Sitrec Development is Open Source and Partially Funded by an Anonymous Organization

Mick West

Administrator
Staff member
I posted the following on Twitter this morning.

For the past five months, I've been working with an organization to add functionality, increase usability, and improve the documentation of my UAP/UFO analysis tool, Sitrec. Part of this process included making Sitrec open-source so that anyone can examine the code and so that other individuals and organizations can install Sitrec on their own systems and use it for their own work.

All the edits and changes to Sitrec are public data and can be found here:
https://github.com/MickWest/sitrec/commits/main/
About 80% of the "commits" (changes and additions to the project) are part of the work, the rest being things I do for my investigations on Metabunk.

Documentation can be found here:
https://github.com/MickWest/sitrec?tab=readme-ov-file#readme

The improvements focus on making Sitrec both simpler to use and more powerful. When we began in December, adding a new situation (a "sitch") to the program involved a complex process of adding a new code module, often writing some custom code, and then rebuilding and re-deploying the entire application.

With the release of Sitrec v1.2.1, this can now be as simple as dragging and dropping in a video file and one or more data files (in various supported formats, but mostly ADS-B/KML or MISB-style aircraft or drone tracks) and then tweaking a few variables. The resulting sitch can then be saved on the server and shared with others as a simple permanent web link, like https://www.metabunk.org/u/cwClZ9.html

A benefit of this work is that you can now create custom "mods" of existing sitches, such as Gimbal, GoFast, Aguadilla, etc, where any changes to the parameters, including the curve editors and viewport configuration, will be saved in the same way, for example,
https://www.metabunk.org/u/YgLuXs.html

This work is still ongoing. Bugs need fixing, features need adding, and documentation needs writing. It's open source so that anyone can contribute, although I recognize it's a large and messy codebase. That's improving, as is the documentation.

I'm paid for this work at a reasonable hourly rate. So, any external contributions to the codebase don't make me money (if anything, that's less work for me, so fewer hours). But the contributions benefit the UAP investigation community, as do the contributions I make on my own time, and the contributions from Metabunk members.

I'm not paid by the organization to do anything other than write code and documentation. Besides this one project involving Sitrec, the only paid work I've had in the last couple of years has been writing a few magazine articles (e.g., Skeptical Inquirer) and a few TV appearances (e.g., The Proof is Out There). Nobody has ever told me what to say or write (let alone paid me for a particular spin.) I'm not paid to spread disinformation, propaganda, or a particular narrative.

I am interested in analyzing (and hopefully solving) UAP/UFO videos. I enjoy the mental challenge and the detective work. I also give my personal opinions on the subject as a whole when asked. I have no ill will and generally enjoy my interactions with the good people of the UFO community. I hope this open-source project can help solve more cases, and if there is something more interesting out there in all the noise, I hope my work helps bring it to light.
 
Interesting, do you think it will ever be revealed which organisation this is and why they are interested in it and what the future is?

You probably already know how this mystery will be spun by your public detractors.

Is it AARO?
Is it the SCU?
The FAA?
The CIA?
The Men in Black :)

In my view it would be much better if this information was made public in the spirit of the openness thats the main feature of Metabunk and your work.

Sitrec is mostly entirely your work but the genesis of it was the forum investigators shared frustrations with the mixed bag of tools we had to work with when investigating UFO cases.
 
I think it's great that sitrec will get this kind of support, but I am also intensely curious about this anonymous group.

I almost wonder if it's MUFON or The Galileo Project or something. Someone there recognizes the value in the tool, but doesn't want the blowback from the UFO community that would come from working with Mick?

I'm already seeing conspiracy nonsense in that twitter thread, which is pretty amusing considering the open source nature of the project and also how much nonsense they put up with from the usual UFO figureheads.
 
Putting on my conspiracy hat, maybe Mick was paid by a UFO-bro front company to do all this work to keep him preoccupied and distracted from debunking!

But seriously, I don't see why anyone should object to any branch of the military (or DHS, etc) paying for the tool to be developed if it makes their work more effective. Aren't they (the objectors) patriots?? And as for the costs, I don't know what Mick charges per hour, but I don't minding betting it would cost a tiny fraction of most Government projects.
 
I think it's great that sitrec will get this kind of support, but I am also intensely curious about this anonymous group.

I almost wonder if it's MUFON or The Galileo Project or something. Someone there recognizes the value in the tool, but doesn't want the blowback from the UFO community that would come from working with Mick?

I'm already seeing conspiracy nonsense in that twitter thread, which is pretty amusing considering the open source nature of the project and also how much nonsense they put up with from the usual UFO figureheads.
Yeah, it's the kind of thing that should be welcomed but I think it will just be rolled into the grand conspiracy, given that one of the standard responses from hard core ET believers is the accusation of paid shill. Also, there has been no UFO news in recent weeks, apart from the supposed "gotcha" of Sean Kirkpatrick
 
Interesting, do you think it will ever be revealed which organisation this is and why they are interested in it and what the future is?

You probably already know how this mystery will be spun by your public detractors.
...
In my view it would be much better if this information was made public in the spirit of the openness thats the main feature of Metabunk and your work.
I would welcome such negative spin. It would show a reliance on pettiness and logical fallacies in order to take an opposing stance to Mick's analytic one.

SitRec is just a telescope that lets you see the evidence that you wouldn't otherwise be able to see. It matters not who made the telescope, or who financed the telescope, that doesn't affect the evidence that can be seen through it - and given that the blueprints are on public display, you can build your own telescope if you think this particular one is knobbled somehow.

However, I of course would also welcome openness, but that's a matter entirely for them.
 
Me too, but unfortunately that's up to them.
do they "own" it? it sounds like sites would need to link back to MB for their "sitches" (strange word..what does it stand for?)

If you die in a car crash tomorrow and your wife decides to stop paying the server fees... do all those sitches disappear or does she have to give the program to "Them"? and they will host it on a different site?

can you give a general answer, like is this some non-skeptic oriented Foundation that donates to open source programs (like Firestorm, or Gimp, etc)?
 
do they "own" it? it sounds like sites would need to link back to MB for their "sitches" (strange word..what does it stand for?)

If you die in a car crash tomorrow and your wife decides to stop paying the server fees... do all those sitches disappear or does she have to give the program to "Them"? and they will host it on a different site?

can you give a general answer, like is this some non-skeptic oriented Foundation that donates to open source programs (like Firestorm, or Gimp, etc)?
It's all open source. It's on GitHub, meaning anyone can download it. I don't own it. They don't own it.

"Sitch" is short for "situation", as in "Situation Recreation" (Sitrec)
2024-05-30_08-26-21.jpg
 
can you give a general answer, like is this some non-skeptic oriented Foundation that donates to open source programs (like Firestorm, or Gimp, etc)?
I cannot. Giving any information about who they are or are not would be like 20 questions, allowing people to narrow in on who it might be (and probably get it wrong).
 
do they "own" it? it sounds like sites would need to link back to MB for their "sitches" (strange word..what does it stand for?)

If you die in a car crash tomorrow and your wife decides to stop paying the server fees... do all those sitches disappear or does she have to give the program to "Them"? and they will host it on a different site?
The software itself is freely licensed:
Article:
The MIT License

Copyright © 2023-2024 Mick West

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

This means, in principle, that anyone can do anything with the sitrec software as long as they don't restrict others from doing the same.

The repository of situations that users can upload is not encompassed by this and could be lost if Mick throws in the towel. You could easily change the software to store the sitches on some other server, but I don't know what the rights issues are with downloading them from here and uploading them elsewhere.
 
I cannot. Giving any information about who they are or are not would be like 20 questions, allowing people to narrow in on who it might be (and probably get it wrong).
true. aside from open-source patrons, there arent alot of people who would be willing to pay you to do something you were doing anyway :)
 
The repository of situations that users can upload is not encompassed by this and could be lost if Mick throws in the towel. You could easily change the software to store the sitches on some other server, but I don't know what the rights issues are with downloading them from here and uploading them elsewhere.
There's no rights issues any more than someone copying a post they made here and posting it elsewhere.

A planned feature is to export all the files need to your local drive.
https://github.com/MickWest/sitrec/issues/26
External Quote:

For sharing across installs, it would be useful to be able to export the sitch .js file and all the assets into a single folder that could be opened locally (using File Manager / Open Local Sitch Folder).

Legacy and Modded sitches should export the entire original sitch structure as well as the mods (i.e. not just modding:sitch plus mods - this would also serve as a more permanent backup
 
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