Jake Barber tells Ross Coulthart about non-human technology - The "Egg"

[Nemon]

The ground shadows seen in the original video are pretty sharp, which only can mean the source is point-like (or very far away). The mobile floodlights as mentioned above are rather large, spatially, which will show more diffuse shadow edges. So I am still unsure what to make of the illumination. Reasonably, on small scale this illumination is far easier to accomplish, pointing more and more to model-scale creation.

That is what I was actually thinking, too. A single light source and rather close like a desk lamp. And the issue with the helicopter was mentioned, but has not been clarified: in an operation like this, wouldn't the helicopter be a second light source? But there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that in the video.

 

[Ravi]

That is what I was actually thinking, too. A single light source and rather close like a desk lamp. And the issue with the helicopter was mentioned, but has not been clarified: in an operation like this, wouldn't the helicopter be a second light source? But there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that in the video.

Indeed. The ambient light is much more prominent/expected in a "photo studio" kind of environment, as the walls of the studio scatter the light, and some of it will reach the object. I think this is a clear sign of model photography.

 

[Nemon]

The ambient light is much more prominent/expected in a "photo studio" kind of environment, as the walls of the studio scatter the light, and some of it will reach the object. I think this is a clear sign of model photography.

I don't quite get this point. Wouldn't the surrounding walls of a studio-like set up contradict the deep shadow with defined edges as there would be relections from the walls diffusing the shadow?

 

[Ravi]

I don't quite get this point. Wouldn't the surrounding walls of a studio-like set up contradict the deep shadow with defined edges as there would be relections from the walls diffusing the shadow?

I assume the light from the left is more powerful, thus creating quite contrasty shadows next to the egg. The ambient part comes on top of it, but does not affect the main shadow from the main light. This ambient light is clearly on the right side of the egg, and on the grass/ground/earth as well but not as strong (being non-white).

 

[deirdre]

Where exactly does he say that? At least in the transcript of the long interview I can't find the keyword.

i think hes referring the the original video in the OP (post #1)... only because i literally just looked at it last night to look at the rope "moire". he might have said "carefully", but maybe delicately..kinda same thing.

 

[RobertBillyBob]

The "egg" in the video does not seem overexposed. And there is one light source illuminating the scene. Would that not show a much larger shadow on the egg? The egg is very well visible from all sides, like illuminated ambiently. looks odd.

I think it is overexposed. The egg is brighter than anything else in the image, even the center of the "spotlight", the bump at the high end of the levels histogram comes exclusively from the "egg".
I think it doesn't look overexposed to you because it's a recording of a screen, with noise and artifacts.

Original image :

Levels after desaturation, median filtering (noise removal) and of removal of the NN overlay :

 

[Ann K]

In the shadow cast by the "egg", there are distinct lumps and bumps with their own shadows. Does that suggest more than one light source, or do you think that is only the result of scattered light, perhaps from the egg itself? The lack of a shadow side to the egg suggests to me that light is directed down from the helicopter (OR that the object is translucent, like a while plastic storage container), while the cast shadow means there is light from the upper left.

 

[Favious M]

In the shadow cast by the "egg", there are distinct lumps and bumps with their own shadows. Does that suggest more than one light source, or do you think that is only the result of scattered light, perhaps from the egg itself? The lack of a shadow side to the egg suggests to me that light is directed down from the helicopter (OR that the object is translucent, like a while plastic storage container), while the cast shadow means there is light from the left.
View attachment 76528

If there was a light source shining down from the helicopter would we not likely another shadow of the egg beneath, or even the shadow of the cable somewhere below?

 

[Dave51c]

To be fair I don't think the fake helicopter sound is a big problem.

Au contraire mon ami, it's a red flag to fakery and dishonesty for me.

It's clearly filmed of another screen and I doubt there are even audio on such a video to start with.

It is? I'm not fully up on all comments in this thread but is there evidence for that somewhere I have missed? Sure it could be just a phone pointing at onboard CCTV or some other device as a prop.

So that's an "artistic" addon I can accept.

Like the faux lens vignette is an artistic choice . I get that this video may have been tweaked to be more dramatic for the TV audience, but IMHO art has no role to play in presenting possible evidence like this which is making very bold claims.

In fact, the whole video smacks to me of first year film school work where the brief was "Make a spooky clip to show secret UAP operations in action"

The video it self is the problem ..it's either fake

Agreed, possible fake..

or a perfectly normal operation added green tint and mystery

...so still fake (Depending on one's definition of fake)

I'd have no problem with a disclaimer saying this video is a dramatic reconstruction of an event, but I thought it is being held up as the real deal (I understand the source of the video is questionable at the moment) in which case I'd have expected raw video sans music, SFX, VFX to be available as well as the "trailer" version. (Sorry, maybe it is and I've missed that)

Looking forward to someone fessing up or more detailed (non-artistic) video being released.

 

[Mendel]

If there was a light source shining down from the helicopter would we not likely another shadow of the egg beneath, or even the shadow of the cable somewhere below?

When the light source is near the camera, its shadows will be obscured by the objects throwing the shadows. The cable is likely too thin to throw a discernible shadow.

 

[deirdre]

Looking forward to someone fessing up or more detailed (non-artistic) video being released.

how would someone anonymously send an egg from a helicopter footage to Coulthart right before he was gonna air an interview about an egg from a helicopter.?

the obvious thing is Barber did provide the footage and Coulthart is lying so Barber doesnt get arrested (giving the benefit of the doubt he was working under government contract). Or the elizondo crew (or whoever Barber hangs with) is in cahoots with his story.

or its a fake made for the tv story and coulthart is lying.

disclaimer: im very biased against Coulthart, i feel everything out of his mouth is a deliberate lie. possible the smarmy accent and weird facial expressions are throwing my perception off, but i dont trust him at all.

 

[JMartJr]

When the light source is near the camera, its shadows will be obscured by the objects throwing the shadows. The cable is likely too thin to throw a discernible shadow.

Also, bearing in mind that there is some length of skinny ropes between the egg and the thicker rope -- if the thick rope casts a shadow, it would not extend to the shadow of the egg, and may well be out of frame.

 

[Ravi]

disclaimer: im very biased against Coulthart, i feel everything out of his mouth is a deliberate lie. possible the smarmy accent and weird facial expressions are throwing my perception off, but i dont trust him at all.

It's because he comes across as a real estate agent.
Seriously though, I share the same emotion like you.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

All of my "interpretations" have been meant to be tentative. With this exception. The light source is absolutely not near the camera. It's a single light source, off to the side. Sunlight plus the diffuse sky radiation of a clear day is the best candidate.

 

[Mendel]

All of my "interpretations" have been meant to be tentative. With this exception. The light source is absolutely not near the camera. It's a single light source, off to the side. Sunlight plus the diffuse sky radiation of a clear day is the best candidate.

How did you exclude a second light source near the camera?

 

[Edward Current]

disclaimer: im very biased against Coulthart, i feel everything out of his mouth is a deliberate lie. possible the smarmy accent and weird facial expressions are throwing my perception off, but i dont trust him at all.

Every time he speaks, I think of Robert Downey Jr.'s character from Natural Born Killers. Although, that Australian reporter was less sensationalist than Coulthart (serial murderers being something that definitively exist).

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

If this is miniature, sunlight is the best candidate.

The second best candidate would be a room with a single powerful direct light source off to the side. The third would be an outdoor scene, again with a single powerful direct light source to the side. In both these cases reflected there would be light and/or

Note the lighting setup in this attempted recreation.


The strong light source is off to the side... but the lighting is... bland and stark. There isn't the kind of richness you get with sunlight.


My intuition is that the lighting in the original video is sunlight. The reason is that the secondary lighting appears more consistent with diffuse sky radiation than with the reflected or less luminous light sources you'd typically get with with artificial lighting.


This is intuition, and at this point I feel like Scotty telling a sour faced Spock that the Enterprise, "Doesn't feel right."

As a kid I used to annoy my mother, when watching TV, especially some Western, with comments like: "They just switched from outside to studio... now they're outside again... studio..." Or "Wow, they sure have a lot of suns on that planet." Because I could see multiple faint shadows. Or, "That's daylight and they're pretending it's night."

Sunlight just don't look like artificial lighting. And it doesn't look like moonlight. Everyone here must have noticed that kind of thing.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

My interpretation of the Moiré patterns has always been this: This video is a second-generation recording, created by pointing a video camera at a video screen.

I think it's an attempt to:
-Make it look like a guerilla video. Some brave soul has clandestinely pointed his phone at a government screen. The leaked UFO video trope.
-Reduce the resolution so we can't tell what the heck is going on.

 

[NoParty]

-Reduce the resolution so we can't tell what the heck is going on.

Mission accomplished!

While I think the whole egg narrative is crap, I reluctantly give them credit for making
a straightforward debunking difficult: We still don't know wtf we're watching!!!

 

[maico]

Barber's secret mechanic job reminds me of secret squirrel

 

[Mendel]

Sunlight just don't look like artificial lighting.

I've never seen a sunlight picture where the light fell off toward the edges like that.

 

[fizzBuzz]

I agree with all the negative comments against Coulthart - 100%. I don't trust a word that guy says, nor do I trust what his sources (Barber, Grusch, etc.) say. But I do think when we get actual video/image evidence like this, it should stand or fall on its own merit. Regardless of the source.

This is a puzzling one, which I know the UFO people would say "see, it's real!" to that, due to their idiotic ways of thinking. But I've said in this thread and I'll say it again, the most puzzling piece of this is that we can't identify the sling. The sling should be, by far, the most identifiable part of this video. And more than not being able to identify it, we can't even find anything close to what's shown in the video. It's starting to suggest to me this could be at a different scale, like small scale with an actual egg. I'm hesitant to go there because the video does seem like larger scale and "hoax" does seem unlikely here, but, who knows...

 

[John J.]

Maybe I'm digging my own rabbit hole and going OT, but the scene near the end of the video in post @439 from @Nemon (thank you) looks, to me, like a diorama itself, particularly the tree in the middle and the vehicle (which I think is a Nissan Navara?)

There's a clearly real vehicle of a similar sort at the start of the video. I'm wondering if the final scene is some sort of blend with "real" footage of the gear in the foreground combined with a model environment. -Probably not; but it looks... odd.

 

[Edward Current]

I've never seen a sunlight picture where the light fell off toward the edges like that.

Unless you're talking about the vignette effect (which most likely was added later), I don't find the "Sun" (left) side of the image to be brighter than the "shadow" (right) side — in fact, I find the opposite is true.

I cropped the image centrally to get rid of most of the vignetting. Then I took 100-pixel-wide patches from each side, at the same height, put these patches in their own windows, and blurred them to death. Then I pasted them back on, and also put them together on the bottom. The patch from the right side is actually brighter.

Of course, this could be skewed by all sorts of things. But it's hard to argue that this scene is artificially lit from the left.

 

[JMartJr]

My intuition is that the lighting in the original video is sunlight. The reason is that the secondary lighting appears more consistent with diffuse sky radiation than with the reflected or less luminous light sources you'd typically get with with artificial lighting.

Quite possibly, but I am very suspicious that the levels/contrast/something-similar, have been messed with, possibly even something like a posterization filter used. There seem to me to be suspiciously few steps between the very darkest and very lightest areas in the video.

I agree that the resulting video was then re-shot by pointing a camera at a monitor/screen, possibly for that guerrilla-filming look as mentioned elsewhere already.

 

[Calter]

There's a clearly real vehicle of a similar sort at the start of the video. I'm wondering if the final scene is some sort of blend with "real" footage of the gear in the foreground combined with a model environment. -Probably not; but it looks... odd.

The tree does kind of look plastic, but I think it's mostly an effect of being so strongly and directly lit on an otherwise dark scene which we are used to only see in small scales with artificial lightning. If it's a miniature they went out of their way to pretty much replicate the trees they already had for no apparent benefit.

 

[Mendel]

Unless you're talking about the vignette effect (which most likely was added later),

Why would someone do that, if the video is real?

 

[Shadowplay]

Maybe I'm digging my own rabbit hole and going OT, but the scene near the end of the video in post @439 from @Nemon (thank you) looks, to me, like a diorama itself, particularly the tree in the middle and the vehicle (which I think is a Nissan Navara?)

There's a clearly real vehicle of a similar sort at the start of the video. I'm wondering if the final scene is some sort of blend with "real" footage of the gear in the foreground combined with a model environment. -Probably not; but it looks... odd.

View attachment 76540

I think theres a certain tilt blur effect going on here, slightly, inadvertently due to maybe compression

 

[NorCal Dave]

Why would someone do that, if the video is real?

That's the question. IF the video is real, was the vignette effect added? Do modern digital cameras of the last 20+ years produce the natural dark edges at the corners? I don't know.

I remember working at my professor's video studio in collage in the mid '80s. One of the side gigs was converting film to video through a multiplexer. It was a lens/prism thing that one focused a film projector onto and then a video camera onto the lens/prism with the projected film image to record it onto video. Vignetting was a huge issue as I remember and took a lot of adjustments to minimize it as much as possible. Part was the naturally occurring effect from older, often inexpensive film cameras (8mm, Super 8, 16mm) and the multiplexer exaggerating it.

Nowadays it seems to be an effect people add to create an "old timey" or "authentic" feeling video that is neither. I suppose one could argue that this film/video is from 20, 30, 40 or more years ago and was shot on film originally. If it's more recent, then I would think it's more likely the vignette effect has been added, possibly along with the sounds of the helicopter.

Given the amount of random stock footage used along with the reenactment bit about the psyonics guy and the outright LARPing about in the buggy looking for bad guys, it would seem gussying up a real video to appear more compelling is just standard procedure. Or it's fake.

how would someone anonymously send an egg from a helicopter footage to Coulthart right before he was gonna air an interview about an egg from a helicopter.?

As I noted up-thread, it really looks like the whole egg video sequence was added in during editing, long after he had talked to Barber. It's just kind of inserted in as evidence for Barber's claim, but is completely independent of Barber's interview, and all the other interviews and segments. I suspect Coulthart got the video after all the interviews and running around in California were done. Though it is an extreme coincident.

 

[Mendel]

I suspect Coulthart got the video after all the interviews and running around in California were done. Though it is an extreme coincident.

it's possible Barber put Coulthart in touch with someone who had that video but wanted to remain uninvolved

 

[Indi]

the transcript AI reproduces this confusingly below)

(47:09) [...] the pick team configures the cargo for flight so whatever it is the craft is sitting in a sling waiting for your helicopter yeah it's sitting we have this these things called pumpkins which are like rubberized bags or containers and from my point of view that it was covered in a pumpkin at least from the bottom and the sides

If that part got any direct attention here, I missed it. I can't find any reference to a "pumpkin" sling, though I do see there's an open-top portable water reservoir designed for "bambi bucket" fills for copter wildfire drops called a pumpkin tank (a large, shallow, collapsible bowl basically, looks nothing like what is in the video in question here). It does look like a rubberized bag that would cover cargo on the bottom and sides as Barber described, if used for improvised cargo lift rather than a land-based water reservoir for bucket dipping, as designed. If that's what Barber is claiming he used with his "egg", then the video presented is not of that lift.

Pumpkin tank photos and details:
https://www.nationalfire.com/media/product_files/National_Fire_Pumpkin_Tank_Brochure.pdf
https://www.huskyportable.com/self-supporting-portable-tanks

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I've never seen a sunlight picture where the light fell off toward the edges like that.

Okay, I'll take another look.

 

[MapperGuy]

If this is miniature, sunlight is the best candidate.

The second best candidate would be a room with a single powerful direct light source off to the side. The third would be an outdoor scene, again with a single powerful direct light source to the side. In both these cases reflected there would be light and/or

Note the lighting setup in this attempted recreation.


The strong light source is off to the side... but the lighting is... bland and stark. There isn't the kind of richness you get with sunlight.


My intuition is that the lighting in the original video is sunlight. The reason is that the secondary lighting appears more consistent with diffuse sky radiation than with the reflected or less luminous light sources you'd typically get with with artificial lighting.


This is intuition, and at this point I feel like Scotty telling a sour faced Spock that the Enterprise, "Doesn't feel right."

As a kid I used to annoy my mother, when watching TV, especially some Western, with comments like: "They just switched from outside to studio... now they're outside again... studio..." Or "Wow, they sure have a lot of suns on that planet." Because I could see multiple faint shadows. Or, "That's daylight and they're pretending it's night."

Sunlight just don't look like artificial lighting. And it doesn't look like moonlight. Everyone here must have noticed that kind of thing.

Looking at his video at 13:44 you can see in his recreation that only the egg and threads attached to the sling are in focus while the rest of the cable is completely out of focus.

In the real-life helicopter lift video in Jarlrmai's post #319 of this thread at 5:01 / 20.09 the cable is in focus all the way from the bottom where it is attached to the load all the way up to where it exits the view frame very near the helicopter.

If the cable in the Barber video was 150 or 200 feet in length then almost all of the cable should be in focus, just as the cable in the post #319 video is. Instead at least two-thirds of the cable is completely out of focus. Just as the cable in the attempted recreation video is at 13:44. The issue I suspect is that for both of these videos the cameras depths of field simply cannot keep the cable in focus because most of the cable is only inches from the camera.

The look-and-feel of the Barber video is far closer to this attempted recreation video than the actual helicopter video is post #319.

The video in post #319 we can see is showing a cable many feet and more from the camera

 

[martin bradshaw]

A bit vague but reasonable answer if your just a pilot, 5000lbs load limit might narrow down the chopper in question maybe

Some newer posts he goes on to say he will be releasing high resolution videos this week

 

[fizzBuzz]

A bit vague but reasonable answer if your just a pilot, 5000lbs load limit might narrow down the chopper in question maybe
View attachment 76568



View attachment 76569
Some newer posts he goes on to say he will be releasing high resolution videos this week

I just sent him this. Lets see what he says... if he says. Odds are he won't respond. May need @Mick West to ask him this.

 

[john.phil]

MUFON published a summary of their "six-man crack photoanalysis team" take on the footage:

Marc D'antonio (02:12 - 05:58) - Head of the photo analysis team, astronomer, TV personality, photo and video expert. - Conclusion: 98% chance it is either a hoax or a recreation, but tending towards a hoax. Argument highlights:

• Exposed in the middle of a field instead of in a military facility;
• No ground crew or vehicles;
• The "night vision" seems more like a green filter trying to mimic night vision in post;
• Sharp edge shadow, could be full moon light coming from the horizon, but only the object is illuminated;
• If it is a spotlight, then it should have been in the field of view, or at least a hotspot on the edge of the screen should have been visible;
• No strobes or navigation lights from the "helicopter", but the lights could have been turned off;
• Sling cameras are not usually fitted with microphones, there should have been no sound;
• Camera too close to the "cable", blocks part of the view;
• Perfect chicken egg proportions.

Seth Feinstein (06:25 - 09:19) - MUFON Colorado State Director, has BA in Film Production and runs MUFON photo forensics boot camp. Conclusion: The footage is a hoax created in a studio and using a bird's egg.

• Lack of murky lime green hue, typical of "night vision systems";
• No strobing or aviation lights from the "helicopter";
• "Helicopter" has a spotlight aimed at the ground but the egg shadow is off to the right, indicating a second spotlight;
• No disturbance on the ground from the downwash;
• No helicopter shadow, no blade shadow for ambient light hypothesis;
• Object expected to be in the 1t to 3t range, yet it rolls leaving no signs of alterations to the "soil";
• Source is unavailable for forensics;
• Richard Dolan came out and said this footage is a reenactment.
• The video is a hoax created in a studio.

Sam Maranto (09:36 - 16:56) - MUFON Illinois State Director, field investigator, photo and video analysis background. Conclusion: Real footage of the retrieval of a ~20ft long egg-shaped object.

• Higher resolution and analysis shows it is a netted sling;
• The type of netting has been matched to existing gear information provided by others;
• Object is without a doubt about 20ft long;
• It is not an animal egg;
• Not possible to tell if the green tint was added in post;
• No evidence that it is a hoax;
• Trusts Ross Coulthart's due diligence.

Greg Cisko (17:25 - 20:41) - MUFON Illinois, astrophotographer, field investigator, ex-Fermilab employee (IT security). Conclusion: Undecided, "wait 10 years".

• Not possible to tell whether the footage is a hoax, but it could be a hoax;
• Page 244 of Elizondo's book "Imminent" seems related;
• Biased towards not being a hoax because the "Tic Tac" video was deemed a hoax when first released in the "Top Secret" forum, until the Pentagon confirmed it was a real DoD video 10 years later.

Robert Spearing (20:42 - 21:23) - MUFON Director of International Investigators. Conclusion: The object's proportions match a quail's egg.

• No metadata, time or location available;
• The length-to-width ratio of the object is a good match for a quail's egg (width is 77.1% of the length);
• Not possible to tell if it is really a quail's egg.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxUDiWQPkGg


Quail eggs:

source: https://saltinmycoffee.com/hatching-quail-eggs/

 

[Calter]

I haven't watched the video so I'm working from this summary, I'm not a fan of the explanations that mention strobe lights or the helicopter's shadow, since given the conditions of the video I'm not sure why they would show up.

Either way,

• Higher resolution analysis shows it is a netted sling;
• The type of netting has been matched to existing gear information provided by others;

Is it possible to contact someone at MUFON to get a confirmation of the sling/netting used?

Also, someone with access to Elizondo's book care to elaborate what page 244 of Imminent says?

• Page 244 of Elizondo's book "Imminent" seems related;

 

[Ann K]

I find it interesting that the one (Sam Moranto) who states it's real footage says, among other things:

Object is without a doubt about 20ft long;
It is not an animal egg;

Not possible to tell if the green tint was added in post;
No evidence that it is a hoax;

Trusts Ross Coulthart's due diligence.

The first two of these are stated with confidence, but neither evidence nor reasons for his conclusions are given.
The next two are merely "lack of negative evidence", but are not positive evidence.
The last is ...well... misplaced confidence? Gullibility? Hero worship?

 

[deirdre]

Also, someone with access to Elizondo's book care to elaborate what page 244 of Imminent says?

https://ia803403.us.archive.org/12/items/imminent-inside-the-pentagons-hunt-for-ufos-2024-luis-elizondo/Imminent; Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFO's (2024) - Luis Elizondo.pdf

if you use "find on page" and search 244 it gives you the index. (as page numbers on ecopies are not marked and based on photos of people flipping through books the pdf numbers dont exactly jive with print copies, although the pdf seems to be roughly 10 pages off hardcover versions.).

can't determine exactly where 244 would start and end in hardcover book.
i dont see anything specific , he talks about whistleblowers coming forward, the disclosure act. ..

 

[john.phil]

i dont see anything specific , he talks about whistleblowers coming forward, the disclosure act. ..

Greg Cisko's exact quote from the video:

(18:27 - 18:59) - But what the video actually does do quite well is it illustrates what was alleged that the Legacy Programme does, and it was basically that the Legacy Programme has an effort to capture, collect and reverse engineer vehicles of a nonhuman origin. And in some cases, those vehicles do include biologics, and that is the big deal along with the technology, right?

(19:00 - 19:19) - So, ironically, Lue Elizondo basically wrote the exact same thing, same idea, in his book "Imminent". That was on page 244. Anybody that has the book, go ahead and check out page 244 and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.