All right...since I can't edit my original post, I'll just write the background here. If any moderators would like to add it to my OP, please feel free to do so. I am writing this per the rules that have been so eloquently explained to me:
Almost 20 years ago, in April/May of 2007, some guy named "Chad" sent an email to Coast to Coast AM, claiming that he had seen a strange aircraft hovering in the sky. He said that it moved slow and then would bolt when it wanted to get out there. A few days later, he wrote back into C2C and elaborated on the object: he'd seen it "numerous times" and that it made "crackling noises" like "large power lines". Chad (who initially said he was "from Bakersfield, California") claimed that he had been given headaches and that his wife also felt fatigued. Anyhow, these were a couple of the pics he posted:
Almost a week later, MUFON was contacted by a woman named "Deborah McKinley" who said that she saw a similar craft while she and her husband were in Lake Tahoe. She said it hovered and spun quietly, then slowly it got behind some trees. She claims they drove around to find it but couldn't. This is one of the pics they claim to have taken:
About fifteen days later, a Craigslist user named "Raj" claimed to have seen one of these things floating around his fiancé's parents' house in Capitola, California and that he managed to get off six snaps after it "took off" over their house. Raj was the most talkative of the witnesses and made sure to answer any and all questions on the Open Minds Forum boards. He even gave permission to have the photos posted everywhere and anywhere they wanted. He would put them on his Flickr page (the now defunct "rajman1977") but the page was hacked and the photos were removed. This was one of the better photos he took:
Finally, there were the "Stephen" sightings. These were reportedly taken in "Big Basin" in California and Stephen's colleague "Jenna" put them on a photography Listserv. Again, it was your usual "anyone know what this is" post:
There was another series of extremely clear photos by a user named "Ty" who was in the Big Basin area on the same day as "Stephen" who saw the same craft as above. His photos were horribly grainy and looked like the ISO had been jacked up. The craft was blurrier than the background as well and the craft itself looked more than a bit ridiculous...but here's one of the pics:
Then came the biggest whopper of them all...like clockwork, some guy named "Isaac" came out of the woodwork and decided to give everyone a rundown on the recent sightings. Claiming to work for government agency in Palo Alto, California named "CARET" (which, laughably, is supposed to stand for Commercial Applications Research for Extraterrestrial Technology), Isaac said that the drones were part of their program and were being tested nearby. The link to his "story" is below (too much text to post here, I'm sorry):
https://web.archive.org/web/2010081...oax.com/drone_history/isaac_documentation.htm
He also attached a "quarterly report from 1986" which has pictures of supposed "alien tech" as well as a primer for the "language" seen in the drone photos:
https://ia601400.us.archive.org/31/...rt/Isaac_caret-q4-86-research-report_text.pdf
All of this went pretty much NOWHERE.
The local press gave it scant coverage, only mentioning a small bit of Raj's tale, and, to my knowledge, didn't even use his photos in their articles. The only national press it seemed to get was from Fox News and, by that time, there was an actual private investigator on the case and you could hear the incredulity from everyone involved in the segment.
Some notable moments attached to this short-lived saga: History Channel's "UFO Hunters" did an episode on "recovered alien tech" and featured the drones there. Fox's "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" had an episode featuring the drones eventually being adopted into Skynet's arsenal. Dell used the "alien language" seen on the drones on their "Alienware" PC's and laptops, so at least it was inspiring to some and there were, of course, some who thought that the whole thing was viral hoax built up to support the Terminator show or Dell's PC's...but the creators of the show denied they had anything to do with it and one of the writers said he had been inspired by the sightings and wanted to use it because he thought it was "Zeitgeist". Dell's people also denied it and said that they didn't hold the IP but used it anyway as nobody had stepped forward to claim it.
From there, the photos were studied by a very small group of people on the Internet who went over each detail in each photo with a fine tooth comb.
Some progress was made during the hunt and the more that was revealed, the more it looked like a hoax:
- Chad's photos were found to be shot at the now-defunct Summit Restaurant between San Jose and Santa Cruz, California (https://www.google.com/maps/place/2...try=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDgwMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==), not in "Bakersfield" as he claimed to be from. There are some who contest this, saying that Chad only said he was from Bakersfield and didn't claim to actually shoot there. Regardless, even if you take that away, the photos were taken next to one of the busiest highways in Northern California: Highway 17 which is the main vein between Santa Cruz and the Silicon Valley. Thousands travel it each day and there's no way that this thing wouldn't have been seen by other people.
- Raj's photos were found to have been taken in Campbell, California, not "Capitola" as was claimed. The two are over 30 miles from one another and you can only get there by using (wait for it...) Highway 17 because it's right next to Santa Cruz. There is no way to mistake the two. Furthermore, the object in Raj's photos were shot in a neighborhood comprised of several businesses, a train station, a large apartment complex and several houses. There's also a large corporate building across from Highway 17 that overlooks the area as well. And nobody managed to see this thing except Raj...
- The "Stephen" photos were found to have been shot off the Big Basin Highway (CA Highway 9: 37.259626325652384, -122.09908095358738), not the actual "Big Basin". This is mildly disingenuous of Stephen. Regardless, the photo was take on a fairly dangerous portion of the highway (a hairpin turn) and really could only be seen if you were a) above the road, looking int the valley of trees or b) you were on foot and shooting from the side of the highway. The latter isn't smart as cars come around that bend quick and the road is very narrow so you risk getting hit. It just smacks of someone planning the location ahead of time and attaching the UFO in post.
- The only photo locations that haven't been located are the Ty and Deborah photos.
Somewhere along the line,
The Iron Skeptic wrote a great essay about the Isaac documents, critiquing the logical fallacies in Isaac's story, one of the main highlights being when he says that the CARET anacronym (Commercial Applications Research for Extraterrestrial Technology) was insulting to anyone who had ever worked high up in the government, stating that "Project Blue Book" wasn't called "Project Maybe We Saw Some UFOs" and that the Manhattan Project wasn't called "The We're Going to Blast You to Smithereens with Atom Power! Project" and says that they assign benign names to TS projects so nobody knows what they're about.
The entire thing sort of disappeared into the ether after that until a few years ago when an artist/producer/voice actor named
Margaret Gel posted on her website that she was the one who created the alien language seen on the drones. Claiming she made it from a variation of the Katakana font, she gives the reader a fairly detailed explanation of why and how she made the language and what it all means.
She also claims that she stayed silent for years as "Isaac" (his real name was Chad) stole her artwork and the renders used in the attached photos and threatened everyone with legal action. Gel claims that her lawyers told her that if she didn't have the files (she didn't) and that she simply put her name on it, there was nothing that could be done.
Gel has a few things against her:
- She doesn't have any real evidence that the files were hers, that she ever created the "alien language" or the "primer" and she hasn't replicated them since.
- She claims to be an "experiencer" who has been abducted by aliens.
- She claims to have bouts of amnesia, brought on by early brain trauma when she was a child.
However, there are things she has going for her, too:
- Using her "experiencer" claims to completely invalidate her claims is a case of Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.
- Gel isn't a UFO skeptic, she's a believer -- and she's willfully burning down the CARET sightings which is something I don't think I've seen within the UFO community.
- The level of detail, not just in her entries but in my conversations with her:
- The fact that the final product that was "the primer" was bastardized from her original artwork and wasn't even close to what she had built, the fact that her apartment number (1204) was included in the design repeatedly, as were family member's names (and shows the reader where they all are) and that the "alien tech" seen in the CARET docs weren't correct and were "not assembled correctly" (as well as the revelation that the physical models were built in Canada and the builder's name).
- The software she used to build her art (the primer) was Adobe Photoshop 4.0 LE back in 1999.
- My conversations with her included the completely irrelevant revelation that one of the hoaxers had passed away, including the year and cause of death.
- The reasoning Chad used to steal copyright: putting it on his website (back in 2001) and then updating constantly to keep the rights.
- Chad/Isaac being one in the same while Raj and Stephen were completely different people. And it shows. Chad and Isaac's writing style is the same: exuberant and excited, witty and wry -- but excluded some details. Raj was humble and talkative and wouldn't shut up and constantly answered questions until he vanished. Stephen was dry and spoke mainly through a colleague. It also fits that Chad/Isaac was the one who released the "big reveal". He was the ringleader of the hoax.
Could someone make up all of the above? Sure.
Would they take the time and effort and put that much detail into their lie? I don't think anybody would do that. I
While I won't comment on her being an "experiencer", I will say that I believe what she has to say here. In addition to all the of the other crap I listed above that makes it sound like a hoax, I think this one is pretty much solved.
Anyhow, NorCalDave...hope this finally helps.
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