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

[Z.W. Wolf]

Without the clouds and other distractions, this is already a bit better. It's easier to see that it's in the sunshine above the plants.

I tried using Photoshop clone tool to darken the distant trees, but there's so little resolution in this version, the "orb" gets kind of lost.

 

[Ann K]

Indeed!


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

The way this thread opened was almost a self-parody by UAPMax, and I think most of our members didn't make fun of his "beliefs" as much as we made fun of his gushing, overblown claims about a thing that neither we nor he had seen yet. He himself, once he had possession of the image, seemed pretty underwhelmed and disappointed but was forced into defending it (by attacking Metabunk) by his own initial enthusiasm.

 

[John J.]

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.

Fair point, generally speaking. I've removed the somewhat flippant "Beat that......!" line from my post.

...or a bit of pareidolia on my part. Talking of which...

However, I was giving examples of my pareidolia, not claims made by anyone else.
Unless of course that is an alien astronaut, and/or a demon cat.
I don't think giving examples of our own misperceptions is invalid, any more than quoting examples of well-known psychological biases in discussion about why people sometimes make perceptual errors or come to faulty conclusions.

I think the language used by UAPMax strongly indicates that he (I assume UAPMax is male) has no interest in reasoned discussion of the photo. He has insulted individual members of this forum, and all of us collectively.

Many years ago, I was working as a nurse through the time that MMR vaccinations fell in the UK and elsewhere thanks to the "beliefs" of Andrew Wakefield, "beliefs" that he still propagates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_autism_fraud
He is not swayed by evidence or reasoned argument.

Nor, apparently, is David Icke or a host of other conspiracy theorists. Not all beliefs are worthy of respect, and some are positively dangerous (e.g., in their different ways, the beliefs of Wakefield, "Heaven's Gate", Charles Manson).

The posting guidelines (and ongoing work of staff/ moderators) here helps ensure that we don't use insults in the way that UAPMax has. I think it's fair to say people here wouldn't want to.
But even if we can't explain the "orb", UAPMax's claims of laser systems, atmospheric disturbances and wormholes appear to be hyperbolic bunk.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

The way this thread opened was almost a self-parody by UAPMax, and I think most of our members didn't make fun of his "beliefs" as much as we made fun of his gushing, overblown claims about a thing that neither we nor he had seen yet. He himself, once he had possession of the image, seemed pretty underwhelmed and disappointed.

I think he was passing along info from the photographer and hadn't seen it. But his writing style is unclear, so I'm not sure.

 

[deirdre]

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).

how funny would it be if that was some type of butterfly trap? [didnt see any with little 'windows' like that]
unfortunately if you put in "butterfly trap yellow" all you get is these incredibly convenient for gnats sticky things (i'm only adding as a PSA because how handy would these be?!)

 

[deirdre]

and all of us collectively.

i dont think he insulted us collectively, all he said was "go F yourselves". I dont really take that as an insult.

The posting guidelines (and ongoing work of staff/ moderators) here helps ensure that we don't use insults in the way that UAPMax has.

I prefer his way actually. I'd prefer someone call me an asshat, then listen to some condescending diatribe about my alleged cognitive disabilities just because they can't believe i would deign to disagree with them!

 

[Mendel]

I think he was passing along info from the photographer and hadn't seen it. But his writing style is unclear, so I'm not sure.

Apparently there's a middleman?

I've also contacted the 3rd party source that has been claiming to have middlemanned the obtaining of the photograph.

 

[Mendel]

I tried using Photoshop clone tool to darken the distant trees, but there's so little resolution in this version, the "orb" gets kind of lost.

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

 

[JMartJr]

the worst part is by the time it is released we will have a page and half of nothing comments, which will make the actual pic harder to find in the thread!

Whether or not the pre-release discussion had value, this seems to me a valid concern. Could Mods address it, perhaps by at elast inserting the image at the top of the thread, or perhaps preferably by following up on:

I suggest that if the orb photo is released, we start a new thread to do our analysis; and we all agree not to mention our prediction in that new thread.

and splitting off the discussion of the picture from the discussion of the pre-release marketing hype? At the very best, these seem separate discussions.

 

[deirdre]

Whether or not the pre-release discussion had value, this seems to me a valid concern. Could Mods address it, perhaps by at elast inserting the image at the top of the thread, or perhaps preferably by following up on:

you need to tag mods, or they likely wont see your comment

@Landru
@Mick West

 

[Landru]

you need to tag mods, or they likely wont see your comment

@Landru
@Mick West

Which picture is best? There are a ton of them.

 

[deirdre]

Which picture is best? There are a ton of them.

can't find it?

 

[deirdre]

Which picture is best? There are a ton of them.

everything above post #48 should be in a separate thread. 48 onward is the analysis of the photo (im assuming...didnt read like 2 pages as i stopped listening long before the photo was released..so was like 3 pages behind)

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Yes, Post #48 should be the first post in the split thread. This was the first time the actual photo was presented. There may have to be some added text at the top to explain what the thread is about.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Without the clouds and other distractions, this is already a bit better. It's easier to see that it's in the sunshine above the plants.

I tried using Photoshop clone tool to darken the distant trees, but there's so little resolution in this version, the "orb" gets kind of lost.


View attachment 63113

I tried a different approach: The bottom up approach. To eliminate the distracting and misleading cloud shadow, I used the Photoshop clone tool to make the brightly sunlit plants taller. I did nothing to the butterfly/Orb. I did not move it, make it brighter, or anything. This is a rough and ready 'shop, but I think this should show more clearly that this is a sunlit butterfly above or near the sunlit plants.

The original photo is an accidental forced perspective photograph. An important factor is apparent brightness. The two separate bands of brightness are misleading. It makes it look as if the butterfly belongs with the bright, distant trees, instead of with the bright nearby plants. If there had been no cloud shadow on the forest, this photo would not have been nearly as misleading.

This version shows more clearly that the distant trees, even though lit by the same Sun, have a lower apparent brightness than does the butterfly. The distant trees also have a slight blue cast. The even more distant trees are darker with a more noticeable blue cast. The reason is atmospheric scattering. (Not Rayleigh scattering! That's something different.) The trees look darker than the butterfly.

The butterfly has the same apparent brightness as the plants. The white stripes on the Orb/butterfly wings do not have a blue cast. This is evidence that this is a small object close to the plants, not a large object above the distant trees.

I did not mess around with the brightness of the plants. Just cloned them. I didn't change the brightness, contrast, white point, etc. in any part of this photo downloaded from the UAPMax Twitter account.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I think this is apropos.

http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/gilchrist2006mytalke.html

Luminance-gradient-dependent lightness illusion*


*The term "Luminance-gradient-dependent brightness contrast" is also possible.


The left square appears to be darker than the right one, though they are identical in luminance gradient.

Counterphase brightness induction


The left bar appears to be darker than the right bar in each image.

The band of sunlit forest -in which the house roof is visible - is between the dark band of cloud shadow, and the more distant, and thus darker, forest. Therefore that band of sunlit forest is perceived as brighter than it is. It appears to be as bright as the sunlit plants.

If the band of cloud shadow is eliminated, that sunlit band of forest appears darker than the plants. The image of the butterfly is so relatively small that it's challenging to perceive how bright it is. But if the plants are brought closer to the butterfly image, it's easier to compare the two.

 

[MapperGuy]

I tried a different approach: The bottom up approach. To eliminate the distracting and misleading cloud shadow, I used the Photoshop clone tool to make the brightly sunlit plants taller. I did nothing to the butterfly/Orb. I did not move it, make it brighter, or anything. This is a rough and ready 'shop, but I think this should show more clearly that this is a sunlit butterfly above or near the sunlit plants.
View attachment 63145

The original photo was an accidental forced perspective photograph. An important factor was apparent brightness. The two separate bands of brightness were misleading. It made it look as if the butterfly belonged with the bright, distant trees, instead of with the bright nearby plants. If there had been no cloud shadow on the forest, this photo would not have been nearly as misleading.

This version shows more clearly that the distant trees, even though lit by the same Sun, have a lower apparent brightness than does the butterfly. The distant trees also have a slight blue cast. The even more distant trees are darker with a more noticeable blue cast. The reason is atmospheric scattering. (Not Rayleigh scattering! That's something different.) The trees look darker than the butterfly.

The butterfly has the same apparent brightness as the plants. The white stripes on the Orb/butterfly wings do not have a blue cast. This is evidence that this is a small object close to the plants, not a large object above the distant trees.

I did not mess around with the brightness of the plants. Just cloned them. I didn't change the brightness, contrast, white point, etc. in any part of this photo downloaded from the UAPMax Twitter account.

Always consider Tone and Texture. The "orb" has white whites and black blacks. Is there anywhere in the background forest you can see these tones? No, the darkest colors have a strong bluish tinge and so do the lightest light colors. This shows the object cannot be as far away as the distant trees. The edges of the object also appear (to me anyway) to be sharper than the edges of the obviously distant ridges. Objects at a similar distance should display the same levels of sharpness and tone.

Removing the intervening dark forest really helps show the similarity between the nearby ferns and the object.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Yes, good additions. If we ever do see the high-resolution version, these things should be more obvious.

We should also talk about scale. The butterfly is just the right size relative to the leaves/blades of grass.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I should present these two versions side by side. 'Shop and Original.
.

 

[Landru]

This is done.

everything above post #48 should be in a separate thread. 48 onward is the analysis of the photo (im assuming...didnt read like 2 pages as i stopped listening long before the photo was released..so was like 3 pages behind)

Done

 

[Edward Current]

This is kind of interesting. "UAPMax" blocked me, but I've been discussing the picture on Twitter with other orb-believers. I posted Z.W.'s version with the foreground vegetation photoshopped up to show how this eliminates the illusion that the object is large and distant, and reveals it to be at the same distance as the foreground. User PersonalC0ffee looked at that version and...interpreted the foreground vegetation as distant forest trees instead. (I wrote "grass," but that particular duplicated plant is a dicot.)

I guess this is cognitive dissonance in action. It's like, the person saw that the foreground and object have to be at the same distance, but that conflicted with the belief that the object is distant, therefore the foreground had to be interpreted as distant as well. Missing the forest for the trees, I guess.

I proceeded to show the original again and ask if the foreground was trees, but predictably, the point didn't register — PersonalC0ffee changed the subject.

 

[deirdre]

and reveals it to be at the same distance

i dont think its the "same" distance. its further back than the grass but before this first line of tree tops (highlighted in purple)

 

[John J.]

how funny would it be if that was some type of butterfly trap?

I read @deirdre's post without really thinking about it- sorry deirdre!

Here's what she was talking about:

Doubled in size:

I think it might be useful to try and identify this item (if it is an item, it's hard to tell amongst the visual clutter).

Deirdre might be right.
I couldn't find a definite match, but there are some similarities between the artefact above and some traps (there's a lot of different types, plus "home-builds").
Click to enlarge.


What appear to be parallel near- horizontal bands on the item in the "orb" photo have at least a passing resemblance to those on the traps above.

Of course, if the thing in the photo is a butterfly or moth trap, it doesn't mean that the claimed "orb" is a butterfly.

But it would mean that someone who had an interest in Lepidoptera had been to the location used by the photographer, and thought it was worthwhile to set up their trap there.

 

[JMartJr]

I think it might be useful to try and identify this item (if it is an item, it's hard to tell amongst the visual clutter).

I mean, yeah, it sort of has that look -- but I wonder if we'd be seeing a butterfly trap if we were not already talking butterflies. As you say, it is hard to tell when there is so much visual clutter, but I suspect we're seeing some of these leaves, just back behind some of the taller grass...

But I have occasionally been wrong...

 

[John J.]

I wonder if we'd be seeing a butterfly trap if we were not already talking butterflies.

That's a very good point.
Luckily, I had no idea what butterfly / moth traps looked like! Did a quick search after re-reading deirdre's post.

That doesn't rule out pareidolia on my part, of course- he it still looks a bit like an astronaut to me!
I accept that I might be interpreting light areas of foliage as a structured object, though.

 

[Ann K]

What appear to be parallel near- horizontal bands on the item in the "orb" photo have at least a passing resemblance to those on the traps above.

It's a bird feeder ...or a yellow flower with three blooms. But that's a diversion we don't need to have, what with it being in the LIZ.

 

[deirdre]

what with it being in the LIZ.

unlike every single one of the thousand UFO threads...

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Or maybe it's the ghost of a boy who died in a traffic accident on this spot?

I do like the astronaut pic. But let's not get too far out in the weeds with this distraction. Let's go with the highest probability stuff first.

Plant with yellowish translucent leaves?

Or what road, anywhere, doesn't have trash on the shoulder? Let's go with yellow plastic bag or yellow fast food wrapper before billion to one stuff.

 

[deirdre]

but I wonder if we'd be seeing a butterfly trap if we were not already talking butterflies.

you wouldn't, because i wouldnt have said it. The reason it would "be funny" is if the nature photographer was hoaxing UAPMax so put a butterfly trap from Toys R'Us in the shot as a hidden clue. That's what i was going for.

 

[JMartJr]

The reason it would "be funny" is if the nature photographer was hoaxing UAPMax so put a butterfly trap from Toys R'Us in the shot as a hidden clue. That's what i was going for.

So the hoax was premeditated, and involved waiting for a butterfly to come by and taking its picture hoping it looked like a UFO? I'll admit that is more likely than Space Aliens happening by in a vehicle that resembles local butterflies, but it seems an odd plan -- tossing a Frisbee(tm) or hubcap, or the ever-popular thing on a string, would seem to be better plans.

Still, it is an idea that is potentially testable -- if we ever got the complete run of pics from the phone, and there were a bunch of butterfly shots that didn't QUITE look UFOey enough, that would be interesting!

 

[deirdre]

hoping it looked like a UFO?

it doesnt look like a ufo. maybe he read our devil dog thread and saw how easy it is to mistake a butterfly for not-a-butterfly. just saying.., that's why i said it would be funny.

 

[deirdre]

diamond shaped ufo. how far away would this be..like a half mile, like UAPMax's ufo?

 

[Ann K]

diamond shaped ufo. how far away would this be..like a half mile, like UAPMax's ufo?
View attachment 63282

We've already gone through the discussion of aerial perspective, and here it's very obvious that the receding hills become lighter and more blue with distance. There's nothing here that would tell us that the thing is any further away than the tree on the left.

 

[Mendel]

..like a half mile, like UAPMax's ufo?

the "half mile" claim is based on "ground tracking data" that is not in evidence, and not likely to ever be in evidence. It's not an established fact.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Here's some facts.

The last comment, of any substance, about the Orb on the UAPMax Twitter account was on September 26.

Quick update. Work ongoing on orb image. All looks very promising.

On Sept 29 and 30 there were several posts castigating people who disagree with the distant Orb idea, but there were no counter-arguments. Only argument by assertion and name calling. There have been no mentions at all since Sept 30.

I emailed Fernando Cornejo-Würfl on Sept 30 with a sincere offer to pay for the publishing rights to his photo. No response so far.

It's too early to draw any conclusions about this.

 

[sigmops]

diamond shaped ufo. how far away would this be..like a half mile, like UAPMax's ufo?
View attachment 63282

Like Ann K mentioned based on the atmospheric haze, it would seem to be closer to the tree than to the hills.

Is this a photoshop or an AI generated image?

 

[jarlrmai]

Like Ann K mentioned based on the atmospheric haze, it would seem to be closer to the tree than to the hills.

Is this a photoshop or an AI generated image?

Looks like a wide angle with Monarch butterflies to me, you can see 4-5 butterflies in the upper branches, largish numbers like this are usually indicative of a migratory species like Monarchs.

So the flying one is just part of the migration flock.

 

[jarlrmai]

Maybe a couple of metres further away than the tree

 

[deirdre]

Is this a photoshop or an AI generated image?

its an example for outside readers (and UAPMAX) who believe UAPMax's photo shows a thing half a mile away. I dont know how many such readers would be on board with the sunlight issue as they might think if the orb is high (vs the distant trees) it too might still reflect sunlight.

Basically i'm doing what i did in the devil dog thread, showing those with little perspective experience that the placement of a small object on such a background will trick the eye into thinking it is further away than it is.

I photoshopped out the rest of the flock.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

New mention of the Orb on Sunday, 10/08.

https://x.com/UFOS_UAPS/status/1711160436966437190?s=20

Orb? Still being assessed. Can't rush it. Cite anywhere I've said it's 100%.It's my belief it's the real thing. I'm more so, since getting preliminary data.

This implies that UAPMax has not yet been given a higher resolution version. What does preliminary data mean? That sounds as if it's a fancy way of saying the low-resolution image. Or the info he got when he talked to... someone? Or... what? What does "assessment" mean? He's still analyzing the low-res image?

Videos- as stated from day 1, I've never had them in my possession and can only report on them, and continue working with the person.

This comes from a post which is a list of updates on previous issues. It's unclear whether the videos are related to the Fernando Cornejo-Würfl Orb, or to some other issue.

It remains unclear why this is taking so long, and what "continue working with the person" means. Who is "the person"? Why so much "work"?

Could it be that he's simply getting no reply from Fernando Cornejo-Würfl? I haven't.