"Pyramid" UFOs in Night Vision Footage are Bokeh

It doesn't matter how the plane looks like or how it behaves. What matters is that the lights are defocussed (just a tiny bit!) and this creates the blurry triangle (bokeh) caused by the aperture. So, the plane (or even UFO for that matter) in Luis video, is NOT resolved and therefore you cannot say anything about the shape of the craft.

Also, if we see these same triangles everywhere in the video, in the same direction, either these aliens like to align their crafts neatly, or it is... bokeh of stars....
I think you may have overlooked the word 'if' in my comment:

if the 'triangle' is the real shape of the object

I don't myself believe it is the real shape of the object, but some people do, so it is worth considering the implications of that.
 
It is not zoomed in. You only sees the triangles in this video when zoomed in. Compare shapes only at specific zoom levels.

Zooming in does not make the triangles, it just lets you see them at the terrible resolution and quality we have.

I think it's worth pointing out that Corbell himself says there's "another object at the start of the video" on the "bottom right" when introducing the video on the podcast/video he did with Knapp.

Although he doesn't point it out specifically as a "pyramid craft", from the context it seems like he thinks that.

This has become the go-to for denial of the Bokeh as the source of the shape.

I actually think you can make out the same triangle (in the same orientation) even before the zoom, if you look closely.

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Seems obvious enough to me that something was filmed here, but it didn't do any thing out of the ordinary and it there is good reason to believe it wasn't actually shaped like a triangle.

We also don't know if the Navy already knows that, because we don't have the briefing itself, or any other data, or any accounts of people who were there - and we never will.

This could have easily been on a slide of "what mistakes to avoid" when filing such reports.
 


The "phosphor trail" (or whatever the analogue to that in more modern equipment is called) at around 1:10 onward is interesting, and reminds me a lot of the strange erratic maneuvers UAPs are often credited with. Here we see a plane "doing" the same thing -- it looks like it backs up at one point, then leaps upwards -- clearly caused by shaking/uneven-movement of the camera zoomed in on the plane.
 
Reference footage. An out-of-focus plane with flashing lights and two stars.


The plane looks like a flying saucer

Of note, the flashing is very similar. We have the core bokeh shape, and then a halo
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Relevant tweet, if as some people on Twitter suggest, we should trust unverified eyewitness accounts:

Link to thread by Dave Beatty

Not clear that these were related to the same USS Kidd incidents ("Seperate but related" from later in July 2019 as per Corbell) but I think this can probably be put to rest after Mick's latest video. I think the high luminosity figure @gtoffo points out above is pretty ambiguous. The picture I posted before of the primary object during one of the light pulses also shows some bloom; it could definitely still be a triangle with bloom around it that is simply not yet zoomed in.

Tweet screenshots below for reference in case deleted.

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Funny I never noticed it, but my NVD has a 3-leaf triangular iris:
Source: https://youtu.be/7UTOtGyE1bI
(Video shows my NVD and it's 3 leave triangular iris.)

I'll have to wait till night to see if I can defocus enough to get an iris shadow.

The OP video certainly looks like an airplane. There's the always-on light, perhaps the tail light, plus the slowly blinking on/off/on/off wing lights, plus the xenon strobe light.


Here's just a few comments I thought to say after reading the thread:

The random speckle/dots that look like perfectly focused stars that change every frame are just "noise" in the photomultiplier tube micro channel tubes. These are caused by a number of sources, including radiation from outer space to just thermionic emission of electrons from the photo sensitive surface or from the micro channel tubes. I would not be surprised if that particular NVD has been exposed to heavy radiation and was made slightly radioactive. (Heh, or maybe it was just being used in a highly radioactive area..)

As to the lights not always looking triangular, several things contribute: One is that with motion, it blurs it because the camera is using a pretty long exposure, and the NVD has a certain persistence time on the phosphor. Another problem is the video codec will often times slightly change the shape of small details during compression.

As to the triangle that is bright with a "round" lit region around it, the round region isn't actually round. It's basically a triangle with round points. In other words, it's sort of blooming. It could be in the camera and/or the NVD. It's just way over exposed, and each super bright pixel in the triangle is surrounded by a faint round filled circle, and this adds up to make a faint round-cornered triangle.
It may even be due to the secondary electrons in the NVD phospher screen - when a high speed electron hits a phosphor screen, it creates light, but it also ejects some electrons out of the phosphor material, and they go in all directions but are accelerated back toward the phosphor screen causing a dim circular glow around the main impact location.

It's definitely suspect that every light in the scene just happens to be a UFO, and that they all match the common shape of NVD iris diaphragms, and they are all pointing the same way, and the UFO has the blink characteristics of a typical airplane.

I'm going with Bokeh and high loss video codec until new evidence arrives :D
 
Awesome! Some out-of-focus footage showing triangles would be very useful.
I'll check when I have a few minutes and a starry night. Maybe tonight, it's sunny now and I sure hope it's sunny tomorrow.
I'm not sure if the focus range of my lens will cooperate with a nice Bokeh, but I'll give it a try. UFB: Unidentified Flying Bokeh.
 
Interesting, the "Dark Invader" has a standard c-mount (a threaded 1" diameter screw mount)

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@Jesse3959's lens is a "DARK INVADER 50mm f / 1.3 C-mount video lens"

There are several other NVDs (Night Vision Devices) that use C-mount, as it seems to be the standard for interchangeable lenses on such devices. I've not found another lens with a triangular aperture - however it's not common for this to be specified.
 
Funny I never noticed it, but my NVD has a 3-leaf triangular iris:

I'm going with Bokeh and high loss video codec until new evidence arrives :D

Well this is certainly more probable than tape triangles in front of the lens. I think the case is pretty much closed here.

If the source of the lights was just regular planes and the UAPTF didn't figure it out that would be troubling....
 
The most widely deployed military night vision scope appears to be the AN/PVS 14. I can't find anything in the specs or manual about an adjustable iris, however. There are lots of YouTube videos demonstrating it too, but none that I've found to exhibit triangular bokeh e.g.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmHCrFQo1Pc (Around 3m05)


So if the bokeh is due to iris shape, it seems like the video was not taken using the standard issue scope.
 
So if the bokeh is due to iris shape, it seems like the video was not taken using the standard issue scope.

Somehow, the "Pyramid" video does not look like there was a Gen 3 device involved. Probably something older.

I wonder what the priority is for NV devices on a destroyer anyway. What would be their actual use?
 
There are several other NVDs (Night Vision Devices) that use C-mount, as it seems to be the standard for interchangeable lenses on such devices. I've not found another lens with a triangular aperture - however it's not common for this to be specified.

C-mount is in fact a standard for an amazingly vast array of optical things, like CCTV cameras, machine vision cameras, all sorts of stuff for a long time.

3-leafed iris is basically the cheapest you can go while maintaining circular regularity. In other words, with 3 sides, it can shrink and it still has 3 sides equally spaced around the center.

If you try to do it with 2 leaves, it's going to be some odd shape that's not circularly regular. (However many small cheap cameras do use two leaves with curved V slots cut in them.)

Higher quality irises usually have more like 5 or 7 or more leaves to produce a very nearly round aperture at all settings.

However the key aspect of 3 leaves relating to NVD is this: NVD lenses like to have a "Closed" position so you can completely shut the iris.

Normally a lens iris has each leaf tip under the next one in line, so they can't close all the way.

However, the 3 leaf iris has the third leaf on top of both others so it can actually shut 100% and even move further to guarantee that it can shut completely. I suppose this is to protect the sensitive image tube from a thin beam of sun coming through a nearly closed iris.

In other words, if you lose the lens cap, you can still set the aperture to closed which is marked as "C" on the fstop scale.

So it is highly likely that a NVD with a manual iris control would have a 3 leaf iris.
 
Somehow, the "Pyramid" video does not look like there was a Gen 3 device involved. Probably something older.

I wonder what the priority is for NV devices on a destroyer anyway. What would be their actual use?
Seems pretty similar to my Gen 3 device:

Awesome! Some out-of-focus footage showing triangles would be very useful.
After dark I made a jig to mount my phone on my NVD and got like half an hour of footage.
Too tired to edit it now, but uploading a raw clip:
Source: https://youtu.be/KNetDN-ytTg

Summary: Yes, the iris makes the exact triangular Bokah. Works on cars, city lights, the moon, and the stars.
An airplane did not go by while I was filming or I'd have filmed him too. Not much air traffic on the North Olympic Peninsula at night, especially after covid.

...

Anyway I'm beat, off to bed.
 
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Seems pretty similar to my Gen 3 device:


After dark I made a jig to mount my phone on my NVD and got like half an hour of footage.
Too tired to edit it now, but uploading a raw clip:
Source: https://youtu.be/KNetDN-ytTg

Summary: Yes, the iris makes the exact triangular Bokah. Works on cars, city lights, the moon, and the stars.
An airplane did not go by while I was filming or I'd have filmed him too. Not much air traffic on the North Olympic Peninsula at night, especially after covid.

...

Anyway I'm beat, off to bed.

Very interesting.

One thing I noticed: this only works if the subject is out of focus clearly. But how much? It seems the focus needs to be "way off" for the effect to appear.

We are assuming the camera was focused on the "pole" you see in the video right? Is the focus of those devices automatic or manual?

My point is: why are the clouds so defined? Do we expect to be able to see them so clearly given how out of focus the camera needs to be?

Also: wouldn't the person using it realise it was so out of focus? In your video when the focus is set properly you can clearly see the mountains so you would realise something was "not working".

Thanks!
 
Jesse goes though all the different focus settings in the video.


They are not defined at all.
Well they are distinguishable and you can see their shape at least.

I think the closes Jesse gets is at 2:07 in the video. Mountains are distinguishable but not defined. Triangle slightly visible. A lot of noise. I think that setting is the right one.

I'm guessing a closer and brighter plane would generate a bigger triangle compared to a star right?

I would give the Navy a pass for not identifying the Bokeh effect... but no justification if they think planes are unidentified. That would be shocking.



Is the star position consistent with the jets you identified given the ship position at the time?

Although this seems to be a SNOOPY Away Team Dinghy it wouldn't be far from the boat.
 
One reason could be the triangle comes from the iris on the NVD but the phone has a more round aperture so if it's getting glare from the amplified signal in the NVD then it would glare like this, remember there are 2 cameras here.

Jesse's setup seems more controlled then the original video as in the phone and NVD are locked together at a fixed distance whereas the original video the phone is being held to the NVD and this causes it's auto focus and auto exposure stuff to have to change.

At this point anyone disputing this as the most likely solution is going to have to bring some actual research / deep camera knowledge / there own demo.
 
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Anyway you guys can debunk this new rebuttal, it's never ending isn't it:
I posted this:

Glare and bokeh are not the same thing. Glare is spread INSIDE the lens, so a large part of that spread is AFTER the triangular aperture, and so would not be affected by it.
Content from External Source
 
Trying to debate on Reddit is pointless they can just ignore you and keep going in a different thread. If people think this explanation is wrong they can always come here and bring evidence.
 
Trying to debate on Reddit is pointless they can just ignore you and keep going in a different thread. If people think this explanation is wrong they can always come here and bring evidence.

I still try.. I am not sure why I do, as you are right, it is hopeless. Ok, I am also not free of error or do I claim to have the ultimate truth, but boy, the r/UFOs community is a tough crowd.
 
Very interesting.

One thing I noticed: this only works if the subject is out of focus clearly. But how much? It seems the focus needs to be "way off" for the effect to appear.

Yeah, watch the video, I slide through the entire focus range. As the picture is brought into focus, the triangles shrink and morph into round dots.
They maintain some triangular aspect until very close to perfect focus. They don't need to be way off focus, just significantly off focus.

We are assuming the camera was focused on the "pole" you see in the video right?

Yes. They may have in fact focused on that just as "something handy to focus on" not realizing you need to focus on something at the proper distance.

Is the focus of those devices automatic or manual?

Manual.

My point is: why are the clouds so defined? Do we expect to be able to see them so clearly given how out of focus the camera needs to be?

Haha, those aren't clouds, and you didn't watch the video. Those are trees, they only look like clouds because they are all blurry from being out of focus. If you watch the video and listen to the monologue, you will see that when I focus to infinity, the "clouds" become trees.

It was a perfect cloudless starry night.

As to clouds, they have often very indistinct fuzzy edges anyway, If their fuzzy edges are thicker than the Bokeh radius, a cloud may look about the same whether it is in focus or out of focus.

Also: wouldn't the person using it realise it was so out of focus?

Depends on your experience. If you (or anyone) really don't have much experience with NVD, it's not hard to be disoriented and not realize you're out of focus. The operator was clearly not an experienced night spy dude LOL. The field of view isn't great in these things, and everything looks different, and if all you see is some lights, you may not realize what you're looking at and you may not realize it's out of focus, ESPECIALLY when what you're seeing is a crisp apparently focused shape like a triangle!

In fact, I'd never really thought about that, but with just one or maybe two points of light, showing as crisp apparently focused triangles, plus the bright speckles inherent in NVD, it really doesn't look out of focus.

And the device probably has a focus ring and an aperture ring, and the operator probably was confused by all the controls.

If he'd known about the focus ring, or tried sweeping the focus, then yeah he'd have realized it was out of focus.

In your video when the focus is set properly you can clearly see the mountains so you would realise something was "not working".

Thanks!

Those aren't mountains, they are trees. But they are on a hill that's abuot 700 feet higher than me.
 
2:57, pattern of lights matches. I think the pyramid is likely a B737
I ran the B737 clip through a bunch of filters in Blender to blur the distinct lights together and capture just the flashing pattern (plus a couple of extra steps to mimic the green bokeh).

Here's the result - I wonder if it's worth trying to sync this up to the original video? It may not be possible as there are only six seconds here, and the sequence takes much longer to complete a whole cycle.

 

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Haha, those aren't clouds, and you didn't watch the video. Those are trees, they only look like clouds because they are all blurry from being out of focus. If you watch the video and listen to the monologue, you will see that when I focus to infinity, the "clouds" become trees.
I'm talking about the Navy video's clouds. I can distinguish trees and clouds :-D

The operator was clearly not an experienced night spy dude LOL. The field of view isn't great in these things, and everything looks different, and if all you see is some lights, you may not realize what you're looking at and you may not realize it's out of focus, ESPECIALLY when what you're seeing is a crisp apparently focused shape like a triangle!
I'm assuming at least someone in the Navy has used some NVG before...

But even so I would excuse a SNOOPY team member (as someone said in another thread... often not an expert in photography but someone normally handling other duties) for getting disoriented and filming out of focus.... I can also understand if an analyst in the UAPTF saw the video and didn't realise it could be bokeh... (this would just demonstrate how wrong it is to keep all this data in closed classified silos. The collective brain power of the internet will solve what the best experts in the world might not.)

However....if the source of the video was an airliner then it is an inexcusable show of incompetence.

How could the sailors not know and not clearly see the airliners on radar? How could the analysts studying the case not see the airliners in the radar tracks (I'm assuming they had them).

Only explanation is that they were so disoriented that the airliners were much further away than they assumed the objects they were observing were. So on the radar track they didn't even consider them as they were far off and:
- they couldn't see anything near by
OR
- they could see something else on radar and they simply filmed the wrong thing in the clouds/fog

Filming the wrong object would explain its inclusion in the UAPTF report. They have other sensor data that confirmed what the sailors thought they were seeing: "drones nearby the ship" as the ship logs report. However they actually filmed out of focus far away airliners but nobody questioned it as other sensor data corroborated it.

And why did Susan Gough have a canned reply ready within 24 hours of a supposed "leak" that didn't require any approval from superiors from higher up the chain of command?
How did she know so fast the origin of those supposedly classified images? How could she comment so fast seemingly without consulting anyone else? This is not how the military bureaucratic machine usually deals with leaks.

This is 99% bokeh and 70% the source is an airliner but a lot of questions remain I think...
 
I'm talking about the Navy video's clouds. I can distinguish trees and clouds :-D
Ahh, my apologies.

I'm assuming at least someone in the Navy has used some NVG before...

Of course some people do, but a lot of the crew doesn't - it's not their job. Most of the crew is doing other things.

Speaking of the Navy, umm, what is the best evidence that they responded to the video?
The only thing I saw in a quick search was some UFO advocacy website claiming that Navy had confirmed that they were authentic videos from navy personnel. That in and of it'self doesn't suggest that the video showed a UFO, just that the video was authentic and from a navy person. I don't doubt either of those - if I can use my NVD to create that triangular pattern out of a star, then there's no doubt that a navy person could do so as well and it would be a completely authentic video -- a completely authentic video made from an ill-focused NVD picture of an airplane..

So what's the best we got? Did the Navy release a document I can see from their own servers, or just a pro-UFO group claiming that the Navy said the video was authentic navy video?

Do we have ANY background? any first person account by the person who shot the film?

Speaking again of the Navy, I also didn't see any clues in the Navy video to back up the claim it was actually even taken from a ship. It was mounted on a cheap tripod, not a high quality gyro stabilized military spotting mount (which would be literally required for serious dependable use on a ship) - it was just on a tripod and not even a good one at that.
But even so I would excuse a SNOOPY team member (as someone said in another thread... often not an expert in photography but someone normally handling other duties) for getting disoriented and filming out of focus....

You've never been in the military. It doesn't have anything to do with snoopyness, but there are lots of very likely possibilities like Spotter Joe says to Deck Scrubber Frank "Hey I gotta run to the head, but I got this really cool NVD set up on this tripod, have a look if you like...

Or bean counter Bob is organizing inventory and sends out Scrubber Frank to test it, not realize Frank doesn't know how.

Or maybe Bob got a report that a certain unit wasn't working (maybe it wasn't focused LOL) so he goes and personally tests it but doesn't know what he's doing.

Or perhaps Frank is pretty good friends with his commander, and one day he's like "Sir, may I try out the NVD?" Boss says "Yeah sure just don't drop it overboard."

It is a very weak argument to say that the Navy would never let an untrained person operate an NVD.
And especially when there are no focused points smaller than the UFO. If there were SOME far details that were in good focus, then we'd have something to talk about. But literally nothing in the distance is in focus either.

I can also understand if an analyst in the UAPTF saw the video and didn't realise it could be bokeh... (this would just demonstrate how wrong it is to keep all this data in closed classified silos. The collective brain power of the internet will solve what the best experts in the world might not.)

However....if the source of the video was an airliner then it is an inexcusable show of incompetence.

What's our best evidence so far that a navy analyst watched the video and gave some indication that the NVD was being correctly operated? All I could find was a UFO sig site claiming that the navy said it was an authentic video, not that it was an authentic representation of reality.

How could the sailors not know and not clearly see the airliners on radar? How could the analysts studying the case not see the airliners in the radar tracks (I'm assuming they had them).

Only explanation is that they were so disoriented that the airliners were much further away than they assumed the objects they were observing were. So on the radar track they didn't even consider them as they were far off and:
- they couldn't see anything near by
OR
- they could see something else on radar and they simply filmed the wrong thing in the clouds/fog

Filming the wrong object would explain its inclusion in the UAPTF report. They have other sensor data that confirmed what the sailors thought they were seeing: "drones nearby the ship" as the ship logs report. However they actually filmed out of focus far away airliners but nobody questioned it as other sensor data corroborated it.

Can you please kindly direct me to a copy of that UAPTF report? Thanks!

And why did Susan Gough have a canned reply ready within 24 hours of a supposed "leak" that didn't require any approval from superiors from higher up the chain of command?
How did she know so fast the origin of those supposedly classified images? How could she comment so fast seemingly without consulting anyone else? This is not how the military bureaucratic machine usually deals with leaks.

This is 99% bokeh and 70% the source is an airliner but a lot of questions remain I think...
I haven't read Susan's canned reply, where would I find that?

Thanks!
 
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