Claim: ''UAP researcher'' released clear smoking gun photo of Orb captured by photographer

[jarlrmai]

Looks like it's in a macroblock so more artifacts from edits/resizes etc.

It's why seeing the original image is so key, it has the least artifacts from processing.

 

[Ravi]

Does anyone know what would cause all the weird sky artifacts that are in the low resolution images?

View attachment 63514

The low resolution image'(s) sky are littered with these and I'm just wondering if anyone knows what would produce those artifacts assuming they aren't in the original?

The JPG algorithm is using blocks and rows of similar colour to reduce space (spatial colour data). But with large "single" colour areas (sky, air, etc) it may show up. The higher the compression used, the worse it gets.

 

[Skalman]

I am absolutely not the right biologist for trying to clear up the nomenclature of butterfly wings, but I'll give it a try:

The "spaces" between veins on the wings are not all called cells, the cell is a specific type space on the insect wing. Many insects, such as bees and dragonflies have several cells prominently showing and the shape, number and colour of these are often used in identification. AFAIK, butterflies only have one cell space (at least just one that you can see), so it seems to often just be called "the cell" in their case, though I've seen it further specified as the discal cell on some diagrams.

Now, when it comes to the rest of the spaces or areas on the wing it can get a little bit confusing. If you look at the spaces delineated by the veins, they are simply called spaces, and numbered after the lowest numbered vein that surrounds it. But, you can also look at it from the position relative to the different margins and angles, in which case you have designations such as these (picture from Butterflies of Singapore):

Which you then further designate as "bands", "spots" and "patches" depending on position size and shape. And finally you can go into even more detail as is done in this paper on the butterfly Cacyreus marshalli and I fully admit to losing concentration at that point of detailed description but I suppose it is useful when you have to differentiate between all those species.

Finally, I would like to note that the Adelpha genus seems to be notorious for being hard to identify even for expert entomologists, but if people want to keep on going down that rabbit hole, the University of Florida has published an overview of the genus by Keith Willmott online, except for the pictures for some reason. Also, it's from 2003, so there has been taxonomical updates, new species discovered since then etc. But seriously, it's a fool's errand to try to get a conclusive match to the species level from something that was originally maybe 30x30 pixels. Adelpha as a genus seems like a good, maybe even likely match, but Ecuador has ~3000 species of butterflies, a few hundreds not even described yet. Of course, someone (I'm too tired right now) could email the details of the when and where together with the photo to Willmott or Hall of the Butterflies of Ecuador project and ask their opinion. It's a long shot, but if anyone would be able to identify it, it's one of them.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Butterflies of Ecuador project

I wouldn't bother those folks until a full resolution photo could be sent.

 

[Mendel]

Summary

Hey guys! long time lurker, first time poster.

I, like many of you, could just not "unsee" the butterfly once it was pointed out. But I was having a hard time imagining how exactly the butterfly would have had to have been positioned in space in order to recreate the image that we saw. In particular, I wasn't sure the size and positioning of the white bands displayed on the wings of any of the previously identified candidate species would actually fit the image.

Then I realized this would be tremendously easy to recreate in real life. So I just pulled up an image of Adelpha Epione with its wings spread:

Then I printed it out on a piece of paper (actually two pieces that I pasted together so I had the front and back), cut it out, and folded it in the middle. Then I stuck the cap from a pen on it to simulate the body — imperfect I know, but enough to get in the ballpark. All told it took about five minutes, and I had an accurate real-life model of Adelpha Epione to photograph.

After another minute or so of positioning and a tiny bit of double-sided tape, I snapped a pic, which I then saved as a low-quality jpeg a few times to degrade the quality to simulate the pixellated UAP photo.

This is what I ended up with. It's not a perfect match, but I'm confident I could get even closer if I'd spent more than a minute fiddling with positioning and camera angles. By my eye it's close enough that I think we can put this one to bed:

Note that you can even see the distictive banding within the white bars on the "UAP".

Interestingly, in order to recreate the shot as closely as possible I had to position the wings far more "open" than I'd assumed, which also solved the problem of the black tips of the wings seeming to long in the wings-spread photos of the butterfly — because the wings are actually spread fairly wide, the perspective foreshortening makes the wingtips match the UAP image fairly closely. I think mine may have been slightly too open, as you can see the white bar on the wing closest to the camera is a bit thinner than the image. Again, five more minutes fiddling with positioning and camera angles could probably get an even closer match.

Here's a picture of the setup from another angle, untouched from the position it was in in my re-creation photo:

Considering that this is an extremely probable position to photograph a butterfly in, and that this particular species of butterfly is described as "extremely common and widespread" in the exact area the photo was taken, I think we can put this to bed. If someone wants to attempt to re-package this and post to UAPMax on Twitter, be my guest!

I was looking at the foliage in the foreground of this image to see if there were any "roosting" (I don't know the right word) butterflies, of any type (but of course hoping to find a dark one with light wing bars).

I don't think I saw any "probable" butterflies. Maybe some "possibles" (arrowed), but just as likely they're flowers, or a bit of pareidolia on my part. Talking of which, the one on the right might be a butterfly on a grass stem, or it might be the black-and-white head of a small bipedal cat draped in a black cloak.

Pretty sure this can be improved upon, but it kinda works for me.

focus_distance_range - 0.28 – 0.72 m

The old school definition of focusing distance

 

[SuppaCoup]

this was such a fun thread
amazing how the mysterious object popped into comprehensibility when someone suggested butterfly, really illustrates how strongly our internal system of understanding depends on priming and context.
did the "tranforming orb" poster ever admit that it was almost certainly a butterfly?

 

[Mendel]

when someone suggested butterfly

@Z.W. Wolf, post #25, naming the correct genus

 

[yoshy]

@Z.W. Wolf, post #25, naming the correct genus

Don't forget @John J. who first threw the possibility of a butterfly in post #14!

Or a black bin bag. Or a dark, waxy leaf catching the sun. Maybe even a butterfly or day moth...

 

[JMartJr]

Since this thread has come back to life, does anybody know if the promised images before and after this one were ever released?

 

[Smythe Bacchus]

uapmax.com has been offline for a while. Last crawled by the web archive on 18 May 2024. The associated YouTube account is similarly inactive and the podcast Dear People of Earth has no new release since 29 Aug 2024.

NOTE: The web archive has apparently failed to save any of the images from the original "smoking gun" article.

The withholding of the original "smoking gun" image file (of a butterfly !!!) is an excellent example of the "UFO researcher" paradox, i.e. failing to reconcile the simultaneous hypocrisy of arguing for transparency and disclosure, which Steve Sprague continues to support on X.

As of 4 Sep 2024, Mr Sprague continued to believe the butterfly is an "orb", and reposted a dubious video of a "sphere" claiming it as an identical object, (fake or real) which can apparently "open" when a laser is aimed at it ???


Source: https://x.com/UFOS_UAPS/status/1831050830243577858

More paradox - Mr Sprague calls out bogus UFO claims/videos of others in multiple posts e.g.:


Source: https://x.com/UFOS_UAPS/status/1870298734082568500


Source: https://x.com/UFOS_UAPS/status/1877496256450232326

Not sure what this reference to a "fight" between debunkers on 26 Aug 2024 is supposed to be about:


Source: https://x.com/UFOS_UAPS/status/1827742278946861345

The retiring of uapmax.com by Steve Sprague is apparently permanent:


Source: https://x.com/UFOS_UAPS/status/1868354225044136187


Source: https://x.com/UFOS_UAPS/status/1898473408402182462

 

[JMartJr]

he withholding of the original "smoking gun" image file (of a butterfly !!!) is an excellent example of the "UFO researcher" paradox, i.e. failing to reconcile the simultaneous hypocrisy of arguing for transparency and disclosure,

Speaking of which, were the other two pictures ever released? I think that I understand correctly that they are supposed to be shots before and after the butterfly, which I guess would establish that it moved into and out of frame in the time between the first and last shot. So not hugely important, other than one can't help wondering why they would not be released.

Unless, of course, it turns out that the butterfly has landed on a bush in one of them, or other butterflies are seen. But whatever they show, since it was promised they'd be released, they ought to be.

 

[Mendel]

Unless, of course, it turns out that the butterfly has landed on a bush in one of them, or other butterflies are seen. But whatever they show, since it was promised they'd be released, they ought to be

you could try to buy them from Mr Wülfl

 

[John J.]

As of 4 Sep 2024, Mr Sprague continued to believe the butterfly is an "orb", and reposted a dubious video of a "sphere" claiming it as an identical object, (fake or real) which can apparently "open" when a laser is aimed at it ???

I think Mr Sprague's reference to lasers goes back to the original (undemonstrated) claims about the photo,
as posted by @PublicStranger in the OP for the ''UAP researcher'' to release clear smoking gun photo of Orb captured by photographer thread:

The photo will have a sequence attached with the original meta data. So, photo shot before the orb, photo of orb, photo after orb. You will see how fast it appeared and disappeared.

You will see the appendages exiting the orb, you will see the field it is creating.
... ...
You're going to see the laser systems I discussed. You're going to see the field it creates and you'll see the orb.
... ...
Share this. Hold me accountable.

User UAPMax.com, @UFOS-UAPS on Twitter.

In a response to another Twitter user (Mielony Kabanos) saying "I am not sure if that picture will be able to live up to the hype you are building around it", UAPMax replies

OK. I disagree... ...Immense speed or direct portal travel... ...Arms or appendages extending. Same laser systems I reported on

Unless the "laser systems" were actively projecting visible laser beams, it's difficult to understand how the claimant identified them as such. He never indicated what part of the butterfly orb was meant to be a laser system.
There is no evidence in the photo we saw of laser beams, or of circuitry or optics belonging to a laser.

The workings of most (terrestrial) lasers in real-world use are hidden/ protected within the device they are used in- laser pointers, your old CD player, LIDAR sets etc.
But unless you were familiar with that technology, if you couldn't see a laser beam you wouldn't know from the exterior appearance that those items contained a laser. UAPMax didn't explain how the orb's "laser systems" were identified.