Claim: Man took photo of an alien spacecraft in 2016

[ParanoidSkeptic2]

Around March of 2016, a man known as John Macdonald claimed to have had an encounter with an alien space craft, to prove this, he allegedly snapped a photo of it:

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According to John, the spacecraft was hovering 50 to 70 yards above ground, and it made a noise like a thousand vacuums. According to Macdonald it's certainly an alien spacecraft.

"It's definitely a space craft of some sort."

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It seems like this story did not get much coverage, I could only find an article from the Huff Post, The Daily Express, The Daily Mail, The Scotsman, Metro and The Mirror; it just seems to have been a story that came and went and was exclusively covered by clickbait Tabloid magazines as opposed to more credible sources. All the articles rehash the same details and all of them set up a straw man argument that sceptics will say it's a drone, and then quickly discredit that claim.

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said: “It’s possible to fly a drone in darkness, but you have to keep it in your line of sight at all times.

“If you are flying something in darkness it is difficult to keep it in your visual line of sight.

“Even though it has lights, you won’t be able to see it sufficiently well to control it.

“At night, you can’t see obstacles because the obstacles aren’t lit.

But John dismisses the idea that his experience was anything other than out of this world.

“I always thought there was something out there, but have never seen anything until now,” he added.

“There is no doubt in my mind. I know what I saw.”

Drone pilot, Jonathan Hall, from Southport says he is also convinced that the image is not a drone.

The keen amateur said: “I have no idea what it is but am pretty sure it’s not a drone craft.

“I have flown quite a lot at night and the size and shape of the lights look like no drone I have ever seen before.”

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I find it odd how this straw man is set up, based on the shape, no one would think it's drone, it looks like a generic flying saucer outline. Instead of trying to figure out whats in the picture, the actual credibility of the picture should be put into question.

I've only found one site claiming it to be genuine

The image does not seem to have been tampered with according to our experts and Mr. Macdonald swears by what he saw. There were no other witnesses to the event as of yet.

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Source

This statement comes from an Alien and UFO research website that pushes for alien conspiracies and such, the process of verifying the images integrity is not detailed and the credentials of the "Experts" is not given which leads me to believe that the claim is bunk itself.

The credibility of the story relies on the credibility of the photo, and the photo looks like a generic flying saucer outline, which would not be difficult to create with the software available at the time.

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The place where he heard/saw this was Rossie Ochil, Perthshire which seems to be a massive desolate farm field with only a small number of hotels.



What do you guys think?

 

[deirdre]

What do you guys think?

it looks like a lighting rig from a rock concert.
dont want to spend alot of time looking.. but something like this.


i have seen something that looked more like the ufo photo, but for the life of me i cant remember which band.

 

[Mick West]

It also looks very like the Close Encounters of the Third Kind mothership



Maybe he took a photo of one thing, discovered it also reminded him of flying saucer, and decided to have some fun with it.

The Photo that comes with the linked story it is odd, in that it's the other way up


And the one he is holding seems to have much better contrast, and some light areas

[Edit: that looks like it's just the glossy print being bent and reflecting things.]

 

[NoParty]

I hadn't heard of this one.
My first look was a Google search for the second half of March, 2016
(after the initial wave of numerous sources reporting the initial claim almost verbatim).
In short, by mid-March it appears to have already become a non-story.

Other problems: What a shockingly clear, full frame photo of a UFO! That's really unusual!
Yet, though Macdonald says he observed it for quite a while, we only see one (perfect) photo?

Also, his shepherd buddy says that they see these things all the time, there!
So, super easy to just whip out a modern cell phone (it's 2016, after all) and film some!
And yet we see none.

Lastly, though one would expect multiple YouTube videos about a credible UFO sighting,
there appear to be none. But there is a video from an identically named "John Macdonald"
who posted an incredibly blurry (240p!) "UFO" video of similar shape from 2014.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O30XKMHaME

 

[deirdre]

It also looks very like the Close Encounters of the Third Kind mothership

lol the second i saw the OP photo that song started going through my head!

 

[ParanoidSkeptic2]

So, it's just a hoax... Crikey, makes you wish for tabloids like that to implement some critical analysis, but whatever gets the most clicks I guess.

 

[deirdre]

So, it's just a hoax..

most likely just a hoax. not proven.
you are really easy to convince that alleged ufo evidence isn't real

 

[ParanoidSkeptic2]

most likely just a hoax. not proven.
you are really easy to convince that alleged ufo evidence isn't real

Most likely, sorry my bad .

And yeah, I don't believe in alien space craft visitation. It's an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, so when the alleged evidence is shown to be frivolous, I go with Occam's razor and stick to more plausible explanations.

It's something that cannot be prove or disprove but the burden of proof to provide evidence lies on the UFOlogists, and so far there hasn't been anything empirically concrete, just anecdotes and speculation.

 

[GregMc]

NoParty's point seems rather pertinent. A solitary photo? After a trip a year or two ago I must have something like 200 photos of penguins and 30 pics of Tango dancers.... not exactly uncommon phenomena for which the world must have hundreds of thousands of pictures in existence. But something totally alien like a glowing flying saucer possibly from another solar system and a digital camera in hand and there is just one image on offer? Perhaps he was hoping to save plenty of camera or phone memory space for something really extraordinary like a dog wearing a hat? The metro article says: "He took the picture while it hovered for a few minutes before suddenly vanishing." A few minutes could easily give you the chance to take around 90 photos and allow some photogrametry for 3D reconstruction if you walked towards it and to the side etc

 

[jarlrmai]

If you genuinely saw this and had a camera capable of it being full frame you'd be holding down the shutter button as much as you could. If you genuinely wanted it solved you'd be posting the straight off the camera JPG/RAW files on the internet EXIF intact to be pulled apart. You wouldn't be only posing in the tabloids with one glossy print of if. Hell if that was a RAW file just upping the exposure would likely reveal a ton (most likely a stadium lighting rig as speculated.)

 

[deirdre]

A few minutes could easily give you the chance to take around 90 photos and allow some photogrametry for 3D reconstruction if you walked towards it and to the side etc

he said he thinks the flash scared it away.

“I don’t know whether I frightened it or not with the flash of the camera, because in the beat of a heart, it was gone,” Macdonald told The Courier last week.

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his jeep lights bouncing didnt scare it away, but jeep lights don't steal your soul like photographs do.

 

[deirdre]

But there is a video from an identically named "John Macdonald"
who posted an incredibly blurry (240p!) "UFO" video of similar shape from 2014.

that channel isn't not the maker of the ufo. it seems to have hit youtube about Dec 6, 2013 but his upload is may 2014. and only has 49 views.

 

[Rocky]

I hadn't heard of this one.
My first look was a Google search for the second half of March, 2016
(after the initial wave of numerous sources reporting the initial claim almost verbatim).
In short, by mid-March it appears to have already become a non-story.

Other problems: What a shockingly clear, full frame photo of a UFO! That's really unusual!
Yet, though Macdonald says he observed it for quite a while, we only see one (perfect) photo?

Also, his shepherd buddy says that they see these things all the time, there!
So, super easy to just whip out a modern cell phone (it's 2016, after all) and film some!
And yet we see none.

Lastly, though one would expect multiple YouTube videos about a credible UFO sighting,
there appear to be none. But there is a video from an identically named "John Macdonald"
who posted an incredibly blurry (240p!) "UFO" video of similar shape from 2014.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O30XKMHaME

Quick, someone get Bob Lazar on this.
So that's how element 115 works.

 

[Rocky]

It also looks very like the Close Encounters of the Third Kind mothership



Maybe he took a photo of one thing, discovered it also reminded him of flying saucer, and decided to have some fun with it.

The Photo that comes with the linked story it is odd, in that it's the other way up


And the one he is holding seems to have much better contrast, and some light areas

[Edit: that looks like it's just the glossy print being bent and reflecting things.]

Why do we always waste our time with blurry, ridiculous photos. Extraordinary claims etc... this is not extraordinary evidence. Blurry faked pics. That is all.

 

[NoParty]

Why do we always waste our time with blurry, ridiculous photos. Extraordinary claims etc... this is not extraordinary evidence. Blurry faked pics. That is all.

Eh, sometimes it's fun and worth a few minutes to know why something is ridiculous,
instead of just presuming it is...

 

[NoParty]

that channel isn't not the maker of the ufo. it seems to have hit youtube about Dec 6, 2013 but his upload is may 2014. and only has 49 views.

I had to re-read "isn't not the maker" a few times...eventually decided you just meant
"isn't the maker"...which is still interesting. That a "John Macdonald" re-posted it, though,
prior to the 2016 John Macdonald "sighting" is still interesting.

And sure, the video only has double digit views, and zero comments...
Embarrassed to say probably half those views are me...trying to decipher the ASL
(Alien Sign Language) demonstrated by the very convincing stick figures...

 

[deirdre]

I had to re-read "isn't not the maker" a few times...eventually decided you just meant
"isn't the maker"..

glad you were able to figure that out.

re-posted it, though,
prior to the 2016 John Macdonald "sighting" is still interesting.

it is interesting if he replicated the idea by taking a little ufo toy and adding some lights, then just lying on the ground and photographing it propped up in the grass. still, i imagine there are lots of guys named john McDonald in this world.

i lean towards not a toy model though as the lights are not symmetrical at all. and the outline they make of the flying saucer would make the saucer itself not symmetical. they resemble canister lights to me at slightly skewed angles. (this is assuming beings who can create technology to get to earth, could place their hull lights evenly)

(and i did remember what it reminded me of, but ELO had alot more lights and the inner circle didnt not have lights attached.) you can see how the canister lights look different sizes and a bit asymmetrical because they are not all facing the same. probably should have blown the pic up a bit.. its their 1978 "out of the blue" tour.

 

[deirdre]

circle didnt not have

hhmmm..ok spell check is doing something funky. that wasn't me. that wasnt me.

 

[deirdre]

that wasn't me. that wasnt me.

lol.

that repetition wasnt me either!

 

[Tedsson]

The video had me totally convinced.

That was Groot the tree thing from the Marvel films.

Case solved.

 

[Nada Truther]

That was Groot the tree thing from the Marvel films.

Case solved.

It looks like one of those inflatable advertising guys, outside of car lots, the way that it deflated before take off.

 

[Mick West]

But there is a video from an identically named "John Macdonald"
who posted an incredibly blurry (240p!) "UFO" video of similar shape from 2014.

That's a re-upload of a fake video from Germany that was posted in 2013. Discussion of that video split to:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/reutlingen-fake-ufo-video-2013.11388/