Four Corners - Large Disk Seen From Private Plane at FL210 [Irrigation Circles]

I am not sure if it has been mentioned, but the pilot who sent in that picture must have known what he was looking at.
The crop circles really only give that "hovering UFO" impression from one direction, the one in the photo.
As the plane approached the spot from where the photo was taken it would have been obvious to the pilot what the circles on the ground were, and when it was past that point again it would have been obvious.
 
Charlie Wiser said:
What on earth did Elizondo mean by this (after making the point that as well as military pilots, we have sightings by commercial and civilian pilots):

External Quote:
I've just received permission today to share this with you.
Source: Elizondo's presentation in this Twitter post

He didn't reveal coordinates or names, so who exactly would have objected to him showing this photo without "permission"? Was someone denying permission until today? It wasn't classified. It's just a snapshot someone took out the window of a plane.

Even setting aside Elizondo's daring move to present Congress with a "UFO" photo without first attempting to rule out mundane explanations, it really feels like he said this only to hype up the mysteriousness of the image, to perhaps indicate the pilot felt themselves in danger for having seen something they weren't supposed to see.
Click to expand...
Corbell wanted credit. Lol.
 
Screenshot_20250503_091053_Google.jpg
 
MapperGuy said:
I am not sure if it has been mentioned, but the pilot who sent in that picture must have known what he was looking at.
The crop circles really only give that "hovering UFO" impression from one direction, the one in the photo.
As the plane approached the spot from where the photo was taken it would have been obvious to the pilot what the circles on the ground were, and when it was past that point again it would have been obvious.
Click to expand...

This was my first thought as well, but not just because of the illusion itself. The pilot flew over many such circles on this flight alone. Unless we're to believe they only looked down at one moment and happened to see this pair of circles and no others during the flight (or during previous and subsequent flights in the area), and that the circles create the UFO illusion in real life in the same way as they do in the grainy photo... the conclusion would be that the pilot knew their photo was irrigation circles.

Lue said the person who handed him the photo right before the briefing was the pilot who took the photo. If that's true, the pilot was trolling him. But I wouldn't be surprised if the person who handed him the photo had received it from someone else (and therefore did think it was a UFO), and that Lue removed the unknown chain of custody when he stood up in the briefing in order to make the "unvetted" photo more credible.
 
Mendel said:
Not quite.
Article:
Center-pivot irrigation (sometimes called central pivot irrigation), also called water-wheel and circle irrigation, is a method of crop irrigation in which equipment rotates around a pivot and crops are watered with sprinklers.View attachment 79948View attachment 79947

View attachment 79946
Because center pivot irrigation waters a circle around the center pivot, the crops are planted in a circle.
Article:
View attachment 79949

You can also find youtube explainer videos on center pivot irrigation.

Obviously the color of the circle depends on the type of crop, and in which growth phase it is.
Click to expand...
This'll be boring. Fair warning. And off-topic so mods, forgive. Or nuke.

My dad was a Valley dealer. Valley, in the late 70s, developed what was called the Corner System. It was an additional span that trailed the last span in the circular system until it neared the normally unirrigated corner of the field, it then swung out and watered the corner.

The yield bonus in the field corners never really justified the cost to buy or upgrade to the Corner System. That and all the extra moving parts and choreography made them a bit buggy.

More boring stuff. The old water-drive machines of the 1950s-70s were interesting to watch trundle a field. They were really robust mechanical contraptions. The metal cog wheels got stuck in the mud quite a bit if you overwatered or after the rare heavy rain but hardly ever broke down.
 
MapperGuy said:
I am not sure if it has been mentioned, but the pilot who sent in that picture must have known what he was looking at.
The crop circles really only give that "hovering UFO" impression from one direction, the one in the photo.
As the plane approached the spot from where the photo was taken it would have been obvious to the pilot what the circles on the ground were, and when it was past that point again it would have been obvious.
Click to expand...
Plus, if you fly over areas where they are, you see a LOT of them. I cannot imagine any pilot who flies that part of the country much at all not recognizing them instantly.
field.jpg


I almost wonder if somebody is messing with Our Lou...
 
Can we explore the possibility that Lue's photo is just a screenshot from satellite imagery with altered resolution and color? One suspicious thing about the photo is that the flying saucer is almost perfectly centered - although of course we don't know if the print is cropped.

This is from 6/2018 Google Earth Pro [38°48'26.0"N 103°56'41.1"W] and turned 180 degrees (top is south) plus Lue's pic for comparison.

Do plane photos generally look this similar to satellite imagery? (Bearing in mind we don't know that it's true that the photo was taken at 21,000ft.)

1746234766094.png

1746235185268.png


(Note: Just a slight zoom-out brings into view two more (obviously non-UFO) circles at lower right, which gives the game away.)

1746235254716.png
 
Last edited:
Given the distortion of the building at lower right when you adjust tilt in Google Earth, I'm leaning toward the UFO photo being a screenshot of a satellite image from directly overhead, and then distorted (by reducing the height) which prevents the "stretching" effect on the building. I attempted to recreate the framing here - screenshot from overhead, then the height reduced to 40%:

1746238922215.png


Compare to screenshot taken from a low elevation, tilted - the building appears stretched (and the top half of the image is compressed, i.e. shows too much toward the horizon compared to the UFO photo):

1746239049419.png
 
Mick West said:
I did a quick Sitrec of about a minute of flyby from 21,000 feet:
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?custom=https://sitrec.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/1/Four Corners/20250502_233757.js

View attachment 79953
The circles are a bit dim in the MapBox terrain I'm using, but you can see the "shadow" angle does not change incredibly fast.
Click to expand...
Even though it is moving slowly as you have stated and as predicted below, it is only convincingly directly overhead, for a few seconds. This leads me to think if it was taken from a plane, if they had stared at it or taken video footage for a few more seconds, the illusion would have been broken. This is all assuming it is not a satellite photo.

Eburacum said:
The 'topmost' circle would move at exactly the same rate as the ground surrounding it, so there would have been no illusion of parallax.
Click to expand...

NoParty said:
Elizondo says it's "...an average person with an average camera."

Well, the average person doesn't take pictures in black & white, so why is this
"evidence" presented in B&W? Folks familiar with Elizondo's track record might
cynically point out that--in this case--B&W helps the image look like something
far more interesting, than if the irrigation circles & the surrounding area were
presented in their true colors...
Click to expand...
I think the key interesting things here:
- He changed the photo to black and white as you say or otherwise destroyed useful information.
- Context/provinance is missing.
- The 'shadow' doesn't overlap the mysterious shape which would negate the proof it was two irrigation circles.
- There is not a second photo or video frame, which from a plane would have to be from a different perspective, which would conclusively prove it was what he said it was.

Edited for spelling/grammar.

My guess here is that this was a video taken from a plane, and the frame selected was deliberately chosen as it was the one that most looked like a shadow. My reasoning is this. If you saw an image like this from out of a plane, you would take a continuous video of it until either you could no longer see it or until a shift in perspective broke the optical illusion.

So either Luis Elizondo, his source or both were being deliberately misleading.
 
Last edited:
Gary C said:

provenance

Click to expand...
and provenience

The upshoot, though, is that Lue argues pilots need help identifying what 99% of pilots can identify, like clouds, tennis shoes or irrigation circles; and that 99% of intelligence officers who look at satellite images, some in black and white, can identify (but Lue can't?). I reckon Grusch could've easily identified it for him. (Even Iraq has center pivot irrigation now.)
 
Lue's subtext is, "the aliens are out there, and if only we had all these pilot reports, we would find them". This works much better if he shows his audience something they can't identify in the moment, even though Elizondo ought to know what it is.

Louis Elizondo and Jay Stratton spent almost a decade at the Pentagon with AATIP trying to find the aliens they believe exist, and failed. That failure should have led them to conclude,
• there are no aliens.

Instead, they're going with
• it's really really very secret (what Stratton asked Grusch to look for)
• we never see the good reports, for some unidentified reason
• the aliens don't come from outer space (the NIH angle)

It mirrors what the Flat Earthers did when their fiber-optic gyroscope measured Earth's rotation: they looked for any explanation that could produce that reading, except the one they didn't want to believe.
 
 
Ann K said:
From Elizondo:
External Quote:
This illustrates a bigger point here. When pilots, or anyone else for that matter, come out to share what they feel may be anomalous, are faced with fierce ridicule (instead of productive dialogue) from some in the UFO community, they learn quickly not to ever share again.
At no time in this forum did the pilot face "fierce ridicule" ...although the reaction to Elizondo might be characterized thus, as we have heard his credulous conclusions before. And yet, HE has never learned "not to share", but goes off half-cocked at any gee-whiz image. Methinks he is offended by being debunked, and is trying very hard to pretend that it's the pilot who might be offended. How many hands did this photo go through between the unnamed pilot and his presentation of it, and how many people might therefore have rendered it in monochrome? We don't know, but apparently Elizondo never bothered to ask.
Click to expand...
I agree with everything you've said here.

Not being a Reddit user, however, means I have no idea how bad the "ridicule" there
may or may not have been. But yes, I absolutely think he's trying to distract from his
own sloppiness with the "pilot" dodge.
 
It's been enlightening to read how some in the believer sphere are trying to rationalize why Elizondo would do this (apart from him being overly credulous which he has proven time and time again to be). I found this one interesting:

IMG_1485.jpeg


Hopefully incidents like this will plant a seed of doubt in these people and maybe help them be more open skeptical view about these things in the future.

EDIT: It seems like it's already happened to the discoverer of the location u/SwordThenSnow who said he's now joined the r/skeptic community (a good place I might add).

IMG_1487.jpeg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Charlie Wiser said:
I'm leaning toward the UFO photo being a screenshot of a satellite image
Click to expand...
Agree. The unnamed pilot, unnamed flight number, wrong date, wrong location, and probably wrong altitude (it looks lower than 21,000ft, more like 16,000 IMO) mean this was all just a put-on by someone willing to take advantage of Elizondo's credulousness and desire to remain relevant in the UFO talking head world.
 
Giddierone said:
Agree. The unnamed pilot, unnamed flight number, wrong date, wrong location, and probably wrong altitude (it looks lower than 21,000ft, more like 16,000 IMO) mean this was all just a put-on by someone willing to take advantage of Elizondo's credulousness and desire to remain relevant in the UFO talking head world.
Click to expand...
Elizondo should have been triggered to AT LEAST look at maps of the region. Chances are, if he would have been a great researcher, that he would have seen the remarkable resemblance with the large circular crop areas. He did not do that apparently, and just right away showed the picture during a pretty high up meeting.
This is what makes me believe he is not at all interested in truth. Like all of them aren't.
 
virtualcrane said:
It's been enlightening to read how some in the believer sphere are trying to rationalize why Elizondo would do this (apart from him being overly credulous which he has proven time and time again to be)
Click to expand...

I do wonder what it will take for people to stop giving him credibility.
He already said he does Counter Terrorism Astral Projection - as taught to him by a man who believes Uri Geller has telekinetic superpowers.

Aside from taking a rake up on stage then repeatedly stepping on it - there's not much more he can do to torpedo his own reputation.

Elizondo was shoulder to shoulder with Mellon at the TTSA launch presser when Mellon declared a photo of a foil number 1 balloon to be a UAP.

Proof has never been on their list of priorities and that (given the nature of the claims) is the most intriguing element.
 
Ravi said:
Elizondo should have been triggered to AT LEAST look at maps of the region. Chances are, if he would have been a great researcher, that he would have seen the remarkable resemblance with the large circular crop areas. He did not do that apparently, and just right away showed the picture during a pretty high up meeting.
This is what makes me believe he is not at all interested in truth. Like all of them aren't.
Click to expand...
@Ravi according to Lue Elizondo's tweet quoted by @Calter earlier in the thread, he had only received permission that morning to release the photo, and it had not yet been "vetted" before he decided to publicly release it.
Calter said:
Lue has responded to the debunk on this tweet.

External Quote:
Once again, as I stated during the forum, I only received permission to release it that morning and only was made aware of it shortly before.

Not sure how many times I need to say it, so I will say it again. The photo was not yet vetted, and I made that perfectly clear.

The ones who are screaming about it (instead of discussing respectfully it as I hoped) missed the entire point of the photo and are not helping other pilots in the future from coming forward.
Click to expand...
Elizondo's 2024 mothership photo incident that was a window reflection of a ceiling light is arguably more damaging, but his M.O. has not changed. He also released a tweet in response to that debunk, but with a different spin:
External Quote:
Towards the end the presentation I later showed a photograph provided to me by a former colleague in the U.S. Government. Unfortunately, the photo that was provided to me was not suitable for the AI analysis given the limitations of the AI prototype. The photo was said to have been properly vetted, and I took it at face value. Fortunately, some users on social media were able to find a logical explanation for the photograph.

As for me, I am grateful for the public's help in resolving this case. Furthermore, this reinforces the notion that we must all remain vigilant and always question the data (including myself), even when that data may be coming from the Government.
It has already been noted in this thread and in social media, that as a former intelligence officer Elizondo should know better, and both of his responses to being debunked do mention "vetting" of data.

I expect an intelligence officer is trained to rely on specialised analysts and experts to "vet" the information they receive. It doesn't excuse an apparent lack of critical thinking from a supposedly experienced officer.

If we give Elizondo the benefit of the doubt, is it credible for someone to survive in the intelligence community with such a deficit in critical thinking?
 
jarlrmai said:
What building?
Click to expand...

Whatever this thing is. It stretches when you "fly over" it on Google Earth, as it approaches you, so it's not possible to get a screencap that matches the UFO photo. A screenshot taken from almost directly overhead, then rotated and squashed on the vertical, results in that building looking more like the UFO photo.

1746275529240.png
 
Smythe Bacchus said:
If we give Elizondo the benefit of the doubt, is it credible for someone to survive in the intelligence community with such a deficit in critical thinking?
Click to expand...

Now that he's out of that community (at least professionally), the more important question could be: After his critical thinking has failed him so many times, how is he changing his approach to data? Because so far he doesn't seem to have the self-reflection required to do anything differently,
 
Charlie Wiser said:
Now that he's out of that community (at least professionally), the more important question could be: After his critical thinking has failed him so many times, how is he changing his approach to data? Because so far he doesn't seem to have the self-reflection required to do anything differently,
Click to expand...
Actually the lack of critical thinking can explain why his M.O. has not changed, which is what I was getting at. That lack of "reflection" continues to sabotage the believer cause. This appears to be a common trait amongst the "Big UFO" players, easily accepting any "evidence" that supports their belief. It also aligns with the behaviour of "believers" who faithfully support them.

Skepticism of believers is ironically reserved for skeptics and the legitimacy of skepticism itself. Instead of lobbying for more government investigations, "Big UFO" should promote skeptical education and practice. It would filter out more of the prosaic making it easier to find the truly anomalous.
 
Smythe Bacchus said:
@Ravi according to Lue Elizondo's tweet quoted by @Calter earlier in the thread, he had only received permission that morning to release the photo, and it had not yet been "vetted" before he decided to publicly release it.

Elizondo's 2024 mothership photo incident that was a window reflection of a ceiling light is arguably more damaging, but his M.O. has not changed. He also released a tweet in response to that debunk, but with a different spin:
External Quote:
Towards the end the presentation I later showed a photograph provided to me by a former colleague in the U.S. Government. Unfortunately, the photo that was provided to me was not suitable for the AI analysis given the limitations of the AI prototype. The photo was said to have been properly vetted, and I took it at face value. Fortunately, some users on social media were able to find a logical explanation for the photograph.

As for me, I am grateful for the public's help in resolving this case. Furthermore, this reinforces the notion that we must all remain vigilant and always question the data (including myself), even when that data may be coming from the Government.
It has already been noted in this thread and in social media, that as a former intelligence officer Elizondo should know better, and both of his responses to being debunked do mention "vetting" of data.

I expect an intelligence officer is trained to rely on specialised analysts and experts to "vet" the information they receive. It doesn't excuse an apparent lack of critical thinking from a supposedly experienced officer.

If we give Elizondo the benefit of the doubt, is it credible for someone to survive in the intelligence community with such a deficit in critical thinking?
Click to expand...
Agreed and that vetting should be automatic. Once something lands on your desk, you start to work it. You don't need permission to conduct routine analysis when such analysis is your actual job. You only need permission if you feel it needs to go to someone not part of your formal workflow, or in Lue's case, outside his circle of confidants.
 
Smythe Bacchus said:
Instead of lobbying for more government investigations, "Big UFO" should promote skeptical education and practice. It would filter out more of the prosaic making it easier to find the truly anomalous.
Click to expand...

A bit OT, but they can't pivot that way for a number of reasons.

I'm reminded of Ken Ham, he of the Creation Museum and The Ark Encounter. As a young earth creationist, he really has to come up with almost magical ways to explain the reality of a universe and everything in it being created in 6 days, 2 competing creation accounts of humans, an antediluvian world, 800 year old people, a global flood, an ark that can hold 2 of every animal and on and on. That's just in the first few chapters of Genisis.

Ham notes that the foundation of the church, in his opinion, is the literal truth of Genisis. It's a slippery slope argument; IF the 6 day creation account is an allegory about how God might have brought the universe into existence, then maybe the Adam and Eve story is an allegory about humans' relationship to God and the Ark/Flood story is an allegory based on localized flood myths and so on. If Genisis is a bunch of allegories and myths, then what else in the Bible is allegorical myths? The Exodus? Elija being taken up into heaven? Jesus? God?!

If any part of Genisis can be reduced to allegory or myth, then ultimately, so can God. Therefore, is must all be literally true. And being true, Ham can charge upwards of $120 pp for a "bouncer pass" to his Museum and Ark Encounter.

Similar in the UFO world. Skeptical practices are the tactics of the debunkers, the unbelievers. Note the reddit post above (#138), the author says Lue should have known this photo would bring out the "Geo-finder nuts". People explaining this UFO are "nuts". Filtering out UFOs as prosaic means many are in fact, prosaic. IF some or many UFOs turn out to be prosaic, it's possible ALL of them are prosaic. Better to suffer the occasional misstep, like this circle crop photo, and assume most of the other examples are truly anomalous, rather than risk none of them be anomalous.

Plus, what harm is really done? This isn't the first time Elizondo has been involved in something like this and yet, he was once again presenting to congressional people/staffers. Skeptics like Brian Dunning or Mick aren't presenting to these people that I know of. He still has his connections and influence. He is still speaking at the UFO festival later this month and charges a $15 premium pp over even Knapp and Corbel. The supposed scientific paper on UFOs we discussed uses his "5 observables" as do many in UFOlogy. How he's perceived here on this forum is irrelevant.
 
NorCal Dave said:
I noticed a weird thing while searching on Google maps. The color of the circles would completely change just based on the level of zoom I was using. Here are some in Nevada (41.756038, -118.210014), note the brown ones change with a bit of zoom ... I don't know if it's the various layers from different years combined or what.
Click to expand...

Apparently Google Maps has eighteen zoom levels, each of which can in theory have a different later of satellite imagery:
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/maxzoom

But in practice some places that haven't been imaged often only have a few layers. I noticed this when I visited Greenland a few years ago - if you zoom out from here for example you end up not only with jarring changes between tile layers but also multiple different tile datasets sharing the same layer.
 
Charlie Wiser said:
This was my first thought as well, but not just because of the illusion itself. The pilot flew over many such circles on this flight alone. Unless we're to believe they only looked down at one moment and happened to see this pair of circles and no others during the flight (or during previous and subsequent flights in the area),
Click to expand...
you seem to be assuming the civilian pilot was an area pilot who was flying the plane. could be calling the guy a "civilian pilot" is just an appeal to authority.

there arent that many circles in that immediate area. maybe the "pilot" was just some dad from Long Island flying in another plane who had never seen irrigation circles before. when you hit the google map coordinates the circles are upside down..from that view there would be other circles in sight..but not if you rotate the map the right way.

(and no, i dont personally believe this alleged pilot actually thought it was a ufo...but if we are going to invent scenarios we should try to invent positive scenarios and not just negatives.)

edit add: im also adding a bit about 20/20 vision. i never where my glasses when flying normally and if i saw fuzzy circles out my window then zoomed in with a non digital camera quickly the photo would look like that. (maybe a tad bit blurrier)
 
Last edited:
NorCal Dave said:
How he's perceived here on this forum is irrelevant.
Click to expand...
But the damage has really been done (my his own misstep) to his followers who are not on this forum, but post on Twitter and Reddit. Then there's a whole load who read but don't post.

It's a chunk of damage. Hard to quantify, but the outpouring of criticism and the very limited defenders seems quite unusual.
 
Smythe Bacchus said:
If we give Elizondo the benefit of the doubt, is it credible for someone to survive in the intelligence community with such a deficit in critical thinking?
Click to expand...
Maybe I'm personally underestimating the rigor of government/military work in the US, but I feel a decent chunk of US centric conspiracies heavily revolve around "Someone in the military can't be THAT incompetent or stupid so they must be telling the truth or intentionally spreading misinformation".

A common trend I've been seeing recently is that Lue's actions can only be explained by stupidity or malice, and since Lue somehow can't be stupid because of his job, he must be working for the bad guys.

You can be incompetent at your job and still keep it, it happens all the time in all professions and military is no exception. You can also be competent at your job and still lack skills in many areas that others might assume are related. The way intelligence agents are viewed reminds me of chess elitism, where top chess players are seen as these superior intellects when in reality, they are just regular people that happen to be extremely good at chess (as evidently seen if you've ever seen the petty drama Chess players get into or just watched them do regular stuff when they stream in various platforms).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

jarlrmai
Munich pilot reports [Oncoming Plane]
2 3
Replies
80
Views
8K
Matt33
Matt33
Charlie Wiser
Elizondo's Methodology for Verifying Sources
Replies
34
Views
4K
yoshy
Y
Gary C
The role of contemporary culture in the changing UFO narrative
Replies
27
Views
1K
John J.
John J.
flarkey
Oregon UFO Lights seen by pilots [Starlink]
2
Replies
41
Views
8K
flarkey
flarkey
I
Luis Elizondo on The Joe Rogan Experience#2194
2
Replies
62
Views
14K
Mordrenix
M

Latest posts

Trending content

Back
Top