PR043 Africa - Djibouti

[GM4AJK]

If only there were some scientific discipline one might apply to determine the likelihood of a second researcher choosing exactly the same coordinates in a manner not driven by any particular methodology other than convenience.

Given that AI is now solving problems in that old arcane discipline, I decided to ask Claude about the odds of an independent researcher selecting the exact same position to geolocate the compound. Claude said:-

Short answer: essentially zero if two people were pointing at random, but not vanishingly small if both were deliberately trying to identify the same specific feature (e.g. that shed/building) — those are two very different questions, and it matters which one you're asking.

The coordinate precision itself
The label shows 11.388432, 43.139749 — six decimal places. At this latitude, that's a grid cell roughly 11 cm × 11 cm on the ground. That precision comes from Google's coordinate encoding, not from anything a human actually controlled by hand — nobody is clicking with sub-meter accuracy on a touchscreen or mouse.

What a human click actually resolves to
What matters more is the pixel the person actually clicked, at the zoom level shown. Judging by the size of the buildings in this crop (structures that look like ~10–30 m sheds spanning ~100–150 px), the image is covering roughly 150–200 m across ~1080 px, i.e. each pixel ≈ 0.15–0.2 m on the ground. That gives on the order of 500,000–900,000 distinct clickable positions within just this cropped view.

- If a second person clicked at random anywhere in this scene, the odds of landing on that exact pixel are on the order of 1 in 500,000 to 1,000,000 — negligible.
- If a second person clicked at random anywhere reasonable on a full Google Maps session (not narrowed to this crop first), the odds round to zero for practical purposes.

 

[FatPhil]

"is simply a convenient ground anchor within that matched scene."

*A* convenient ground ancher. But why *that one* - given that there are so many to chose from?

Do they realise that one-in-a-million (likely less, as not all points are created equal, and you selected a non-obvious one) occurances can win nobel prizes - that's a 5 sigma result!

 

[Mick West]

*A* convenient ground ancher. But why *that one* - given that there are so many to chose from?

In their paper, they include one point labeled "P01 anchor", but it is not the Flarkey Point, but a different point about 400 m to the NE.

The FP is approximately behind the black dot in the red marker (not where the marker indicates, that's the bottom point). The FP is not marked.

 

[Mick West]

A response from Dr Nandal:

I understand why the identical six-decimal coordinate raises the question. However, those six decimal places should not be interpreted as an 11 cm geolocation accuracy. They are simply the coordinate precision returned when a point is selected in Google Earth or Google Maps. Numerical precision is not the same as measurement accuracy. At this latitude, six decimal places correspond to roughly 11 cm in coordinate spacing in latitude, but that does not mean the site was localized to an 11 cm square.

This is a rather puzzling interpretation, as six decimal places do indeed represent an 11cm geolocation within Google Earth. While GE might be a few feet off in registering the terrain with actual Lat/Lon, if you move 11cm in GE (at this location), it will tick longitude by 0.000001°, and it will do this consistently.

i.e. those coordinates uniquely specify an 11cm location in Google Earth. Saying it is "simply the coordinate precision returned when a point is selected" is meaningless, as the fact that it's the coordinate precision is precisely why there's no plausible way two people could get the same two numbers independently.

 

[flarkey]

In their paper, they include one point labeled "P01 anchor", but it is not the Flarkey Point, but a different point about 400 m to the NE.
View attachment 92584
The FP is approximately behind the black dot in the red marker (not where the marker indicates, that's the bottom point). The FP is not marked.

This is an interesting observation. Why would those coordinates appear in the paper but not be accurately cross referenced in their Google Earth model?

In Dr Nandal's email he says...

Our geolocation was not obtained by solving for that single point. We first identified the site by matching the broader terrain morphology in the released video with Google Earth and Google Maps, including the compound, the ordered sequence of wadi bends, roads, tributaries and surrounding ridges. In addition, I spoke to military personnel who had close knowledge of a U.S. base very close to this exact site. The coordinates I obtained were cross checked with them, including signs of military vehicles stationed on this exact site. The quoted coordinate, 11.388655 N, 43.139259 E, is simply a convenient ground anchor within that matched scene. It is not the sensor position, it is not the target position, and it is not a claim of centimetre scale geolocation accuracy.

I wonder, and this is pure speculation, if the coordinates of the compound were given to him by the 'military personnel' who got them from Metabunk, and have been erroneously included in the report as an error in reporting the P01 anchor?

 

[jarlrmai]

It all sounds like waffle to me, they think they can ride it out with disclaimers about things that don't matter and as you don't have anything other than fairly circumstantial evidence.

They claim they did exactly what you did, selected arbitrary co-ordinates within a larger scene which are "overprecise" because by default the app gives you precision, however the the fact remains that the chances of selecting the same arbitrary coordinates in that scene are vanishingly small.

The new mention of the military base seems like an attempt to narrow the field of the possible locations that he could have selected meaning it was more likely that because you had both, for different reasons, selected the same landmark within the scenes, but even given that the chances of picking the same 11x11cm part of the military complex is incredibly unlikely. Reading how it is phrased I don't think the claim is the specific co-ordinates came from the military member but perhaps you can ask for clarification on that part.

This probably needs a short video demonstrating how unlikely it is to pick the same pixel (basically) on a large scene and why the coordinates are essentially random and precise by default (drop pin, right click copy etc) because unless more people ask this question it won't go anywhere.

 

[jplaza]

Your claim is similar to a mathematician claiming that whoever found that 2+2=4 must have copied the result from him because he derived the same result a while ago.

It's more like two persons rolling a 10^8 sided dice, and getting the same result ... twice!

 

[FatPhil]

Your claim is similar to a mathematician claiming that whoever found that 2+2=4 must have copied the result from him because he derived the same result a while ago.

It's more like two persons rolling a 10^8 sided dice, and getting the same result ... twice!

Pedantically, the region of interest is best measured in hundreds of metres, so it's only a k*10^4-sided die for smallish k. As I said, 5-sigma. They've discovered a new sub-atomic particle, the coincidencon.

 

[flarkey]

Pedantically, the region of interest is best measured in hundreds of metres, so it's only a k*10^4-sided die for smallish k. As I said, 5-sigma. They've discovered a new sub-atomic particle, the coincidencon.

The odds arent quite as remote as thay may seem.

Realistically they were going to pick a point near the military compound as a central point for the geolocation - just as I did. The area of the compound is approx 0.23km², and the accuracy of the lat long coords is to 11cm², There are [(0.23×10^9 cm² )/11cm²] = 20,900,909 squares of 11 cm² in an area of 0.23 km², so thats a one-in-twenty one million chance of picking the same square.

But even more realistically you'd expect someone to pick a point closer to the centre of the compound. I picked a point 125m away from the centre so if they did the same that area could be reduced to 0.05km², which makes it a [(0.05×10^9 cm²)/11cm²] = 4,545,455 squares, so a one-in-four and a half million chance.

But if selecting a point in the compound, why did they select a point 125m away from the obvious point of the centre of the compound? There is no reason to, other than pseudorandom chance by following the same method I did - i.e. just dropping a pin in the general area of the compound. It is pretty clear that the Metabunk geolocation data has found its way into their report, but how? I don't think this was an intentional copying of data, or an un-attributed citation, but somebody somewhere in the Galileo project or their sources along the chain of investigation has used our data.

Check my math with Gemini: "how many 6 figure decimal lat long locations are in a circle on the ground of radius 125m in Djibouti?":

So pretty close to a one-in-four million chance.

 

[GM4AJK]

So pretty close to a one-in-four million chance.

A one-in-four-million probability corresponds to about 5 sigma (σ) on a normal distribution — right in the same territory as the "5-sigma" threshold particle physicists use to declare a discovery. "Coincidencon" (© @FatPhil ) scattering experiments?

 

[JMartJr]

...somebody somewhere in the Galileo project or their sources along the chain of investigation has used our data.

I note your generous use of "our."
The work you do with this stuff is impressive, admired and appreciated.

 

[Ann K]

It sounds as if Loeb blamed Nandal (under the guise of supporting him), then Nandal rather clumsily defended himself. However, they've both been warned, frightened off by the possibility of legal action, and won't make "errors of precision" again. That's not to say they won't use work they've picked up from elsewhere, but it seems likely that they'll tweak the numbers if necessary. I think varying the numbers would make it a lot harder to determine plagiarism in a court of law.

 

[flarkey]

lol there's no threats of legal action

 

[Ann K]

lol there's no threats of legal action

I would say that they don't know that ...but if they're reading this, they do now.

 

[jarlrmai]

The question here is one of academic integrity

 

[jarlrmai]

lol there's no threats of legal action

This reminds me when are our court dates for the Tedesco stuff?

 

[flarkey]

The question here is one of academic integrity

It's now more of a mathematical and probability puzzle as to how the two numbers matched exactly. I can't fathom it without there being some direct link. I suppose magic or telepathy might explain it, but they're at the bottom of my list of possibilities.

 

[GM4AJK]

It's now more of a mathematical and probability puzzle as to how the two numbers matched exactly. I can't fathom it without there being some direct link. I suppose magic or telepathy might explain it, but they're at the bottom of my list of possibilities.

To me, at least, it seems clear to me (five sigma) that someone in their data chain read your MB value.

However, it's the fall from the "Integrity Wagon" that disappoints me. So-called scientists can't say, "Well, this is very odd, let's investigate how this happened," and instead offer hand-wavey dismissals. And that's enough for their followers who can't understand.

 

[NorCal Dave]

A response from Dr Nandal:

This response is similar to a response from Kevin Knuth of UAPx, in regards to his calculations of TicTak. It was pointed out that he should first determine the object was in fact moving, as opposed to the camera losing track and moving, giving the illusion of movement. It was pointed out that Mick and others had demonstrated this on Metabunk. Like Dr. Nandal, Kunth basically declared Metabunk a silly website that was not at all scientific and therefore irrelevant. "We're real scientists, your not. Now bugger off".

 

[flarkey]

I asked Dr Nandal if he had received the lat long of the compound from his military contacts

Hi again,

Thankyou, I really appreciate your responses and understand the demands of deadlines & time, so I'll keep this one quick and concise. You said...

"The exact P01 ground anchor was then selected following advice from military personnel familiar with the location."

Are you saying that they gave you the latitude & longitude of the compound, and that was what set the values for the P01 Anchor?

....and he replied with this:

(bold highlights the key paragraph)

Hi Flarkey,

Yes, let me clarify exactly what happened. I independently identified the site in Google Earth and Google Maps by matching the terrain visible in the video, including the compound, wadi bends, roads and surrounding terrain. This took me an entire evening. I then sat down with a person familiar with the location and we selected P01 as the ground reference point for the reconstruction. I subsequently recorded the latitude and longitude of that selected point from Google Earth.

My independent contribution was identifying the site. The exact P01 anchor was selected afterward during that discussion and was then used as the reference point for the quantitative analysis. At the time, I was not aware of any scientific paper or preprint reporting this geolocation. From my perspective, it was simply a location known to the military personnel I was speaking with. Once P01 was selected as a suitable reference point, I had no scientific reason to investigate why that particular spot had been chosen, because its role in our analysis was to provide a ground anchor. I therefore recorded the coordinate and proceeded with the reconstruction.

I would also emphasize that the exact P01 coordinate is not, by itself, the scientific result of our work. The reconstruction uses seven additional terrain-control points, so the quantitative result comes from the geometry of the matched terrain as a whole rather than from one pin. Our primary objective was to measure the motion of the object and then constrain its physical velocity and apparent size. The geolocation provides the reference frame needed to perform that analysis. I am hoping this answers all the queries.

As a friendly suggestion, I would encourage you to consider presenting this type of analysis in a scientific paper or preprint in the future, where the methodology and uncertainties can be examined and the work can be readily discovered and cited by other researchers. Forums are very useful for discussion, but they are not routinely indexed in the academic literature searches that scientists use, such as arXiv, ADS, or journal databases. That appears to be how I missed your earlier work, and I would not be surprised if other researchers did the same in the future.

At the same time, a geographic coordinate obtained from publicly available Google Earth or Google Maps imagery is not proprietary information. Different researchers can independently identify the same location. If an earlier analysis has already reported the same geolocation, however, it is entirely appropriate to acknowledge and cite that earlier work once we become aware of it, and we will do so as promised earlier.

Kind regards,

Devesh

So, although it isn't explicitly stated, it appears that the co-ordinates were given to Dr Nandal by his military contacts, who had presumably used my geolocated coordinates from post #1 in their own, separate investigation. It appears to have been an innocent inclusion of someone else's data by the Galileo Team, who were not aware of my Geolocation.

I responded with:

Hi again

Thank you for this clarification. I can only then assume that your military contacts had copied the lat long from Metabunk before or during their discussions with you, and that they had innocently passed them onto you. They then found their way into your model and into the report. I'm satisfied that there was no intentional use of my geolocation, (which I accept you had also done independently anyway). I hope that my query hasnt tarnished our introduction to each other, and that maybe we can work together in the future. I certainly think you'd be able to use Mick's Sitrec application in your own investigations. Maybe my geolocation skills or experience with visible satellite observing could be of use to you in the future

Kind regards

Flarkey

 

[JFDee]

Loeb to Flarkey:

Neither you nor Mick were on our radar until Mick started attacking Dr. Nandal and me on social media for no reason.

It looks like the professor isn't quite used to scrutiny anymore. Since when is a discussion of data from a paper a personal attack?

 

[Mick West]

Nandal said:

"I should also clarify the apparent discrepancy in the figure. The numerical coordinate stored for P01 in our reconstruction is exactly 11.388655 N, 43.139259 E. If the pin appears displaced in an oblique Google Earth view, that is a rendering and perspective issue. It is not a different coordinate in our model."

But if I put those coordinates in, P01 comes out as:

Which means thatin their image, the makers are accute at the bottom of the black dot, and not the bottom point of the marker. The markes are a diferent shape, so perhaps they used a set of nicer looking icons, but by default the they were centered. A bit unfortunate.