Explained: DEW Energy Beam Starting Forest Fires - Dirty Lens, Light Streak

Mick West

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Metabunk 2018-08-21 09-29-46.jpg

The above photo (on the left) is being shared as evidence of "Directed Energy Weapons" starting forest fires. Of course it's just a streak of light caused by the sun (which you can see is just off the top of the image). But it's not really, as some people have said a "lens flare". It's caused by streaks of grease on the lens cover. These form little ridges which refract and reflect the light perpendicular to them and create a streak of light perpendicular to the streaks of grease. I've duplicated it, above on the right. And here's a video explaining how I did that (basically wipe the lens on your iPhone with your finger, especially just after rubbing your nose)

Source: https://youtu.be/it1s7gFRgDE


Here's a close-up of the streaks on the lens cover that made the best streak I got:
Metabunk 2018-08-21 10-02-23.jpg

In a wider context you can see the streaks are horizontal. This makes the streak/beam vertical
Metabunk 2018-08-21 10-04-17.jpg

Here's the camera that took those close-ups
Metabunk 2018-08-21 10-05-25.jpg

The phenomenon is similar to streaks you see sometimes on a dirty car windshield.
Metabunk 2018-08-21 10-00-22.jpg

The original photo came from the official Twitter site for the Klamath National Forest on May 24, 2018

Source: https://twitter.com/Klamath_NF/status/999703352748355585
 
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Dane Wigington of Geoengineering Watch (who believes many conspiracy theories but not the DEW theory), claimed that the photo in question had been manipulated:

upload_2018-8-21_19-33-5.png

However it is pretty clear that the version without the "beam" is lower resolution, and also appears to have some suspiciously blurred areas where the beam has been removed.

Dane seems to have removed this claim from his site at although it is still present on a mirrored version at http://www.opensourcetruth.com/geoengineering-is-fueling-firestorm-catastrophes-2/.
 
However it is pretty clear that the version without the "beam" is lower resolution, and also appears to have some suspiciously blurred areas where the beam has been removed.
That's an interesting change - conspiracy theorists editing photos to make them LESS suspicious.

Although I see that Dane's theory was that the Forest service was putting out the image to promote the DEW theories to distract from the Geoengineering Theories?
The screenshot below was taken from the U.S. Forest Service – Klamath National Forest Twitter page. The photo in the center of the post appears to show a beam from the sky directed into the center of the burning zone. Countless websites and activists circulated this photo as indisputable proof of “Directed Energy Weapons” (“DEW”) being used to incinerate forests, houses, and cars. Was this photo authentic? The short answer is no. A close-up of the photo in question is shown below the Twitter page screenshot, and most importantly, the original photo is below that. There was no beam from the sky, the photo was a hoax. Why would a US Forest Service site put up such a photo? Why would a verified government source propagate a hoax?
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Interesting article by Dane, as it illustrates his demarcation line. He spends some times debunking a variety of conspiracy theories because he feels they are disinformation designed to discredit his own theories. He actually gives some great explanations for things like houses burning instead of trees, and trees burning from the inside out.
 
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501562F3-6932-4923-8080-5327A322A17A.jpeg
There’s this purplish pink beam about 2:08-2:13 into this video below. Any idea how it can be replicated?

Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ebhmgpHupws

That looks more like a CCD overloading artifact than a lens effect: when the sun is in the frame, it is too bright for the camera sensor and so the charge spills over into the rest of the row of charge receptors.

Wikpedia explains:


Blooming

Vertical smear
When a CCD exposure is long enough, eventually the electrons that collect in the "bins" in the brightest part of the image will overflow the bin, resulting in blooming. The structure of the CCD allows the electrons to flow more easily in one direction than another, resulting in vertical streaking.
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The "beam" itself looks likes "rolling shutter" which is discussed in this thread https://www.metabunk.org/solved-str...ida-lightning-rolling-shutter-artifact.t3244/
That rolling shutter effect only occurs with short flashes of light, it's very well defined, and is usually in the long direction.

There’s this purplish pink beam about 2:08-2:13 into this video below. Any idea how it can be replicated?
You'd just need a similar old camera and point it at the sun. The purple (magenta) usually comes from the sensor's distribution of Red, Green, and Blue sensors. Light turns magenta when you have less green. The iPhone 5 was notorious for it. Here's the color showing up in ordinary light streaks/flare.

Metabunk 2018-08-23 09-34-18.jpg
Source: https://www.dpreview.com/news/2060855099/apple-acknowledges-iphone-5-lens-flare


The tractor footage looks like it's from a camera older than the iPhone 5, and the beam is coming from sensor overloading, not an optical (lens) effect).
 
That rolling shutter effect only occurs with short flashes of light, it's very well defined, and is usually in the long direction
it is very well defined and in the long direction in those few frames. I was thinking when the sun hit the excavator blade just right it did produce a short flash of light.
 
it is very well defined and in the long direction in those few frames. I was thinking when the sun hit the excavator blade just right it did produce a short flash of light.

"Short" here is like 1/1000th of a second for a beam like that. Plus it's in the wrong direction.

I think theoretically it could be possible though. Like if you were to video the sun through a fan or propellor. Hmm....
 
Like if you were to video the sun through a fan or propellor.

Waving my hand in front of the sun as fast as I could gives an occasional rolling shutter artifact

Metabunk 2018-08-23 10-31-45.jpg
It's only a split though, to get a line you would have to had a very short flash on/off. Possibly under some circumstances with a very fast moving large object in front of the sun with a small gap.
 
I don't think it's anything to do with the rolling-shutter effect. It's blooming that occurs only when the sun is in shot.
Mick just explained to me that "long direction" means the long edge of the photo.. so landscape shots would have horizontal beams, not vertical. so yea, rolling shutter doesn't seem to play into that video.
 
Metabunk 2018-08-21 09-29-46.jpg

The above photo (on the left) is being shared as evidence of "Directed Energy Weapons" starting forest fires. Of course it's just a streak of light caused by the sun (which you can see is just off the top of the image). But it's not really, as some people have said a "lens flare". It's caused by streaks of grease on the lens cover. These form little ridges which refract and reflect the light perpendicular to them and create a streak of light perpendicular to the streaks of grease. I've duplicated it, above on the right. And here's a video explaining how I did that (basically wipe the lens on your iPhone with your finger, especially just after rubbing your nose)

Source: https://youtu.be/it1s7gFRgDE


Here's a close-up of the streaks on the lens cover that made the best streak I got:
Metabunk 2018-08-21 10-02-23.jpg

In a wider context you can see the streaks are horizontal. This makes the streak/beam vertical
Metabunk 2018-08-21 10-04-17.jpg

Here's the camera that took those close-ups
Metabunk 2018-08-21 10-05-25.jpg

The phenomenon is similar to streaks you see sometimes on a dirty car windshield.
Metabunk 2018-08-21 10-00-22.jpg

The original photo came from the official Twitter site for the Klamath National Forest on May 24, 2018

Source: https://twitter.com/Klamath_NF/status/999703352748355585


Im super late on reading this but it came in handy in a recent discussion. Thanks for posting Mick!
 
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