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

[Z.W. Wolf]

Much more likely to be a balloon than a butterfly imo. Could of course be something close to the camera but I'd probably go for it being an artefact of the camera before I would say butterfly. Looks uncannily like a helmet, you can get mylar balloons in this shape.

We could also be looking at a chinese lantern, although an oddly shaped one, perhaps damaged?One shaped in this fashion perhaps?

View attachment 63042

View attachment 63041

There's another factor, remember. The transient nature of the thing. It only appears in one frame of an (alleged) three frame series. It was almost certainly discovered in that one frame after the fact, and not noticed at the time.

If this were something he noticed in the sky at the moment, the photographer would have centered the object in the frame. If he were truly a pro-photographer he would have equipment with him. He would have grabbed his best camera with the longest lens. What we've got is one frame, a medium lens, and probably a cell phone camera. How about video instead of a still frame?

Butterflies can pass by unnoticed by the photographer at the moment the photo is being taken. Balloons hang around for a long time. If it were a balloon... how come no more photos? How come no eyewitness report(s)?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

BTW, what kind of pro-photographer takes a vertical photo of a landscape?* With clutter in the foreground? With the lens sort-of focused on the clutter? (Auto-focus?) This is a crappy photo all around. I'm skeptical that a pro would take even a casual cell phone snapshot like this. It would hurt my bones. I've looked at Wurfl's site, and his photos are quality stuff.

So, while there is a photographer named Fernando Cornejo Wurfl, my question is: Did some random guy take this photo and just falsely paste the Wurfl name on his own cell phone snapshot?


*Or does this photo remain cropped?

 

[JMartJr]

One wonders if there's any overlap between ufo believers and moon landing deniers.

Yeah, but as you would imagine it is sometimes a bit strained. Often comes down to "the moon has alien bases and they wouldn't let us land there, so we had to fake it" with the moon sometimes BEING the base rather than having one or two on it. (We have a hollow artificial moon because it "rang like a bell" when struck according to somebody at NASA, and it is allowable to cite NASA as an authority on the cherry picked bit of information that supports the current argument) and since bells are hollow and artificial then the moon is hollow and artificial. Exactly HOW they wouldn't let us land there is a bit tricky to explain, and is often glossed over. Sometimes the story is that we landed once, found aliens and were forbidden to return so the other landings were faked.

A simpler version leans on WE can't get past the Van Allen Belts or whatever difficulty with OUR primitive technology, but it is no problem for Aliens with better technology. A spin-off from that is that we DID go to the moon using alien tech, gifted or reversed engineered, but couldn't admit anything about how it was done because aliens have to be kept secret (because reasons) so faked the Apollo program. Offshoot of THAT is that it isn;t Aliens with superior tech, it's Nazis who fled there after the war, or Atlanteans, or some other purportedly advanced but unknown human group.

And on and on...

Source: discussion with people online claiming to believe these things, with the proviso that it is hard to tell whether an online conversation is with a sincere person explaining their beliefs or a troll. So grains of salt everywhere.

Moon rang like a bell:

NASA used the spent spacecraft for science, directing these modules for controlled crashed into the Moon. These crashes caused moonquakes, and scientists measured the vibrations moving through the Moon and found it rings like a bell.

https://www.popsci.com/does-moon-sound-like-bell/

 

[John J.]

the best fit I've found so far Adelpha Epione agilla

Agreed. I'm not sure (yet) that the "orb" is a butterfly, but if it is, maybe this critter is in the running too? Autochton zarex or the sharp-banded skipper.

Skippers are in the order Lepidoptera with moths and butterflies.

They are named for their quick, darting flight habits... ...More than 3500 species of skippers are recognized, and they occur worldwide, but with the greatest diversity in the Neotropical regions of Central and South America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipper_(butterfly)

Autochton zarex is found across Central and much of South America, including Ecuador:

-From EOL (Encyclopedia Of Life) website, apparently supported by the Smithsonian Institution,
https://eol.org/pages/181967

See also "Butterflies of the Amazon and Andes, Sharp Banded Skipper" on this "learn about Butterflies" webpage,
https://www.learnaboutbutterflies.com/Amazon-Autochtonzarex.html

In the photos I've seen, Autochton zarex has a distinct white stripe on each side of its topmost/ foremost wing.
Most (but not all) have a white trailing edge on the other pair of wings, giving the impression of a continuous white stripe across the two wings on each side when the wings are held upwards. Main body colour seems to vary - leather or chocolate brown, dark grey, black.

(The last image, taken in Ecuador, 2014, shows an Autochton zarex without trailing-edge white stripes).


Most skippers lack the wing-coupling structures common in other moths and butterflies (whose four wings can be functionally considered as two wings).
I don't know if this would affect their appearance in flight, but I've found pictures of "roosting" skippers with one pair of wings at a different angle to the other; Note, this photo isn't Autochton zarex but a different skipper seen in Ohio:

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

In the 720x1279 image can kinda see that it looks like a black orb with the sun shining off it and so you can think it's beyond that cloud cover for the sun to be shining off it.

But then all the other images of the "orb" we have there is no hint of sun shining off it!!!!! (other than being able to see it, of course. No specular highlight).

 

[NorCal Dave]

I do think we need a new term for stuff like this in addition to LIZ. While LIZ certainly applies, we're only looking at it because UAPmax hyped it up so much. Similar to other hyped-up photos and claims that become a whole lot of nothing.

Something like the "Inverse Hype Rule":

The level of compelling evidence eventually presented is inversely related to the level of hype proceeding said presentation.

 

[Ann K]

Moon rang like a bell

But of course seismographs around the world show the same thing with earthquakes, a fact that has somehow escaped the notice of hollow moon proponents. Well...except for those who have proposed that the earth is hollow too!

 

[Cosmic Osmo]

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!

 

[Cosmic Osmo]

The biggest criticism I'd likely see levied against this recreation is that my "pen cap" body isn't accurate to a real butterfly, but I think it's still too close to be a coincidence. For what it's worth, I'm imaging the body of the butterfly in the UAP photo is hanging down slightly below the wings as seen here:

 

[NorCal Dave]

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.

Hell of a try Osmo! I never thought of printing out a paper butterfly and using that.

The only thing you might try different, if possible, is to put your little paper model out in a big landscape, like in the original. The busy background and relatively small size of the model would more closely resemble the original and you wouldn't have to try to degrade the photo, just zoom in on the model in the photo.

Again, nice thinking.

 

[John J.]

Still thinking of the sharp banded skipper, I couldn't find any footage of one in flight.

This YouTube video posted by user unnokazuo seven years ago shows different skippers in flight
(not time-stamped, it's only 47 seconds):


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0cQ5RQOT1g



The body seems to be held more horizontally than the butterflies in the pics provided by @Cosmic Osmo, but they also appear proportionately more bulky, with greater "depth" in the vertical plane.
They seem to glide for short periods, and sometimes even pause flapping with the wings held vertically or near-vertical.

I have no idea if the flight of this skipper is in any way similar to Autochton zarex (or any of the other banded skippers with similar markings).
Stills, approx. 34 and 35 seconds in:

 

[Cosmic Osmo]

Still thinking of the sharp banded skipper, I couldn't find any footage of one in flight.

I think the Adelpha is a better fit mostly because the size of the white bars seems like a better match to the UAP, and you can even kind of make out the banded structure of the bars on the foreground "wing" of the UAP. That seems to match Adelpha, but the bars on the skipper don't seem to have that structure.

But instead of chasing photos of butterflies in flight, I encourage you to try my method and just print one out. It was really, really easy — seriously like 5 mins total time invested from print to snapping a photo.

Hell of a try Osmo! I never thought of printing out a paper butterfly and using that.

The only thing you might try different, if possible, is to put your little paper model out in a big landscape, like in the original. The busy background and relatively small size of the model would more closely resemble the original and you wouldn't have to try to degrade the photo, just zoom in on the model in the photo.

Again, nice thinking.

I thought of that, but it was a bit windy today and I was having a bit of difficulty getting the wings to stay positioned on my model as it is. I used a small pin stuck through the wings to attempt to hold them in place but if I were to try it again outside I'd probably want a better system.

If someone else here with a little more free time wants to try their hand at recreating the shot using this method, I highly encourage it. It was very simple to do, but I'm sure someone here could do a much better job than what I threw together in five minutes.

 

[PublicStranger]

UAP max seems to be claiming a video of the incident exists. Completely contradicts his claim that this was something the photographer saw for a split second. Probably complete nonsense but I've DM'd him to try and elaborate further on this post. I've also contacted the 3rd party source that has been claiming to have middlemanned the obtaining of the photograph.

 

[jarlrmai]

The biggest criticism I'd likely see levied against this recreation is that my "pen cap" body isn't accurate to a real butterfly, but I think it's still too close to be a coincidence. For what it's worth, I'm imaging the body of the butterfly in the UAP photo is hanging down slightly below the wings as seen here:

View attachment 63066View attachment 63067

The main criticism of this method, (which by the way I does demonstrate the probability of the butterfly hypothesis) is likely to be that the adelpha epione butterflies underwing is not the same colour as the overwing, it has similar patterning but is lighter.

However I think there are many circumstances that lead to a dark underwing in the photo.

The image is likely underexposing the dark parts of the butterfly significantly.
Butterfly wings are translucent and upper shades can sometimes dominate depending on lighting.
Similarly shading effects could also render it darker in the non white areas.
Some butterflies species are fairly variable in colour and it could be a darker variant.

All of these factors could contribute towards a darker looking underwing in this image, however your method may be criticised for assuming the underwing and over wing are the same.

Here are some example under/overwing comparisons:

 

[FatPhil]

UAP max seems to be claiming a video of the incident exists. Completely contradicts his claim that this was something the photographer saw for a split second. Probably complete nonsense but I've DM'd him to try and elaborate further on this post. I've also contacted the 3rd party source that has been claiming to have middlemanned the obtaining of the photograph.

View attachment 63071

How does he view without access? All I can think of is clairvoyance or hallucinagenics. Neither of which is a particularly strong stance to base a UFO claim on.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

For some reason the less UAPMax has cropped the photo, the less resolution there is within a given section of the photos he presents. In other words the photos he has cropped before uploading them to Twitter show the orb in higher resolution than the less cropped - (or uncropped?) - photos. I know little about the digital world, but I assume that is simply the result of how Twitter compresses photos. For best results UAPMax should close-crop an image of the orb from his original, save it in TIFF or PNG, and upload it to IMGUR. (Or is there a better service? Open to suggestions.)

https://x.com/UFOS_UAPS/status/1706814175216099383?s=20

This is the highest resolution version of the orb I can find from the UAPMax Twitter account.

My guess is that the shape of the wings is slightly distorted. it's a combination of motion blur resulting from the beating wing and compression artifacts: both within the camera (sensor and processing) and later compression. The pointy shape of the top of the right wing, for example - may be anomalous.

 

[deirdre]

butterflies underwing is not the same colour as the overwing, it has similar patterning but is lighter

They seem same enough in this pic.

and he seems pretty bulky on bottom..granted this is not the correct angle at all, just showing the bulk and pattern match orf white design when blurred..(and pink arrow looks like more antennae to me..can they fly upside down if mating midair? or fighting?) edit: scratch antennae. its a manipulated photo..the original, which is super hard to find in this thread does not have the antennae pieces.

 

[jarlrmai]

They seem same enough in this pic.

View attachment 63075



and he seems pretty bulky on bottom..granted this is not the correct angle at all, just showing the bulk and pattern match orf white design when blurred..(and pink arrow looks like more antennae to me..can they fly upside down if mating midair? or fighting?)


View attachment 63077

Like I say I agree with the example, what I am saying is that an easy "de-debunk" would be to show the images I have shown where the underside appears much lighter. I am pointing out reasons why the underside might not show as as light as it shows in some online images to head off this de-debunk.

The example image you have shown is a good one that demonstrates the points I make in my post.

For instance the twitter account could post something like "idiot metabunkers think a butterfly is the same on the bottom as the top" if they look at the paper cut-out demonstration as they have used the same image for the top and bottom of the butterfly.

I am countering this.

 

[deirdre]

I am countering this.

i know. but technically it is lighter anyway in the original orb photo

https://ecuador.inaturalist.org/taxa/578353-Adelpha-epione/browse_photos

this link has no exact positions but many pics..i think this one show the tip can look pointier with camera/wing angle (not that it matters much the white is an EXACT pattern match)

 

[deirdre]

and heres a nice demo how the closest tip can appear to almost disappear above the white strip area

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/steve_cary/23444250876/in/photolist-e6cwbz-e6iaiC-2hU5VKB-2hU9tWd-KRN3ZC-aL1rnH-RxjX5L-Wzrv9n-2ezpWAy-2nrL3ah-2nrMfDm-LxR1xQ-2ofwtNu-2hUQmTR-23WS1RM-2nQyciQ-2ofrmfY-9hWjRm-9hWjNG-9hWjKu-JuouG8-nAk5mQ-25RUspb-2cFyYCV-2n5bN3L-2n53x3o-284W7th-K11Cbx-2cFyYMc-nmVwqf-ph9LNA-B5UGCQ-qwsjX7-egiHLh-H8CnVV-H8C7UH-LAiE3t-At84RY-At88BJ-2ksoEW2-q3vUhn-HD4aYK-2iv1HCH-2iv9JE6-2iuZut2-2iv1HDe-2csWfTX-222jeZK-RHJLKY-BHFV11

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

BTW, what kind of pro-photographer takes a vertical photo of a landscape?* With clutter in the foreground? With the lens sort-of focused on the clutter? (Auto-focus?) This is a crappy photo all around. I'm skeptical that a pro would take even a casual cell phone snapshot like this. It would hurt my bones. I've looked at Wurfl's site, and his photos are quality stuff.

So, while there is a photographer named Fernando Cornejo Wurfl, my question is: Did some random guy take this photo and just falsely paste the Wurfl name on his own cell phone snapshot?


*Or does this photo remain cropped?

Update: Wurfl is not part of the guy's name.

EDIT: Turns out his name really is Fernando Cornejo-Würfl.

Bing

It's an acronym that stands for Wireless Universal Resource FiLe . It was created in the early 2000s to collect information about all internet-enabled mobile devices into a single "universal" configuration file . Today, it is the industry standard for device detection and intelligence.

I don't know why he added it to the name of his site:
https://fotografosecuatorianos.org/portafolio_ciudad/fernando-cornejo-wurfl/

Fernando Cornejo uses a copyright notice in the lower right corner of the photos he presents on his Facebook page: Just his name, Fernando Cornejo, preceded by a logo I don't recognize - probably his personal self-produced logo. No C in a circle logo.

(Sorry for no image of his notice, but I'm being careful not to violate copyright.)

He doesn't put watermarks on those photos.



https://x.com/UFOS_UAPS/status/1706473537186226590?s=20
But in this UAPMax Twitter post we get three different cropped photos with this watermark in the center of the frame:

UAPMax says he did not add these watermarks, which implies Fernando Cornejo was the one who added them. I guess it's possible. And what's up with the logo in the bottom left corner. What's that?


But other versions of the photo UAPMax has presented, don't have watermarks. What's up with that?

Anyway, I've emailed Cornejo asking to purchase the right to publish this photo.

 

[FatPhil]

... the less UAPMax has cropped the photo ...

Which bit of don't-dick-about-with-the-image-at-all does he not understand?

 

[AmberRobot]

Once you finally see the butterfly it is difficult to unsee. Not that that means the identification is definite but something like a butterfly flitting by close to the camera and this showing up in only one frame and not being noticed until after-the-fact inspection of the photos seems quite consistent with the image and scenario.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

And what's up with the logo in the bottom left corner. What's that?

I've been looking for this logo but can't find it

Ecuadorian Institute of Intellectual Property or (IEPI) No

international intellectual property alliance No

Square, a financial services and digital payments company No

 

[Mendel]

Update: Wurfl is not part of the guy's name.

Bing

I don't know why he added it to the name of his site:
https://fotografosecuatorianos.org/portafolio_ciudad/fernando-cornejo-wurfl/

That's false, his name is Fernando Cornejo-Würfl.

Google screenshot:

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.2489 :

 

[Cosmic Osmo]

They seem same enough in this pic.

View attachment 63075



and he seems pretty bulky on bottom..granted this is not the correct angle at all, just showing the bulk and pattern match orf white design when blurred..(and pink arrow looks like more antennae to me..can they fly upside down if mating midair? or fighting?) edit: scratch antennae. its a manipulated photo..the original, which is super hard to find in this thread does not have the antennae pieces.


View attachment 63077

This real-world side-by-side really drives home how the underwing color can appear sufficiently dark when in shadow, as it would be in the UAP pic.

I re-shot my model this morning outside from a distance in order to better simulate the UAP pic, then added your photo above to create an easily-sharable visualization. Here's what I came up with:

At this point, anyone who can't see it's a butterfly is being willfully blind.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Another update, (corrected): Fernando Cornejo-Würfl.

I've been sloppy. This site: https://fotografosecuatorianos.org/

Doesn't seem to belong to Fernando Cornejo-Würfl. It's about Ecuadorian Photographers and seems to be run by someone else. Cornejo's info is presented on this page:

https://fotografosecuatorianos.org/portafolio_ciudad/fernando-cornejo-wurfl/

His address is given as: Quito – Ecuador. This page is dated 2016.


Cornejo's Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/urayaku/about

Here his address is: La Serena, Chile

I'd have to think his own Facebook page is more up to date/accurate

He calls himself Urayaku on his Facebook Page, possibly to make it clear he is not the Artist by the name of Fernando Cornejo: https://www.facebook.com/FernandoCornejoFineArt/about

Questions:

-Was the photographer Fernando Cornejo-Würfl in Ecaudor or Chile when this photo was taken?

From one of the photos on his Facebook page, dated Sept 2, 5:00 p.m.: Urayaku is at Isla De La Plata, Puerto López, Ecuador.

Earlier: August 29, same location.

Another: Dated Sept 17, same location.

On Sept 27: Salango Islote off the coast of Manabi (Ecuador)

On August 15: Urayaku is at Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.

This map shows him about 200 miles inland as the crow flies, when "he broke down." I'm assuming it was the car that broke down.

But we don't know what day the photo was taken.


-Did photographer Fernando Cornejo-Würfl really take this photo?

-If he did, how did UAPMax get involved?

-Is the photographer Fernando Cornejo-Würfl going to publish a separate article somewhere, claiming that this object is a Flying Saucer? Or is the UAPMax pay per view video podcast going to be the only forum?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

That's false, his name is Fernando Cornejo-Würfl.

Google screenshot:
View attachment 63088
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.2489 :
View attachment 63089

Okay, I'll correct.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

BTW, this forced perspective photo is presented on Cornejo's Facebook Page:

"Fotografía de perspectiva forzada" seems to be the term in Spanish.

 

[Edward Current]

Forgive me if this has been posted above. I put the side-by-side comparison from Deirdre as a reply to UAPMax's pinned tweet. Amidst calling me an asshat, clown, and (twice) moron, writing "I have the meta data and the ground tracking data. It's almost exact between a half mile and three quarters," and telling me "Go back to your mick west circle jerk on metadouche," he posted this apparently uncropped version as proof that it's not a butterfly. (Ground tracking data?)

But at least he's objective about things....

Unfortunately when I asked him to please send over the ground tracking data, he blocked me. So that means I probably won't receive it when he sends me this important file.

 

[Skalman]

Yeah, I don't have much to add to this thread but I can at least give my perspective as a conservation biologist (who has to identify lot of different species from many different phyla in my daily job but isn't an expert on any of them): I think it is likely to be a butterfly but I won't swear on it. Anyway, it is frankly not possible to identify the species from this photo alone, probably not even for a local expert. It being a tropical species doesn't help either, since the species diversity is much larger there and the flying period for most species is probably all-year round more or less.

Oh, and when writing a species binomial name, you only use a capital letter in the generic name, not the specific one. As so:
Polyommatus dorylas. Just a pet peeve of mine.

 

[deirdre]

(Ground tracking data?)

what is that? like they tracked it by satellite?

 

[SuppaCoup]

Forgive me if this has been posted above. I put the side-by-side comparison from Deirdre as a reply to UAPMax's pinned tweet. Amidst calling me an asshat, clown, and (twice) moron, writing "I have the meta data and the ground tracking data. It's almost exact between a half mile and three quarters," and telling me "Go back to your mick west circle jerk on metadouche," he posted this apparently uncropped version as proof that it's not a butterfly. (Ground tracking data?)

View attachment 63096

But at least he's objective about things....

View attachment 63098

Unfortunately when I asked him to please send over the ground tracking data, he blocked me. So that means I probably won't receive it when he sends me this important file.

what explanation does he have that something that far away shows no signs of atmospheric light scattering, unlike anything else in the scene?
Has he said anything about showing more photos taken in the area soon?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Forgive me if this has been posted above. I put the side-by-side comparison from Deirdre as a reply to UAPMax's pinned tweet. Amidst calling me an asshat, clown, and (twice) moron, writing "I have the meta data and the ground tracking data. It's almost exact between a half mile and three quarters," and telling me "Go back to your mick west circle jerk on metadouche," he posted this apparently uncropped version as proof that it's not a butterfly. (Ground tracking data?)

View attachment 63096

But at least he's objective about things....

View attachment 63098

Unfortunately when I asked him to please send over the ground tracking data, he blocked me. So that means I probably won't receive it when he sends me this important file.

If he looks at this MB, rather than getting second hand reports, I think he's getting uneasy after learning for the first time that photos are 2D and distances and sizes can be deceptive. Angular size and distance of an unknown - or unrecognized! - object are hard to judge in a 2D photo. If you unconsciously decide that it's big and distant, it can be hard to readjust to the fact that it's small and close.

Very unlikely that he's ever heard of forced perspective, even though it's fairly well known to ordinary folk. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is Forced Perspective Central for tourists.

Even less likely that he's ever heard of the roles of stereopsis, convergence, accommodation, apparent brightness, haze, etc. in the non-conscious process of depth perception.

BTW, forced perspective is used in real life:
The Disney folks who designed Disneyland in the 50's used forced perspective, notably in the design of the buildings on Main Street U.S.A. and the Sleeping Beauty Castle. These buildings reduce in scale as they reach toward the sky. They give an impression of being taller than they are.

 

[Mendel]

(Ground tracking data?)

Obviously this is a spacecraft in an XLEO¹, and as such it must've been tracked by ground stations. (At least that what I'm lead to believe after perusing the first page of search results on "ground tracking data".) I wonder how he's going to perform triangulation from one observation, or maybe Cornejo-Würfl had a radar to hand?

¹ extremely low Earth orbit

 

[SuppaCoup]

Even assuming this is a big thing far away, isn't getting reliable data on something flying that low with hills all about almost impossible?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Something about this photo that makes the illusion of great distance and large angular size so convincing is the factor of apparent brightness.

There are two bands of bright sunshine: one close by and one very distant, with a band of cloud shadow between. The "orb" is brightly lit, which means it could be near the camera where the plants are, or it could be far away where the distant brightly lit trees are. It would be easily identified as a close and small object if it were lower down and was set against the plants as a background, but it's higher up and it's set against the background of the distant brightly lit trees.

UAPMax was "seeing" this an object above the distant trees. Maybe he's having doubts now.

 

[John J.]

he posted this apparently uncropped version as proof that it's not a butterfly

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.

However, my (admittedly cursory) investigation has yielded an unexpected breakthrough.
UAPMax has missed an important piece of evidence- more important than the orb itself.

There is very clearly a small spacesuited humanoid hiding behind the grasses, with what might be an optical device on the top of its helmet (in truth, the purpose of the helmet device must remain in the realm of speculation for now).

You can even make out the grey-green face behind the visor. He/ she/ it looks a bit apprehensive to me.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is no time for clichés, but I feel the hand of history on my shoulder.
This is the Ecuador Spaceman.

 

[sigmops]

Good thinking on the roosting butterflies

However I am increasingly wary of making jokes of other people's viewpoints and beliefs. I feel that the truth shouldn't have to be served as such a bitter pill. Harder to make peace that way.

edit: and this is something I am striving towards with my own responses

 

[JMartJr]

Good thinking on the roosting butterflies.

Indeed!

However I am increasingly wary of making jokes of other people's viewpoints and beliefs. I feel that the truth shouldn't have to be served as such a bitter pill. Harder to make peace that way.

Yeah. I think the way this thread opened was unfortunate in that regard.