Elizondo's Romanian Non-Human Mothership Photo [Reflection of a Light Fixture]

[Mendel]

Elizondo: "UFO mothership"

Seems to have got caught out again- this time using a photo with a reflection of a lampshade as proof of a UFO mothership - here

John Greenewald: "So, the person is likely shooting out, with a chandelier or light fixture of some kind behind them, and the top of their [hairy] head is partially blocking it."

 

[john.phil]

There is a less cropped version where the flat's rusty railing is visible at the bottom of the image:

source:
Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=606730784796952


I have geolocated the building complex from which the photo was taken (Strada Marcel Olinescu, Zona 300, Milaca, Arad, Romania - 310330):

source: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Arad,+Romania/@46.1786275,21.3395449,102m

I have enhanced the image to bring out the person's outline and ceiling fixture. The reflection of the hair, head contour, hairline and forehead are visible "above the clouds":

 

[Mick West]

I have geolocated the building complex from which the photo was taken (Strada Marcel Olinescu, Zona 300, Milaca, Arad, Romania - 310330):

source: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Arad,+Romania/@46.1786275,21.3395449,102m

Nice work. Several people, including @flarkey have done similar analysis. The features in the image mean you can pretty much narrow it down to a few apartment.

Probably the 5th floor (where the ground floor is the 1st floor, numbering convention vary in Europe), second from the end

This also matches the reverse angle from the road directly behind the top of the middle tree.

 

[Mick West]

Amusingly the same van is in the Google maps 3D view, in almost the same spot.

 

[flarkey]

this was my very quick geolocation and analysis yesterday on X.



Source: https://x.com/flarkey/status/1851271342122787119?t=O3TvjIhFGkWzaH0Bcd1VVg&s=19



Source: https://x.com/flarkey/status/1851275094401949898?t=ST33Q3Jxx6F1wVKUNxZ4gQ&s=19


And Luis Elizondo's response today...

 

[JMartJr]

I tried searching for that address and "apartament," to see if any real estate listings came up with interiors shots of an apartment there, possibly showing the light. No luck -- I am perhaps hampered in navigating Romanian real estate listings by the fact that I do not read or speak the language! Of course, light fixtures are easy and cheap to change out, and personalize an apartment, so that may or may not be the standard fixtures that came with the apartment. But would be fun to find, if anybody has a better idea of how to find interior apartment pics of the building.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

Something interesting here also, Elizondo at the conference explicitly claimed that "we" gathered this and made a reference to the US embassy. This is patently insinuative that a US government official took it in the conduct of their duties.

Even taking his "whoopsie" above in good faith -
1. This is clearly not at or located near the US embassy, was this information from his "friend"?
2. As we now know, the original source from this, is a conspiracy facebook group. How did Elizondo know about this "for years" before it was even posted?
3. He finely showcases here he applied absolutely no attempt to even analyze this himself. Not that it's the only example but a great example of why "intelligence" backgrounds mean nothing with these guys, he self-evidences here he applied absolutely none of that knowledge or thought here to come to his conclusion.

 

[Mendel]

3. He finely showcases here he applied absolutely no attempt to even analyze this himself. Not that it's the only example but a great example of why "intelligence" backgrounds mean nothing with these guys, he self-evidences here he applied absolutely none of that knowledge or thought here to come to his conclusion.

it does offer some insight, though, into why the AATIP hobby he ran 2012-2017 made him feel these things are important

 

[FatPhil]

Something interesting here also, Elizondo at the conference explicitly claimed that "we" gathered this and made a reference to the US embassy.

Not doubting you, but do you have a link and full quote to support that. I basically want to know exactly how he delivers the lie, and whether it suffered from one of his usual tells (sometimes he knows he's lying, sometimes it's clear he knows nothing).

 

[Alytha]

This is just so ridiculous.
"Look look, we finally have evidence"
2 days later: "Oops, thank you internet people for figuring it out"

@FatPhil, not quite a direct quote either, but here's Jason Colavito's article.

At a paid lecture on UFOs at a Philadelphia wine bar Monday, New York Times bestselling author Lue Elizondo presented what he said was an "unimaginable" and "impossible" photograph of an alien mothership taken in Romania in 2022. Elizondo said military pilots "describe it literally as the mothership, looking like the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind." As you can see from the image he used, which he attributed to the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest (even though the photograph is from Arad, a city 360 miles away), it is almost certainly a reflection of a ceiling light on a window, photographed from the inside of a building.

Elizondo said that the awe and mystery of this ceiling fixture's reflection is the kind of propulsive investigative program going on "behind the scenes" of both the executive branch and Congress.

Insert your own joke here and then weep quietly.

Indeed.

 

[owntheissue]

Still going.
Not Lue's fault - it was because of the (*waives hands frantically) lack of suitability with their "AI prototype" image analysis software.

Doty went similarly off reservation after the Aviary chewed him up and spat him out IIRC.

Perhaps we have the beginnings of a case study?

 

[FatPhil]

Still going.
Not Lue's fault - it was because of the (*waives hands frantically) lack of suitability with their "AI prototype" image analysis software.

Doty went similarly off reservation after the Aviary chewed him up and spat him out IIRC.

Perhaps we have the beginnings of a case study?

Can you quote or screenshot the tweet, please, as Xitter's not serving either me or the proxies I use, anything at the moment?

 

[flarkey]

Can you quote or screenshot the tweet, please, as Xitter's not serving either me or the proxies I use, anything at the moment?

dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14020503/pentagon-chief-ufo-mothership-photo-reveal.htmlI am reposting this article for 2 reasons... one, that I am not afraid to say when I've made a mistake, and two, I just sent this response to the journalist (was on a plane until now) but obviously too late for him to include. So I am posting my response to his question for you all to see. I have chosen to put myself "out there" under the microscope and expect criticism. I also realize it's very easy to sit back and judge when not knowing the full context of a situation. My response to the journalist who wrote this article (via HarperCollins):Controversy is nothing new to those who research and study the mystery of UAPs. Controversy can some times provide additional insight and is a healthy part of discourse. From the beginning of my endeavors seven years ago, I pledged my complete commitment towards transparency and inviting the public to help solve some of these mysteries. As early as 2017 while still at the Pentagon I facilitated the release of the now famous Navy UAP videos to help get the public's assistance to figure out what we in the Government could not.My efforts to engage the public now are certainly no different. To illustrate this point, most recently I gave a presentation where at the beginning I spent several minutes explaining the necessity to ensure we (disclosure advocates) do our very best at ensuring we remain objective and our own worst critics. I then used an example of a recent video taken which appears compelling at first, but I then deconstruct elements of the video using artificial intelligence to highlight the reality that the object in the video is in fact NOT a UAP and emphasized to the audience the need for increased diligence as we analyze future videos, pictures, and media. I believe objective analysis is critical whether one is a die hard sceptic or a true believer.Towards the end the presentation I later showed a photograph provided to me by a former colleague in the U.S. Government. Unfortunately, the photo that was provided to me was not suitable for the AI analysis given the limitations of the AI prototype. The photo was said to have been properly vetted, and I took it at face value. Fortunately, some users on social media were able to find a logical explanation for the photograph. Getting public engagement is precisely one of my motivations in sharing these types of photos. The fact that we now have individuals in social media with the expertise and willingness to conduct the much needed analysis is extremely encouraging to me and is welcomed news in my opinion. As such, I think this further illustrates why the public should remain fully informed of all developments. As for me, I am grateful for the public's help in resolving this case. Furthermore, this reinforces the notion that we must all remain vigilant and always question the data (including myself), even when that data may be coming from the Government.

 

[FatPhil]

Still going.
Not Lue's fault - it was because of the (*waives hands frantically) lack of suitability with their "AI prototype" image analysis software.

Doty went similarly off reservation after the Aviary chewed him up and spat him out IIRC.

Perhaps we have the beginnings of a case study?

In my best New York accent ...

Just one more thing, when you said "The Evidence is Clear", what precisely did you mean?

City Winery Philadelphia presents Luis Elizondo - Universal Truth, The Evidence is Clear: We Are Not Alone - Live on Monday, October 28th at 6pm.

 

[flarkey]

Open Street Map Identifies the building as Bl.301 Sc.D Strada Marcel Olinescu, in case anyone is trying to find interior photos.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/46.178737/21.340583

The "Bl.301 Sc.D" is Romanian for Building 301 entrance D.


https://romanianreflections.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/romanian-addresses/

Here's the actual entrance:

Source: https://www.olx.ro/d/oferta/spatiu-comercial-de-vanzare-arad-micalaca-191mp-IDeTquY.html

 

[FatPhil]

Open Street Map Identifies the building as Bl.301 Sc.D Strada Marcel Olinescu, in case anyone is trying to find interior photos.

Just the one, alas, and its interior belies the exterior seen in other photos: https://www.comarad.com/en/property/apt-sika-crystal.html

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

The photo was said to have been properly vetted, and I took it at face value.

Who's vetting?

Isn't Lue the vetter? Wasn't that his job?

 

[FatPhil]

Who's vetting?

Isn't Lue the vetter? Wasn't that his job?

All of the glory, none of the blame. I've had project managers like him, behind their back they're referred to as "Mr. Teflon".

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

Furthermore, this reinforces the notion that we must all remain vigilant and always question the data (including myself), even when that data may be coming from the Government.

What is data from the Government when you work for the Government?

Like, isn't that YOUR data?

 

[Mendel]

"propetly vetted" includes knowing where and when it was taken, and by which chain it was sent from the photographer to you.

 

[Dave51c]

Unfortunately, the photo that was provided to me was not suitable for the AI analysis given the limitations of the AI prototype.

Who needs "A.I" when you have Metabunk (and some common sense).

 

[flarkey]

Who needs "A.I" when you have Metabunk (and some common sense).

I found it interesting that Lue Elizondo said in his tweet that "crowdsourcing works" which is the method that we employ here, and at the same time has @Mick West blocked.

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

Who needs "A.I" when you have Metabunk (and some common sense).

But what use is AI anyway?

There's no data to train an AI on what extraterrestrial is.

Either AI identifies it as terrestrial, or it can't identify it but it's not necessarily an alien UAP and you're back to square one.

 

[John J.]

Unfortunately, the photo that was provided to me was not suitable for the AI analysis given the limitations of the AI prototype. The photo was said to have been properly vetted, and I took it at face value. Fortunately, some users on social media were able to find a logical explanation for the photograph.

(Elizondo quoted in the Daily Mail, quoted by flarkey here).

(1) Why wasn't this photo suitable for AI analysis? Can Lue expand on the system used? After all,

...I pledged my complete commitment towards transparency...

(2) Why is Lue apparently relying on a not-always useable AI analysis to decide whether a photo is "real" or not?
Many of us here thought "Hmm, that looks like a reflection of a light fixture" without the use of AI analysis or the benefit of "inside knowledge" from an agency of the US Government.

(3) Why would Lue take the photo at face value? Is this what he learned to do as an intelligence operative?
Has he never heard the adage, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?"
Is he unaware that many UFO photos are demonstrably fakes, but none has been shown to be an alien spacecraft?

(4) Note that despite the commitment to transparency, Lue avoids saying what the photo actually consists of.
Which is a bit ironic, considering the transparency of the window concerned.

I expect Mr Elizondo's followers will be more understanding than I am, though, and happily that's what he relies on.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

Not doubting you, but do you have a link and full quote to support that. I basically want to know exactly how he delivers the lie, and whether it suffered from one of his usual tells (sometimes he knows he's lying, sometimes it's clear he knows nothing).

Not sure how to link this part "properly" without just re-chopping the chopped video.

Here is a part of that part of the the conference shared by Greenstreet
Source: https://x.com/MiddleOfMayhem/status/1851273969422520382

Relevant time is from the start to about 0:50
Transcript for that time:

Real photo. Let me tell you a little bit about this, and then we're going to open this for some discussion.
We were having pilots, military pilots and civilian pilots, in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, report what unimaginably seemed impossible. They described it as literally the mothership. Looking like the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Now, if any of you have seen that movie, remember at the end this huge mini city floating in the sky and it turns upside down and looks...
Guess what we caught in Romania in 2022? By the way the US Embassy.

 

[mcmiller1111]

Transcript for that time:
Real photo. Let me tell you a little bit about this, and then we're going to open this for some discussion.
We were having pilots, military pilots and civilian pilots, in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, report what unimaginably seemed impossible. They described it as literally the mothership. Looking like the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Now, if any of you have seen that movie, remember at the end this huge mini city floating in the sky and it turns upside down and looks...
Guess what we caught in Romania in 2022? By the way the US Embassy.

This just makes it even more obvious that he just lies every time he sees something to make it more interesting. He got shown (or more likely, found) this picture which intrigued him, and instead of just showing it, he had to spice it up by claiming to have heard stories from pilots, both military and civillian. This invalidates every other time he claims that he talked to pilots who saw x and y.

 

[Alytha]

So this enormous thing floats openly in the sky above Bucharest, or actually Arad, but nobody else reports it... very realistic

 

[Calter]

Even if we give a huge benefit of the doubt to Elizondo that he was actually fooled and his sources lied or whatever, I think the situation is an important example of how Ufology functions.

It really speaks to the nature of ufology as a scientific study, and it shows how prevalent the logic of "alien until proven otherwise" is.

On a normal scientific branch, there's defined parameters for what you expect which helps you define what data proves your hypothesis and which data doesn't (be it because it disproves it, or because it is unrelated).

For a concrete example for something that we looked for for a while, a black hole has defined characteristics. You can't just point a telescope at the sky and say "well, this isn't a star so it's a blackhole until someone else tells me what it is". If you showed someone that was looking for black holes data from a neutron star, even if they don't know what a neutron star is, they should be able to say "i don't know what this is, but it isn't a black hole".

There's no hypothesis for what a NHI craft entails, so the end result is that a weird picture ends up being "a mothership" instead of logically remaining as "weird picture" until it can be identified.

Obviously the nature of Black holes and NHI craft are different (as in, you can't mathematically predict what to look for in NHI craft), but it's impossible to take ufology seriously when time and time again their biggest proponents can be tricked by mundane stuff.

 

[Mick West]

This just makes it even more obvious that he just lies every time he sees something to make it more interesting. He got shown (or more likely, found) this picture which intrigued him, and instead of just showing it, he had to spice it up by claiming to have heard stories from pilots, both military and civillian. This invalidates every other time he claims that he talked to pilots who saw x and y.

Saying something false does not mean he's lying. He may well have been misled, or he might have misunderstood. Not a great look for him, but you should not jump to assumptions.

 

[jarlrmai]

Saying something false does not mean he's lying. He may well have been misled, or he might have misunderstood. Not a great look for him, but you should not jump to assumptions.

At this point with the initial story, the photo and now the increasingly elaborate excuses, I feel he's either lied at some point along the line by omission because nothing makes sense and the more details he adds make it more and more like lies are getting in there somewhere it feels.

Now we have some never before mentioned AI for detecting real UFO pictures, surely thats a huge thing? Where's its analysis of all the big UFO photos from history? Maybe time to come clean on that one, if its real, show us it, oh right I am sure it's classified except when you want to use it as excuse for showing a lampshade to paying UFO fans.

To me it almost feels like when you catch a kid in a lie and they just start making up more, increasingly complicated lies to try and get out of it.

It smacks of compulsive behaviour.

 

[Scaramanga]

you can't mathematically predict what to look for in NHI craft

I'd never ever heard the term NHI up until 6 months or so ago. Now its everywhere, just as UAP slipped into the vocabulary around 2017. The trouble with NHI ( Non-human Intelligence ) is that it implies some source of UFOs ( sorry to use archaic terms ) other than 'alien'. And that fits right in with the conspiracy theory that its all angels and demons....which is essentially what Elizondo, Tom Delonge, and others believe. So I'm rather cynical about who benefits from all these new-fangled acronyms.

 

[FatPhil]

So this enormous thing floats openly in the sky above Bucharest, or actually Arad, but nobody else reports it... very realistic

A common trope in the UFO field is that in order to believe one unusual thing, you have to also believe something much bigger in scope that's unusual too; pump that feedback mechanism enough, and you'll eventually end up with full-blown conspiracy theories, and basically a cult. I would imagine.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

At this point with the initial story, the photo and now the increasingly elaborate excuses, I feel he's either lied at some point along the line by omission because nothing makes sense and the more details he adds make it more and more like lies are getting in there somewhere it feels.

Now we have some never before mentioned AI for detecting real UFO pictures, surely thats a huge thing? Where's its analysis of all the big UFO photos from history? Maybe time to come clean on that one, if its real, show us it, oh right I am sure it's classified except when you want to use it as excuse for showing a lampshade to paying UFO fans.

To me it almost feels like when you catch a kid in a lie and they just start making up more, increasingly complicated lies to try and get out of it.

It smacks of compulsive behaviour.

I honestly feel like the case. It seemed like he was trying to come up with stuff on the fly. Some of it was clearly leading too (eg the US embassy reference) but it's so oddly disconnected in terms of lingual following.

Like when he says "real photo" that's just, kind of, randomly referenced alone, not part of a sentence.
When describing the C3E craft, he just says "and looks..." and just doesn't finish that sentence or point at all.
He then jumps to asking the rhetorical question about Romania, then just randomly says "By the way the US embassy".e

His response also didn't cover some of these issue points, eg the embassy reference, the mention of speaking to pilotS, the pilotS catching it as a "we" (insinuating in conjunction with Elizondo & team).

 

[John J.]

A common trope in the UFO field is that in order to believe one unusual thing, you have to also believe something much bigger in scope that's unusual too; pump that feedback mechanism enough, and you'll eventually end up with full-blown conspiracy theories, and basically a cult.

Kind of agree. The dispiriting thing is, so many claims from what might now be described as "mainstream" UFOlogy are so unoriginal. There seems to be a canon of accepted-as-true things- Roswell, Greys, abductions, government (or Bad Guys therein) knowledge and cover-ups, imminent "disclosure".
Increasingly, claims (e.g. from Grusch) that the cover-uppers have technology that would give us free, safe energy and faster-than-light travel: It's becoming a cargo cult, arguably the least sophisticated form of pseudo-religious belief.

The diversity of reports seen from the 1950's through to maybe the 90's seems to have dissipated, or if it continues, to have been sidelined (as has much of the interest in reading different accounts).
That very diversity, and the high strangeness of some accounts, might have indicated that claims of UFOs / encounters with aliens are not caused by objectively real ETI or their artefacts, but we might have learned some interesting things about e.g. human factors had these "naïve", non-UFOlogy-canon accounts continued.

Instead, I get the impression that all we're learning is that some people are good at making a larger number of people believe a questionable narrative, and are happy to do this. But we already knew that.

 

[Mick West]

A common trope in the UFO field is that in order to believe one unusual thing, you have to also believe something much bigger in scope that's unusual too; pump that feedback mechanism enough, and you'll eventually end up with full-blown conspiracy theories, and basically a cult. I would imagine.

Cults often seem to work because they gradually ramp up the pressure on reasonableness. People gradually leave as the pressure increases, but those that remain have a stronger and stronger belief because they need strong belief to look past the nonsense. Pressure increases more and more leave. Usually, the cults collapse under pressure, but some people will have become hardened into diamonds of unreason, and so remain trapped in belief.

Talking about this always reminds me of Sawyer, from Heaven's Gate (a UFO suicide cult), who appears second in this short clip:

I'm not sure that's exactly what's going on with Elizondo. He seems lacking in basic technical experience when it comes to analyzing photos and videos. He's also been convinced by others (and himself) that he can remotely view things thousands of miles away and predict future events. He was bizarrely uninterested in investigating physics-defying deadly orbs that were showing up at his family home. Then, he gets fooled by this simple photo because someone in the belief system told him it was legit.

If this all isn't some massive psyop, then I think he's stuck in a dysfunctional belief cycle.

 

[John J.]

If this all isn't some massive psyop

I don't know, so I guess this is speculation- rightly frowned upon here- but I doubt if Elizondo is the target of a "psyop".

 

[Ann K]

The trouble with NHI ( Non-human Intelligence ) is that it implies some source of UFOs ( sorry to use archaic terms ) other than 'alien'. And that fits right in with the conspiracy theory that its all angels and demons....which is essentially what Elizondo, Tom Delonge, and others believe.

I don't think that "angels and demons" comment is necessarily true. We are in an age when drones are readily affordable by any ten-year-old with a little birthday money to spend, as well as the possibility of more sophisticated hardware from non-friendly countries. Those, as well as the usual array of balloons from party-sized to large weather sensors, might constitute a hazard to aircraft, and are worth questioning for that reason alone. All of those are "some source of UFOs other than 'alien'".

Things termed "NHI" are troublesome because it implies that we would be able to categorize a thing as such, without benefit of any "genuine NHI" with which to compare it. In other words, "NHI" is merely a stand-in for "I dunno what it is".

 

[Calter]

I'd never ever heard the term NHI up until 6 months or so ago. Now its everywhere, just as UAP slipped into the vocabulary around 2017. The trouble with NHI ( Non-human Intelligence ) is that it implies some source of UFOs ( sorry to use archaic terms ) other than 'alien'. And that fits right in with the conspiracy theory that its all angels and demons....which is essentially what Elizondo, Tom Delonge, and others believe. So I'm rather cynical about who benefits from all these new-fangled acronyms.

While I personally think 99% of the times ufology discussions can be summed up with "aliens" and "flying saucers/ufos". I've found that using the currently accepted terms leads to more positive (or at least less negative) responses to my arguments.

Even if the person is heavily implying aliens, unless/until they explicitly claim something, I try to avoid assuming that's their implication, otherwise they try to hide behind broader terms and paint your argument as bad faith. On the other hand, I also try pinning down what they do say explicitly. In this case, Elizondo literally claims a mothership, I don't know nor care if it's a celestial, demonic, extraterrestrial, cryptoterrestrial or interdimensional, so NHI craft is the broadest term for whatever he's claiming.

The fact that NHI craft can be as broad so as to include angels, interdimensional beings and aliens is, if anything, more indicative of my point that there's really no definition that they can go back to themselves.

(I won't continue this since I feel it's escaping the point of the thread)

 

[Scaramanga]

He was bizarrely uninterested in investigating physics-defying deadly orbs that were showing up at his family home.

Yes, I saw the clip where Ross Coulthart asks him did he try to photograph or video the green orbs....a phenomenon Elizondo had implied had occurred multiple times over 6 years ( 2009 to 2015 ). If such thing were happening in my house I'd at the very least have a camera on constant standby, or even leave a video running.

I was incredulous at Elizondo's seeming disinterest, and excuses as if his house was too big to monitor. Given that he'd said the orbs appeared in the hallway and the kitchen, why not monitor the hallway and the kitchen. I simply don't believe anyone could multiple times just sit there and watch green orbs float past and make no dash for a camera or any attempt at all to capture them. His wife 'confirms' the story and apparently saw the orbs too, but all that does is add more people who could have captured it on camera.

 

[Scaramanga]

"NHI" is merely a stand-in for "I dunno what it is".

Then, as people are so fond of acronyms, lets have IDWII.

I'm still trying to figure out whether human intelligence exists. I don't need it complicated with an 'non-human' variety, especially as nobody has provided any real evidence that UAPs are non-human, let alone intelligent.