow to the UFO
(i.e., the distance as seen from far above the ground
level) and D is the horizontal distance from the camera
to the UFO. The above equations yield H = 320? and D =
7,360'. As I have pointed out
previously, I calculated these distances assuming that
the dark image area on the trees is the shadow.
Fortunately there is a way to check this assumption. If
it were the shadow, then, not only would the line from
the shadow to the UFO point toward the sun's azimuth
(the basic assumption used in the above calculation),
but also the shadow-UFO line would point upward toward
the sun's angular elevation. To calculate the angular
elevation it is first necessary to calculate the actual
altitude of the center of the UFO, Au, above the
altitude of the center of the assumed shadow, As; i.e.
to calculate (Au-As). Then it is necessary to calculate
the ratio (Au-As)/H and finally to find the inverse
tangent of (the angle whose tangent is) that ratio. The
center of the UFO image is about 12.8 cm above the water
line image. This corresponds to an angle of 2.69 deg.
and at distance D = 7360' its altitude is Au = 7360
tan(2.69) = 346'. The center of the shadow is 1.1 cm or
0.23 deg. above the water line which corresponds to As =
7,600 tan(0.23) = 31' above the water line. The
difference in these heights, Au - As = 346-31 = 315', is
the altitude of the UFO above the assumed shadow. The
angular elevation of the shadow-UFO line is therefore
the inverse tangent of [(Au-As)/H]= (315/320) = 0.984
which is almost exactly 44.5° (inverse tan(1.000) = 45°
exactly). If the complete calculation is
repeated for the time 9:40 AM, with 40° replaced by 39°,
corresponding to the solar azimuth of 91°, we find H =
326', D = 7,349', Au = 345', As = 31', and the angular
elevation being the inverse tangent of (345-31)/326 =
0.963 which is 43.9°. Notice that the calculated
elevation angle shrinks from about 44.5° to about 44° as
the assumed time of the video increases from 9:30 to
9:40 AM. So, how does this compare with
the actual solar elevations at these times? The
astronomy program says that at 9:30 AM the elevation was
about 43° and at 9:40 AM it had increased to about 45°.
Since the elevation calculated from Ed's video is
greater than the solar elevation at 9:30 AM (44.5°vs
43°) but is less than the solar elevation at 9:40 AM
(44° vs 45°) it is clear that at some time between these
times the elevation calculated from the video would
equal the actual solar elevation. Of course,
calculations such as these are not expected to be
perfectly accurate, either in the case of the astronomy
program which contains approximations and rounding off
errors, or in the calculation based upon Ed's video,
which contains measurement errors. Therefore these
calculations do establish a good degree of consistency
between Ed's video and the independent solar elevation
data and provide strong evidence that the darkened area
on the trees is, in fact, the shadow of the UFO. SIZE AND SPEED OF THE UFO Using the above results the size
and speed of the UFO are easily determined. The slant
range from the camera up to the UFO was approximately
7,360'/cos(2.69) = 7,370'. Because the edges of the UFO
image are not perfectly distinct precise estimates of
the size cannot be made. To within an accuracy of about
10% the UFO image is about 1 cm (0.21°)wide by 1/2 cm
(0.105°) high on the monitor screen. Therefore its
actual size was about (7,370 tan(0.21)=) 27' by 13.5'.
These estimates could be off by a foot or two. The motion of the image of the
shadow on the trees proves that the UFO, as indicated on
Figure 5, moved parallel to the beach. The reason for
concluding that the UFO moved parallel to the beach is
based on three facts: (1) as nearly as can be determined
from the very faint image, the shadow stays at the same
elevation on the tree line as it moves back and forth,
(2) the UFO image travels at a constant elevation, to
within the accuracy of these measurements, and (3) the
sun was not on the horizon but at an appreciable
elevation angle (about 44°). If the UFO had moved at a
slight angle to the beach, its distance from the
vertical "wall" of the tree line would have changed and
its shadow would have moved up and down on the tree line
as it traveled to the right and then to the left along a
horizontal path. In fact, if the UFO had moved at a
sufficiently steep angle to the beach its shadow would
have moved either closer to the water or farther from
the water than the distance of the tree line, and in
either case the shadow would have disappeared from the
tree line. Since the image of the shadow is not observed
to move up and down I conclude that the UFO maintained a
fixed distance from the beach. Since the beach at that
point along the shore runs essentially perpendicular to
the line of sight from the camera, the UFO motion was
also essentially perpendicular to the line of sight. The horizontal position of the center of the UFO image as a function of frame number is illustrated in ![]() with the position when it
first appears taken as zero distance at frame 0 or time 0.
The graph shows both the positions moving to the right
(squares) and also to the left (triangles). The positions
were measured in mm on the screen. A mm of motion
(0.021°), projected to the distance of the UFO, 7,370',
corresponds to about 7,370 tan (0.021) = 2.7'
(perpendicular to the line of sight to the camera). The
slope of the graph of position vs time is the speed.
Changes in slope correspond to changes in speed, i.e., to
acceleration or deceleration (which is acceleration in the
opposite direction to the motion). The slope of the graph
as the UFO moved to the right shows that the speed was
essentially constant at 9.1 mm per frame time for 11
frames, after which the speed decreased rapidly to zero.
Since a frame time is 1/30 sec (at 30 frames/sec, the
standard video rate), the UFO traveled to the right at a
rate of [(9.1 mm/(1/30 sec) x 2.7'/mm] - 737'/sec or about
500 mph before decelerating. The deceleration to zero speed
at a position 121 mm from the left edge of the field of
view required about 4 1/2 frames. Then the UFO reversed
its direction and moved to the left. The acceleration to
full "exit" velocity required about 6 1/2 frame times.
The slope of the graph as the UFO traveled to the left
is about 10 mm per frame time indicating that it
departed at a slightly higher speed than it entered.
Using the calibration of 2.7'/mm and the frame duration,
1/30 sec, one finds that the speed to the left was about
810'/sec or 552 mph. Since the UFO stopped its
forward motion in about 4 1/2 frames, the average
deceleration was 737'/sec divided by 4.5 frame times
(0.15 sec) or about 4,900'/sec2, or about 150
"g's". The average acceleration (to the left) was about
810'/sec divided by 6.5 frame times (0.217 sec) or about
3,740'/sec2 or about 117
g's. (Note to the physics purist: the deceleration can
be interpreted as an acceleration to the left caused by
a force directed toward the left. The force began 4 1/2
frame times before the motion stopped and continued as
the UFO slowed, reversed direction and subsequently
accelerated to its final leftward speed. The reversing
force did not drop to zero until the UFO reached its
final leftward velocity about 6 1/2 frames after it
stopped moving to the right.) The reversal of direction on a
dime (with 9 cents change!) is an anomaly that we can't
explain. THE SHADOW KNOWS I have made use of the presence
of the shadow on the tree surface to calculate the
location of the UFO in three dimensional space, so the
existence of the shadow is an important feature of this
video. However, the shadow itself seems a bit unusual in
that it is so faint and it seems to be almost twice as
large as the size of the UFO itself. The question then
arises as to whether or not this is consistent with what
might be expected from a real object (UFO) a few hundred
feet from the far shore. The following discussion shows
that it is consistent. The shadow of an object blocking
light from a source such as the sun consists of two
regions: the umbra and the surrounding penumbra. Within
the umbra there is no direct illumination from the sun.
Within the penumbra, which surrounds the umbra, there is
illumination by only part of the sun's disc. Outside the
penumbra there is total illumination by the sun. If the
sun were infinitely distant or if it were a point source
of light rather than a "disc" the penumbral region would
not exist, that is, the edge of the shadow would be
sharp and the transition from fully illuminated to
completely shaded would occur over zero distance. Thus
the existence of the penumbral region, which is a region
of gradual darkening, is a consequence of the angular
size of the light source. If you imagine a spherical
object blocking the light source, then the perfect
shadow of the sphere, which would be created if the
source were a far distant point of light, would be a
circular area with the same radius as the object itself.
As the effective angular size of the light source grows
the shadow becomes less sharp, more diffuse or "less
perfect." The penumbral region is an annulus with an
outer radius and an inner radius. (The inner radius of
the penumbra equals the radius of the umbra.) For a
circular object of radius R at distance D from a surface
that is perpendicular to the light rays, the outer
radius, Ro, of the annular penumbra is given by the
following equation: Ro = R + D tan (A/2), where A is the
angular size of the light source in degrees. Under the
same conditions the inner radius, Ri, is given by the
equation Ri = R - D tan(A/2). Thus the width of the
penumbral region, Ro - Ri, is 2D tan(A/2) ( = D tan A
for small angles). Within this annular region the
brightness of the surface varies continually from the
brightest outside the penumbra to the darkest within the
umbra. The brightness gradient, or the slope of the
curve of brightness vs distance (radius), is greatest
halfway through the penumbral region at radius R.
Because Ro is larger than R the shadow can appear to be
larger than the object itself. Just how much bigger the
shadow appears would depend upon the angular size of the
light source and the amount of brightness contrast
between the umbral region and the unshaded surface. If there were no atmosphere on
the earth, shadows would be (almost) completely dark.
However, the gasses and particulate matter within the
atmosphere scatter the sunlight in all directions. Areas
shaded from direct sunlight still receive light from the
sky and from surrounding objects. Hence, even on a clear
day the umbral region will not be totally dark. As the
cloud cover obscures more and more of the sun the
contrast in brightness between the umbral region and the
areas outside the penumbra is reduced, ultimately to
(almost) zero when the sun is completely obscured. As
the umbral region gets brighter (less dark) with
increasing cloud cover another phenomenon occurs: the
shadow appears to grow in size. This is because the
effective angular size of the sun, angle A above,
actually increases somewhat with cloud obscuration (an
effect I discovered many years ago (in the middle
1970's) while working on the Trent/McMinnville photos).
There is a monotonic relationship between the effective
angular size and the contrast between the unshaded and
umbral areas on a surface. For a clear sky the
brightness ratio or contrast (outside brightness divided
by umbral brightness) is a maximum value (more than 20
to 1) and the effective angular size is about 0.5°,
which is what would be expected from geometric
considerations alone. However as the obscuration
increases the effective angular size increases, reaching
almost 3° when the sun is almost totally obscured. In
this particular UFO case the shadow is weak enough so
that the effective angular size of the sun could be as
large as 2°. To an observer at a distance from the
surface the radius of the shadow will appear larger than
radius the object itself, but it will not appear as
great as Ro calculated above because the outer edge of
the penumbra has too little contrast with respect to the
brightness of the surrounding sky to be detected. The above discussion shows how
the weather conditions (haze, thin cloud) could have
caused the shadow to be very faint (very low contrast
with the surrounding brightness). It also provides an
explanation of one way in which the shadow of the UFO
can appear larger than the UFO itself. There is also
another, more important effect, specific to this
particular video, which causes the shadow to be larger
than the UFO: if the shadow of an object appears on a
surface which it not perpendicular to the light rays,
i.e., not perpendicular to the line from the center of
the shadow to the light source (and passing through the
center of the object), then the shadow will be larger
than the object (everyone knows this... simply look at
your own shadow when the sun is near the horizon!).
Assume for simplicity that a sphere makes a shadow on
some vertical surface that is perpendicular to
horizontally traveling light rays. The perfect shadow of
this sphere (distant point source of light, no
atmosphere) is a circular area with a diameter equal to
the diameter of the sphere (and the center of the sphere
lies along the line from the light source to the center
of the shadow). Imagine rotating this surface about a
vertical axis through the center of the shadow. Now the
vertical height of the shadow is the same as before, but
the horizontal width is now larger by a factor (l/cos
B), where B is the rotation angle (of the normal, or
perpendicular, to the surface away from the direction of
the light rays). The shadow now has an elliptical shape.
For B = 90°- 50° = 40°, as in this case (see Figure 5)
the shadow expansion factor is 1.3. Now imagine raising
the elevation of the light source an angle E above
horizontal while leaving the sphere fixed in place. The
elliptical shadow of the sphere will move downward on
the vertical surface and it will tilt (the major axis
will not be horizontal, as before). It will also grow
some more because the angle between the normal to the
surface and the direction of the light rays increases.
This angle is now equal to the inverse cosine of [(cos
B)(cos E)]. If E = 44°, as in this UFO case, the angle
between the surface normal and the light rays is 56° and
so the expansion factor is now 1.3/cos(56) = 1.8. Thus
the major axis of the elliptical shadow would be 1.8
times greater than the diameter of the sphere and the
minor axis would be the same width as the diameter of
the sphere. The major axis is tilted with respect to the
horizontal axis by an angle equal to the inverse tangent
of [(tan E)/(sin B)] which, in this case, would be about
56°. The above discussion shows how
the projection of the shadow on a tilted surface changes
the shape of the shadow of a very simple surface
(sphere). However, this UFO was not a sphere and so its
shadow was not an ellipse. The UFO can be crudely
modelled as a vertical cylinder about 27' in diameter
and 10' high (ignoring the smaller diameter protrusion
from the bottom). The center of the UFO was at a
horizontal angle (B) of about 40° and a vertical angle
(E) of about 44° with respect to the normal
(perpendicular) to the "surface" provided by the tree
line. By simple shadow projection of a 2.7 to 1 cylinder
on a tilted surface using the above angles one can show
that the shadow is approximately a fat oval shape which
is longest along a direction tilted at 60 - 70° with
respect to horizontal. Unfortunately the actual shadow
image was so faint that variations in the reflectivity
of the trees have distorted its shape. It appears nearly
circular. However, the darkest part of the upper portion
lies above and to the right of the darkest part of the
lower portion, thus producing a slight "tilt" in the
expected direction. Thus, although the shape of the
shadow does not seem to be exactly as expected, it does
appear to be about twice as large as the UFO and so is
consistent with what would be expected from the
combination of the effect of the increased effective
angular size of the sun (making the penumbra larger than
normal) and the effect of projecting the shadow onto the
tree "surface." ANOMALY SQUARED The existence of a UFO is, by itself, an anomaly. Then there are the anomalously large deceleration and acceleration which have, for the first time, been quantified. These are "first order" anomalies which are apparent upon visual inspection of the video. However, there is also a second order anomaly which only became apparent after careful analysis of the motion of the shadow of the UFO. This anomaly was discovered by Jeff Sainio when he was trying to add frames of the video together to make a better image of the shadow. He and I had assumed that if he shifted each frame appropriately so as to keep the UFO image in one position as he added frames together (electronically laying one on top of another), that all of the shadow images would lie on top of one another. That is, we had assumed that the horizontal spacing between the UFO image and the shadow image would be constant. If this were so, then the images in all these frames would add together coherently, whereas the random noise (electronic video noise and variations in the reflectivity of the tree "surface") would add incoherently, thus providing an improvement in "signal to noise ratio" by a factor of approximately the square root of the number of frames added. We assumed that the spacing would be constant because the horizontal angle between the UFO and the shadow is, or should be, determined by the location (elevation and azimuth) of the sun. As I have already demonstrated, at its rightmost position the shadow of the UFO is exactly where we would expect it to be with the sun as the illuminating source. However, Jeff discovered that when the UFO image is moving, whether to the right or left, the shadow image is a small amount to the right of the position that would be expected with the sun as the illuminating source. Moreover, the magnitude of the shift in the shadow position changes with position. Figure 7 illustrates this anomaly. ![]() The vertical axis shows
the distance of the shadow image from the left edge of the
frame (in degrees) and the horizontal axis is frame
number. The solid line which passes through the circles
indicates the location of the geometrical shadow, that is,
where the shadow would be if it were aligned properly with
the sun and the UFO. (Essentially, the solid line shows
the motion of the UFO but shifted several degrees to the
left.) The squares are the positions of what appear to be
the darkest parts of the shadows. These positions can only
be estimated because the shadow is so faint and
"modulated" in a random manner by the reflectivity of the
tree "surface." The vertical lines through the squares
indicate the apparent widths of the shadows and thus are a
measure of uncertainty in the shadow position. Note that
at the top (center) of the graph, where the UFO and shadow
stopped moving, the agreement between the geometrical
shadow position and the actual shadow position is perfect,
to within the accuracy of determining the shadow position.
However the shadow positions deviate from the geometrical
positions at the left (entering the frame) and at the
right (leaving the frame) of the center of the graph. Jeff and I thought that
"pincushion" distortion in the lens might explain this
anomaly, even though for a good quality lens and the
narrow field of view one would not expect much field
distortion. To aid in our analysis Ed did yet another
experiment. He videotaped a grid of horizontal and
vertical lines at a distance of 30'. Analysis of the
video proved that there is very little optical
distortion, and certainly not enough to explain this
anomaly. I also studied the nature of the tree"wall" on
which the shadow appears. I could find nothing related
to the trees that could explain this effect. Hence, we
are left with the video evidence which seems to imply
that the light rays were somehow bent around the UFO! (Note: this video is discussed
further in the Appendix where it is compared with hoax
hypothesis. The conclusion is that it would be too
difficult for Ed to fake a video such as this.) CONCLUSION Recent videos show UFOs
accelerating and even "disappearing." These videos
provide, for the first time, quantitative evidence that
UFOs are capable of extreme acceleration and speed. Such
extreme acceleration immediately raises several
questions. How was the acceleration achieved in the
absence of any apparent means of propulsion (no rocket
blasts, no explosions, no obvious electric or magnetic
phenomena)? Why was there no noise associated with the
departure? What happened to the occupants, if any? These
are questions which have been asked repeatedly over the
last (nearly) fifty years. Because these questions have
been based on visual observations of possibly
questionable accuracy, such as the Powell/McClave report
cited above, they have generally been treated lightly
(if at all!) by scientists. But now, with some "hard"
data to go on, it appears that we must confront the
ridiculous (by our standards) evidence that phenomenal
acceleration, apparently without the usual
action-reaction, is possible. So far as we know, acceleration
is a result of the application of a force to an object.
However, a force does not "act alone:" a force on one
object requires an "equal and opposite" force on some
other object. This goes back to the long-ago discovery,
quantified several hundred years ago by Isaac Newton,
that a change in momentum (the product of velocity times
mass) of one object is accompanied by an opposite change
by some other object (conservation of momentum). This is
the famous "action-reaction" principle. Rockets work
because the hot gas molecules, rapidly expanding out
through the rear of the rocket, push hard - exert a
force - on the rocket body before they are ejected.
Firing a bullet out of a gun is another example of
action-reaction, as anyone who has fired a high power
rifle, a shotgun or a handgun is aware. Over a short
distance (inches) the force of expanding hot gases (the
exploding gunpowder) accelerates the bullet to
velocities so great that the bullet cannot be seen. If
the barrel of a gun were transparent so you could watch
what happens, you would see the bullet "disappear" from
the barrel. The examples of the
action-reaction principle at work in our flying machines
should be contrasted with the video image of the UFO
acceleration: there is no evidence of action-reaction
occurring...no propellers, no jet exhaust...nothing.
Yet, the fact that the UFO accelerated somewhat
uniformly, rather than just instantaneously achieving a
high travel velocity, suggests that a force was applied.
Newton's first law relates the force to the mass and
acceleration: F = ma, where F is the force on a massive
body and m is the amount of inertial mass. To get a
"feeling" for this equation, imagine holding in your
hand a 1 lb weight which, by definition, has a mass m =
1/32 of a "slug". The downward force on your hand is F =
ma = mg = (1/32 slug)(32 ft./sec2) = 1 lb.
(Note that the acceleration of gravity, g, is used in
place of a, even though the mass is not moving! Gravity
acts like acceleration. This is the basis for "general
relativity.") Now suppose you want to accelerate this 1
lb weight to the speed 1,590'/sec in 0.1 sec,
corresponding to the speed achieved by the UFO in the
Allen video if it were 1,000' away (see above), using a
force that produces a constant acceleration. How much
force would you have to apply? Use the velocity equation
to find the acceleration: a = v/t = (1,590'/sec)/0.1 sec
= 15,900'/sec2. Now use the force equation, F
= ma, to find F: (1/32) x 15,900'/sec2 =
497 lb! In other words, you would have to push on the
mass so hard for 0.1 sec that it would be like
supporting a 497 lb weight. During that 0.1 sec it would
travel (l/2)(15,900'/sec2) (0.12) = 79.5 ft.
You would have to maintain the constant force over this
distance, not an easy task unless you have very long
arms. Of course, the greater the acceleration and the
greater the mass, the greater the required force. But,
in any case, you have to supply the "reaction force." (Note: A UFOnaut inside a UFO
accelerating at 500 g's would be pushed by the walls of
the craft with a force that would make him seem to weigh
almost 500 times his "normal" weight on earth. A human
body might be crushed at that acceleration, and the skin
might be pulled off the bones, unless the human were
suspended in a liquid and the lungs and other body
cavities were filled with liquid.) Where, then, did the UFO get the
force to accelerate? What did it push against? Was there
something invisible in the sky pulling or pushing it?
Did it have an invisible jet-like exhaust? Trying to
answer questions such as these have led theorists to
speculate that the UFO uses magnetic fields to push
against the earth's magnetic field. However, even if one
were to assume that extremely high fields could be
created by the UFO, this mode of propulsion is
questionable because of the dipole or multipole nature
of magnetic fields (one tends to get rotation about an
axis rather than linear motion of the magnetic body).
Other suggestions are even more bizarre. If the inertial
mass were reduced a smaller force could produce the same
acceleration. Reduction of inertial mass by some factor
would, presumably, reduce the required force by the same
factor. If it were possible to reduce the inertial mass
to near zero, then a small amount of ejected matter or
even photons of light could propel an object. Some
people have proposed warping space or travel into
another dimension or time travel. Unfortunately,
"reduction of inertial mass," "space warp," "travel into
another dimension," "time travel," travel to a "higher
plane of existence," and other similar terms have no
operational meaning, so far as we know at present. That
is, no one knows how to do these things, or even if they
can be done. Another related question is, how
did the UFO manage to maintain itself at an altitude
above earth with no visible means of support? Magnetic
levitation has been proposed, but again the magnetic
field just doesn't work as simply as that and huge
fields around the UFO would be needed to support any
reasonable mass. Alternatively, one might conjecture
that, if a UFO could reduce its inertial mass, as
suggested above, then perhaps it could also reduce its
gravitational mass (since these are equal according to
numerous experiments). If the gravitational mass could
be reduced then the force against gravity needed to
support the UFO could be small, just as the accelerating
force could be small. Returning to the "right angle
turns" mentioned at the beginning of this paper, the
discovery that UFOs have the capability of extreme
acceleration provides a possible explanation for the
abrupt changes in direction that have been reported. To
change direction the UFO would apply to itself, in some
way, a decelerating force to arrest its motion in one
direction while applying to itself an accelerating force
for a sufficient time to achieve the desired speed in
the new direction. These forces would be of such extreme
magnitude that to the human observer it would appear
that the UFO "instantaneously" stopped its initial
motion and commenced its new motion. The bottom line is that UFO
dynamics is still a mystery. However, we now have some
evidence to establish the measure of that mystery. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the witnesses mentioned
herein for their reports. I thank Bland Pugh and Gary
Watson for investigating the Allen sighting, for
providing needed information and video copies and for
carrying out important experiments with the witness'
camera. I thank Ed Walters for taking the time to
perform experiments which were necessary for proper
evaluation of his videos, and I thank Jeff Sainio for
helpful discussions and for providing computer enhanced
versions of the videos. REFERENCES 1. MUFON report by
witness, E. Douglas & D. McKay, investigators (1996) 2. Witness testimony
as recalled by Lillian Sargent and by Bernice, her
daughter, in the late 1960's (Lillian was my
grandmother) 3. The Scientific
Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,D. S. Gilmor,
Editor; E. U. Condon, Project Director, published by the
Air Force in 1969; Bantam Edition, 1969 4. Maccabee,B.,"Fantastic
Flight of JALl628."International UFO Reporter,
March/April,1987(Center for UFO Studies, Chicago) 5. Walters, Ed and
Frances, The Gulf Breeze Sightings,
Morrow Pub. Co., NY (1990) 6. McDonald, James,
"Science, Technology and UFOs," a lecture presented in
January 8, 1968 to the United Aircraft Research
Laboratories, and "Some Pennsylvania Cases and their
Bearing on the Condon Report," a lecture presented at
Mansfield State College, May 15, 1969. Although McDonald
first mentioned the case in his January, 1968 lecture,
according to the second listed paper he interviewed
Powell before Powell's speech to the newspaper editors
in April, 1967. McDonald's lectures are available from
the Fund for UFO Research, Box 277, Mt. Rainier, MD
20712 7. Testimony of
William Powell, April 22, 1967. I thank Philip J. Klass
for sending me, in September, 1975, a copy of his
verbatim transcript of Mr. Powell's speech before the
American Society of Newspaper Editors. 8. Maccabee, Bruce,
"Not Just Another Evening Stroll" available from the
Fund for UFO Research, Box 277, Mt. Rainier, MD 20712;
this sighting is also presented in "Gulf Breeze Without
Ed." MUFON UFO Symposium Proceedings, 1991, pg. 209-211 9. Maccabee, B. and J.
Sainio, "Cruise-missile UFO Disappears",MUFON UFO
Journal #308, December 1993 10. Martin Allen
(pseudonym), private correspondence 11. Information from
the investigation by Bland Pugh and Gary Watson. 12. Maccabee, B., "Gulf
Breeze UFO Photo Analyzed," MUFON UFO Journal #314, June
1994 13. Maccabee, B.,
"Waterspout UFO Photographed," MUFON UFO Journal #319,
November, 1994 APPENDIX Ed's July 21 video has been
studied to determine whether or not it could be a hoax.
The following discussion asks and answers these
questions: if it were a hoax how would it be done, and
is the hoax hypothesis consistent with Ed's technical
ability and equipment? Very sophisticated
computer-aided image creation programs should be able to
create a video such as this which shows a "UFO" and
"shadow" moving with respect to the background. For
example, in a Hollywood-level production the hoaxer
could begin by videotaping the background scenery from
Ed's office along with a prepared speech to form the
audio track. Then the hoaxer would use sophisticated
computer aided image generation to superimpose the UFO
image and the shadow image appropriately in each frame.
True, it would take more than the average special
effects (SFX) person to think of including a computer
program to create a shadow image on the trees (it would
be much simpler to leave the shadow out; no one would
miss it) and an even more creative SFX person to make
sure that the shadow is in its correct position relative
to the UFO (i.e., to make the hoax shadow agree with the
solar shadow position) but there might be such a person.
Of course, to find the correct shadow position the
hoaxer would use an astronomy program that would
calculate the correct shadow position relative to the
UFO in each frame; there would be no loss of tracking of
the type illustrated in Figure 7. It would take an
exceptionally clever SFX person to think of making the
shadow NOT track the UFO perfectly. And, of course, the
SFX person would have to be sure that the UFO image was
appropriately blurred for motion on a frame by frame
basis (computer based model programs typically create
images with sharp, rather than motion blurred edges) and
the shadow image would have to be appropriately sized
(bigger than the UFO image, as discussed above),
appropriately faint and appropriately "modulated" by the
random reflectivities of the distant trees. In other
words, this SFX person would have to be a major genius,
use high powered technology and spend a lot of time to
get it right and all for.... nothing (no money, no
credit). So forget that. A method more appropriate to
Ed's "low tech" capabilities would be to have a model
UFO on a string or perhaps painted on a piece of glass.
With the camera stationary he would move the model,
silhouetted against the sky, into and out of the field
of view. Sounds easy so far. Why not just leave it at
that? But there is the shadow. Could he move a model
shadow along a string at the same time as the model UFO
in such a way that at the brief instant that the UFO was
stationary the model shadow and the model UFO would
appear to align with the sun? If the UFO and shadow
models were on separately operated strings, there would
be a low probability of making their motions match at
all, to say nothing of having them seem to align with
the sun. However, if he painted (or pasted) a model UFO
on a piece of plate glass and made a smudge on the glass
at the location of the shadow he could get them to move
together as he slid the plate glass to the right and
then to the left in front of the camera. Of course he
would have to take a course in astronomy and another in
optics and yet another in plane geometry in order to
know how to place the model shadow at the right place
relative to the model UFO in such a way that the images
of these models would appear to align with the sun. Ed
is a clever fellow, so say the skeptics. But, he's not
that clever! There would still be several problems: the
plate glass would have to be large and outside his
office. The camera lens was operated at full zoom and
was focused at infinity. Therefore, to have the model
images appear to be in focus as well as the distant
trees the models would have to be perhaps twenty or more
feet away. The piece of glass would have to be larger
than the field of view of the camera at all times since
no edges of plate glass are seen in the video. At twenty
feet the piece of glass would have to be at least two
feet high and more than three feet wide since it would
have to slide back and forth at least a foot. This glass
would have to be supported in such a way, perhaps on
some sort of track, such that it wouldn't tilt or wobble
as it is moved back and forth, and all supports and
mechanical devices would have to be outside the field of
view of the camera. All of these mechanical
technicalities would make the moving glass with painted
(pasted) on model hoax method very difficult. There are two other "minor"
problems: (1) any plate glass would cause reflections of
nearby objects or the sky (there are none), and (2) the
shadow model would track perfectly with the UFO model
since they are both on the same piece of glass. Now,
relative to problem (2), one could hypothesize TWO
pieces of glass side by side, one with the UFO model and
one with the shadow model and both moving at the same
time and at the correct speeds so that when they stop
moving during the period of motion reversal the shadow
and UFO appear to align with the sun. This would
compound the problem tremendously. (But Ed is a very,
very clever fellow...we are told.) However, problem (1)
above can't be solved (large sheets of glass that are
antireflectance coated on both sides at all visible
wavelengths aren't available). The bottom line is that any hoax
hypothesis which fairly accounts for the dynamics and
positions of the UFO image and the shadow... fails! I
conclude that the July 21 video is not a hoax. |