Debunked: UFO with alien head sticking out in Google Map [Lensflare & JPEG artifacts]

Hevach

Senior Member.
As reported by such journalistic paragons as the Mirror and shared on facebook by my niece (who has asked me to stop embarrassing her by debunking the stuff her friends send her), Scott Waring found what he claims is a flying saucer with an alien's head sticking out in the sky of a street view panorama in Trout Creek, Montanna.


Source: http://goo.gl/SuQSwq

He provides the coordinates as 47d 51' 17.60" N, 115d 36' 42.60" W. The actual image is a bit north of that along Montana 200, just south of the corner of Vermillion Creek Road.

As you can see in the video, he shows what he purports to be a saucer shaped craft with a domed top. He then manipulates the image to show a head sticking out the top, in what I guess is the ET version of hood surfing. The head appears to be a compression artifact, but the "craft" itself?

Here it is from a better angle.
lensflare.jpg

[Update by @Mick West]

Scott finds an "alien" in this image:

In Google Maps, that's https://www.google.com/maps/@47.854...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sHjpjDVT8fn1C6X_ArVRCcg!2e0

He finds it by taking a screenshot, and then adjusting the contrast. However that's not looking at the original photo - it's looking at something that Google Maps (or Google Earth, they work the same way) has projected onto the screen, and smoothed out so it looks nice. We need to dig a little to find the actual pixels.

In Google Chrome, we can look at all the raw data that Google Maps downloads:


Which gives up this raw image, which is the actual basis of what appears on screen.


You can also see in that data stream a thumbnail of the full 360 panorama:


But if we look at the raw data, we can see the "alien" is just some jpeg compression artifacts in the original image. These show up noise inside 8x8 squares.


Zoom in closer, and you can see they are just 8x8 squares (proving it's jpeg compression artifacts), and the contents of the squares are essentially just noise - typical of what you get around the edges of any object that has been jpeg compressed.


This is the original image that is downloaded from Google. Then filtering is applied, which rounds off the square edges:


And finally the correct projection is applied, to make it be the correct size and shape on screen for the current view angle:



In the Mirror story, Scott says:

"I investigated it and took a few screenshots and found something that was not first apparent - there is an alien head sticking out from the UFO.

"Look carefully at the shading and curvature around the head and you will know its (sic) real.

"I am just blown away that we have real proof of alien (sic) with this photo.

"I thought it was just a UFO but this head sticking out is proof that not all UFOs are ET drones but some are controlled and flown by actual aliens."
Content from External Source
But as we can see from the above images, the "shading and curvature" is just a result of the filtering and projecting done to the photo AFTER it has been downloaded. The original image simple has some square pixels, with random jpeg artifacts.
 
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She's 13, and popularity at that age is not based on thinking for ones self. I wish her friends would get back to ranking popularity by which awful vampire romance books you like best, because since around December it's just been this kind of stuff one after another. She's a smart girl, she can see reality when she's given all the evidence (after I showed her the image I attached, her actual words were, "Oh, it's like in the new Star Trek movie!"), but her friends not so much, and I'm the killjoy uncle who won't buy them beer but will still spoil the rest of their fun.
 
She's 13, and popularity at that age is not based on thinking for ones self. I wish her friends would get back to ranking popularity by which awful vampire romance books you like best, because since around December it's just been this kind of stuff one after another. She's a smart girl, she can see reality when she's given all the evidence (after I showed her the image I attached, her actual words were, "Oh, it's like in the new Star Trek movie!"), but her friends not so much, and I'm the killjoy uncle who won't buy them beer but will still spoil the rest of their fun.
young people just like that stuff. it's like ghosts. it doesn't matter if its real or not, its just fun to imagine it is.
 
ps. if you really want to turn her off to this stuff, join in. Theres nothing more embarrassing then agreeing with an adult!
 
...her actual words were, "Oh, it's like in the new Star Trek movie!"), but her friends not so much, and I'm the killjoy uncle who won't buy them beer but will still spoil the rest of their fun.

Oh now, I am actually laughing out loud!! ('lulz')

Honestly....you might show her this, and tell her that yet another "old man" is amused. (Per "deirdre").
 
Oh now, I am actually laughing out loud!! ('lulz')

Honestly....you might show her this, and tell her that yet another "old man" is amused. (Per "deirdre").
I think it only works for dorky old people, not cool old people like you and me ; ) I like the super huge alien head! it explains why the spaceships have bubble dome tops.
 
Scott Warring is what could be generously described as a buffoon. He sees signs aliens in just about every rock formation he has seen with Google Earth/Moon/Mars. When you try to explain to him what he is actually seeing he greets you with the same sense of disbelief and amazement that cats have when they see someone willingly get into the shower. Most UFO researchers avoid him like the plague. I say most because he announced Prometheus Entertainment approached him about using one of his videos on a future episode of "Ancient Aliens". He was so happy about it he didn't even want to be compensated.

Sorry for the rant but I can't believe this man is an educator.
 
Perhaps he's just pretending to be, erm, differently perceptive. This seems too silly to actually be serious, but it would definitely be a massive boost in publicity for his website.
Or he's just really really excited about aliens.
 
Perhaps he's just pretending to be, erm, differently perceptive. This seems too silly to actually be serious, but it would definitely be a massive boost in publicity for his website.
Or he's just really really excited about aliens.
He is extremely serious about this topic and his belief in it. He used to have a scale below some of his articles where you could register your level of belief or disbelief. To many people were expressing disbelief so he changed the scale to only register belief. He believes in everything from Bob Lazar's imaginary physics doctorate to Alien Lizard People living under New Mexico. To paraphrase Gary Larson "he is one of the ways nature says do not touch"
 

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It is hard to believe that Scott has done this thinking it is "real"? Especially since this lens flare effect on Google cameras is well documented? But, it does make for some great humor! He has posted similar highly improbable OP in the past.Possibly as self amusement, or for the amusement of his followers. It is difficult to come up with a new UFO story on a daily basis and he often has to reach into history, or plain make things up to keep the 'daily" in the site charter? Dr. Warring also keeps recycling the same dead pixels, MB has so well debunked in the past, from the Mars rover photos as anything from living organisms on Mars, to spacecraft watching our rover? I do not encourage anyone to go to his site but it is good for a laugh. Sadly it seems there are those who believe the misinterpretations Scott often posts. For some real scary funny CT UFO "information' there are few better places. Keep up the good work Scott. We'll hope you get your wish and disclosure will come soon so you can say "I told you so!"
 
This is an identical glowing flying saucer shaped object (like on the Invaders - TV) in a Google Earth image taken at Cape Paterson, Inverloch Road, VIC, Australia.

This image had been sent to a UFO research group in Sydney, Australia, for analysis and determined to be a lens/processing artifact.

UFO in Cape Peterson, Australia.jpg
 
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This is an identical flying saucer shaped object in a Google Earth image taken at Cape Paterson, Inverloch Road, VIC, Australia.

This image had been sent to a UFO research group in Sydney, Australia, for analysis and determined to be a lens/processing artifact.

UFO in Cape Peterson, Australia.jpg
nice. do you have a link for the UFO Research Groups analysis?
 
Hi Deirdre
The image analysis had been contributed to by a number of UFO researchers in Australia. We did not report or publish this image analysis. Hevach's analysis of an identical object viewed at Tout Creek, Montana, USA on this page is an excellent reference.
 
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