Ufology Research

I've talked about this kind of thing before, but this is the best example in a long time.

These days, pictures are not worth 1,000 words. Especially photos or videos of UFOs. It's bad enough that Photoshop and video suites have allowed idiots to fake most of the UFO visuals that are posted, but even when authentic video or a photo is posted, it's just downright sad.

A case in point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mAHLjD0l7A

The title is: White Glowing ORB UFO turns into a fake plane. Windsor Ontario Canada April 2 2010

The video runs about three minutes, and shows a distant light slowly moving low over some houses. During the video, the witness racks his camera's zoom to the max, causing it to overcompensate and make the light seem to become a large mottled balloon, taking on the shape of the internal camera optics. It's an obvious and basic problem with zooming out to the camera limit.

Even while the video is not zoomed, you can see small flashing lights at either side of the main object. It's clearly a plane, and as the video progresses you can see the wingtip lights get wider apart as the plane passes nearer to the witness.

The witness' interpretation? The "glowing orb: UFO takes on terrestrial camouflage and appears to be an aircraft, although it couldn't possibly be an airplane.

Comments on Youtube include things like "definitely not a plane" and "if it was a plane then why was it sitting for 5 minutes before it started moving?"

Well, that's what planes do and look like when they're approaching.

Such videos proliferate on the Net and get hardcore believers excited while at the same time allowing debunkers to use them to show that UFO buffs are unscientific and unreasonable. It's fuel for both sides, unfortunately.