Is it a UFO sphere summoning? Is this a mimic of Jake Barber?

[Starflint]

I wonder if it's a silver balloon on a string?

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1in82uc/update_i_recorded_a_silver_orb_ufo_with_high/

Source: https://www.reddit.com/user/Creepastaa/comments/1inajuo/raw_file_on_the_nikon_camera/


Source: https://www.reddit.com/user/Creepastaa/comments/1inc3fp/more_photos_to_come/

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1in82uc/comment/mc8r3vy/

 

[deirdre]

did you see this reddit comment?

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1in82uc/comment/mc9s72m/

 

[JMartJr]

I wonder if it's a silver balloon on a string?

That would be consistent with:

Multiple times in the video the object can be seen dropping and then moving upwards, side to side. There was a 10mph wind, so if the object was a piece of debris or something caught in an upwind it should have travelled 2.17 miles in a 10 mile per hour wind over 13 minutes. We were there I'd say for around 30 minutes and filmed the object for around 20 minutes in total, and it could be seen in the same spot and it definitely didn't move a few miles while we were there.

That's what happens when variable breezes push a tethered flying object around.

This bit is less so:

As I was switching cameras, the object moved upwards and diagonal, and within 20 seconds it was gone. I do have photographs of the object as it left the area / shot off, moved further into the distance.

...unless the string broke or it was intentionally released. Normally they'd disappear by being reeled back to the ground. Or they would stay there in place until the camera operator got bored...

 

[John J.]

did you see this reddit comment?

I liked this one.

 

[deirdre]

That's what happens when variable breezes push a tethered flying object around.

or you push the Wind physics button in Blender.


add edit: nuts, now i got the wonder wall song in my head but im singing "and after all you're my Blender ballllll.."

 

[Starflint]

did you see this reddit comment?

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1in82uc/comment/mc9s72m/

That Polish ball was exposed early on, there's a chance he was imitating it:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39SJAcNXCzM&list=PLbjrLe-7gO_FzzoKMD4eZaJHZBY9ScB6E&index=173&ab_channel=CorridorCrew

 

[Ann K]

...unless the string broke or it was intentionally released.

The quickest way for a balloon to "disappear" rapidly is for it to pop.

 

[Calter]

To me the object just straight up looks like CGI. It just doesn't look like it's receiving the ambient light at all.

Until they post the actual raw files, I don't buy it, and it's telling that they decided to upload a recording of the video playing on the camera rather than just uploading the raw file.

 

[Minus0]

The shadow on the bottom of the UFO appears to be darker than trees below it? If I recall correctly, I've seen others analyze images or video for evidence of manipulation by checking colour/brightness of a potential CGI item against the backdrop video. If the object has darker shadows than the rest of the video, then it's almost certainly CGI, correct?

If it's a silver balloon reflecting the trees, then the reflection on the bottom (rather than shadow) should be slightly lighter than the colour spectrum below it's reflecting.

 

[flarkey]

The quickest way for a balloon to "disappear" rapidly is for it to pop.

... and then it reappears at the CAP point!

 

[purpleivan]

I took a look at the colour values on the underside of the object and the trees below it and there are reasonably consistent.

Below is a shot from Photoshop showing the colour values (highlighted in red at top right of image) for the darkest single pixel on the underside of the object. Here a value of 69,69,69 was found.

When I broadened the sample to a 3x3 pixel area at the position, I got a value of 74,74,74.

I then grabbed a 51x51 pixel sample (to get a reasonably representative average) of the area with trees in it, which gave 68,70,71 as the result. The sample was taken directly below the object at roughly the centre point between the top of the treeline and bottom of the image. Unfortunately Window's screenshots don't include the mouse point, so the sample point isn't shown in these images.

Unfortunately, the large translucent darkened area that reddit's video play controls are placed in, meant that I need to grab a different image to use for sampling the trees area, than for the underside of the object. So I grabbed my tree sampling image from a few seconds earlier in the zoom in portion of the video. That was to avoid the darkening part of reddit's video player GUI, artificially lowering the colour sample of the trees, while still gettting a good sized sample area of the trees colour.

The underside of the object appearing darker than the ground it should be reflecting is an illusion, caused by comparing a large dark area (the trees in this case), with a very small dark region, in the middle of a much larger bright area (the underside of the object in the middle of the sky).

This illusion caused similar responses from some who looked at the Balwyn, Melbourne photo (1966)

That doesn't mean of course that the object is a physical one in the scene the video is of. It could just be that a person faking this was competent (or just lucky) in their rendering of the "orb", to get the reflection brightness right. Alternatively it could be a real physical object, such as a balloon.

 

[Favious M]

My immediate guy reaction when I saw this was CGI rather than balloon/other physical object but I couldn't really put my finger on why I thought that.

The iPhone footage spliced in towards the end looks even faker to me but maybe that's just what an iPhone camera does when zoomed in?

The timing of the user's previous reddit post is mighty suspicious as well

 

[Ann K]

If it's a silver balloon reflecting the trees, then the reflection on the bottom (rather than shadow) should be slightly lighter than the colour spectrum below it's reflecting.

While I think this video is a fake, I'll have to issue a caution on your assumption about the relative darkness of the reflection. We are seeing the trees from the side. If there's a reflective sphere in the sky, the bottom of it is reflecting the view from ABOVE the trees, not from the side. As a comparison, you can see green grass at the distance of just a few feet, but if you look straight down you'll see grass, shadows, and perhaps soil in the spaces between blades of grass, and it's a perceptibly darker color than the more distant parts.

 

[jarlrmai]

One of the posts features playback on the device itself, now while this person should upload original device file (referred to somewhat errantly as the 'raw' file.) and not doing so is a red flag.

Cameras often have very specific playback requirements for data on the memory card, often taking a video on the device editing it on a computer and re-encoding and then copying it back to the device won't work, as the camera is expecting only files actually recorded by the device, people are often confused about this, expecting a camera to display any video they copy to the card, but cameras are not computers with a CPU/GPU and software codecs and even replicating codecs/containers and metadata doesn't work a lot of the time.

@Mick West owns a Nikon camera similar to the one used in the video (P1000/900 type superzoom point and shoot, so he may know how particular this camera is.

Is it possible there is a way to get an edited video to play back on the device, possibly, but it's likely not that easy and it points towards a 'real' video (ie not CGI)

 

[deirdre]

One of the posts features playback on the device itself,

a 31 second video on the camera. is there a reason he couldn't just film his computer screen or tv set?

 

[JMartJr]

The quickest way for a balloon to "disappear" rapidly is for it to pop.

That would not be consistent with

within 20 seconds it was gone. I do have photographs of the object as it left the area / shot off, moved further into the distance.

which would natch what would happen if a balloon were to be released, intentionally or accidentally.

or you push the Wind physics button in Blender.

True enough, but that seems the sort of thing you would do if you were intending to make a fake balloon pic. If attempting a fake UFO pic, you'd want to push the "Defy Physics" button or its equivalent, if there is such a thing.

 

[jarlrmai]

a 31 second video on the camera. is there a reason he couldn't just film his computer screen or tv set?

He wanted to show that the video was from the device, so he filmed it playing back on the device.

 

[Favious M]

He wanted to show that the video was from the device, so he filmed it playing back on the device.

Which only backs up his claim if it's not possible to play a video on that type of camera that was altered externally but that's kind of hard to prove

 

[jarlrmai]

Which only backs up his claim if it's not possible to play a video on that type of camera that was altered externally but that's kind of hard to prove

That's my point, it generally is not possible to play back videos that are not unaltered original files taken on the device. It's evidence towards that conclusion but its not conclusive.

 

[deirdre]

He wanted to show that the video was from the device, so he filmed it playing back on the device.

im saying you render a video on your computer, you now have a file called creepypastasufo.vid.
you play the file back on your computer or tv set.
you take your nikon and film the tv set or computer screen. now you have the video on your nikon.

is there a reason this isnt possible?

 

[Favious M]

im saying you render a video on your computer, you now have a file called creepypastasufo.vid.
you play the file back on your computer or tv set.
you take your nikon and film the tv set or computer screen. now you have the video on your nikon.

is there a reason this isnt possible?

Possible? Sure. Convincing? I'm not so sure. The footage, to me, genuinely looks like a file on the camera being played back on-device rather than a recording of the video being played on a screen, but that's purely subjective

 

[deirdre]

The footage, to me, genuinely looks like a file on the camera being played back on-device rather than a recording of the video being played on a screen,

is there a reason why? ive never recorded my tv or computer screen on an exterior camera, so im curious.

 

[jarlrmai]

im saying you render a video on your computer, you now have a file called creepypastasufo.vid.
you play the file back on your computer or tv set.
you take your nikon and film the tv set or computer screen. now you have the video on your nikon.

is there a reason this isnt possible?

You generally get artifacting due to moire (you can see this on the phone video of the LCD on the Nikon, it would be tripled up), and flickering due to refresh rate mismatches, you also have to frame things perfectly and have no motion of the camera It doesn't look like it is that from that perspective, but it is possible.

My view is it's probably a real video and they didn't upload it at full res because it becomes clearer it's a balloon, but we'll likely never know.

 

[jarlrmai]

is there a reason why? ive never recorded my tv or computer screen on an exterior camera, so im curious.

Try it and see what it looks like

The playback on the camera also starts more zoomed out the than the final video, so it's cut differently, again possible to make 2 cuts but another thing you have to think about a bit.

 

[Favious M]

is there a reason why? ive never recorded my tv or computer screen on an exterior camera, so im curious.

jarlmai put it better than I could

You generally get artifacting due to moire (you can see this on the phone video of the LCD on the Nikon, it would be tripled up), and flickering due to refresh rate mismatches, you also have to frame things perfectly and have no motion of the camera It doesn't look like it is that from that perspective, but it is possible.

My view is it's probably a real video and they didn't upload it at full res because it becomes clearer it's a balloon, but we'll likely never know.

 

[deirdre]

Try it and see what it looks like

i dont have a proper camera that takes video, all i have is a 45$ phone from Walmart.

 

[jarlrmai]

i dont have a proper camera that takes video, all i have is a 45$ phone from Walmart.

That's enough to see the issues, if it can take video.

 

[NorCal Dave]

That's my point, it generally is not possible to play back videos that are not unaltered original files taken on the device.

Just wondering, if someone is in to faking, could they save or encode the altered file back into the file format the camera is expecting and can use? It seems so many of the fake stuff is always just a 1/2 ass attempt at DIY CGI with no real effort. Someone trying to anticipate how their video might be debunked would think of stuff like this, even if it only occurs to a limited number of people like you.

 

[Scaramanga]

"I recorded a silver orb UFO with high quality camera equipment"

The Nikon P1000 ( 125 times zoom ) is SO good that it even makes your standard eyeballs able to spot in the first place a tiny, miniscule, object that is not even visible at all in the video until you have zoomed in a bit. Where can I buy this magic camera that comes with bionic eyes as an add-on ?

Oh, and can we have a trigger warning in Metabunk for the word 'orb'.

 

[deirdre]

That's enough to see the issues, if it can take video.

well im assuming my video would be crap, but i dont have a good camera or tripod..or a good tv for that matter.

 

[Mick West]

Cameras often have very specific playback requirements for data on the memory card, often taking a video on the device editing it on a computer and re-encoding and then copying it back to the device won't work, as the camera is expecting only files actually recorded by the device, people are often confused about this, expecting a camera to display any video they copy to the card, but cameras are not computers with a CPU/GPU and software codecs and even replicating codecs/containers and metadata doesn't work a lot of the time.

@Mick West owns a Nikon camera similar to the one used in the video (P1000/900 type superzoom point and shoot, so he may know how particular this camera is.

The P900 uses a non-standard Codec "qt 2007.009 (qt /niko)". I tried just rendering out a 1080p video in the default Quicktime format from After Effects, and it did not play in-camera.

It's technically possible to spoof in-camera video, but I'm not sure how you'd do it with standard tools.

 

[Edward Current]

Speaking as someone who has dabbled in fakery/hoaxing (and was way more "successful" than I ever expected), it would be so easy to stage an "orb" video, or even a multi-camera orb video. Just put a damn balloon on a string. You could put flashing LEDs on it and inside of it. Practically anything you did would make UFO enthusiasts' heads explode — so, go a bit further and show them something they've never seen before. Fly a camera drone near it, and then crash the drone as if the object disabled the electronics. They will make the sighting famous, even legendary. And it'd be a walk in the park.

What wouldn't be easy is staging an object that does something interesting, let alone highly anomalous or displaying seemingly nonphysical behavior...let alone is captured with multiple cameras from different angles...let alone the sources being known and reputable. The "UFO video" standard which has yet to be met.

So when I see a video like this, my reaction is less "what exactly are we seeing here/is this genuine footage" but rather, who cares? It's so boring! I can't believe that enthusiasts actually find a video of a featureless, more or less motionless sphere compelling.