The years-late-kinda-sorta-semi-debunking of the California CARET "Dragonfly" Drones...

LanaiGuy

New Member
A bit of background: I live in San Jose, California and the CARET/"Dragonfly" Drones always fascinated me. I always thought they were a hoax. Even my brother, an amateur 3D artist and graphic designer said they were fake and that the renders, while cool, weren't completely "real" looking to him.

Anyhow, this may be coming far too late...but I've actually spoken with Margaret Gel, the person who claims to have created the "alien language" seen on the drones. She tells all on her personal website but I contacted her to get some clarification on some of the things I've been curious about for years.

https://margaretgel.com/the-isaac-caret-hoax/
External Quote:

Around the turn of the century I made some art. This art was stolen by someone I thought I could trust. They put it in a hoax, called the Isaac Caret hoax. They also stole 3D rendering mockups from many different artists online, of UFOs.

That was nearly a quarter of a century ago.

For the longest, I did nothing. When the artwork was first stolen nearly 25 years ago, I consulted a lawyer, who told me that nothing could be done. The art was out there; and that was that. The bell could not be unrung. I also feared being sued by the person who stole my artwork, because they threatened to sue me if I ever told anyone. No idea how that would've worked: but I'm taking my chances, now. (At the time, I was told that the fact that my full legal (deadname now) name was encoded in the chart essentially meant nothing when it came to copyright lawsuits: 'just because you put your name on it, doesn't mean you own it.' No idea how true that is but that's 90% of why I didn't say shit about it until now.)


Before I continue, please take this as you will. Her admission on the website is understandably hard to swallow. But I thought I'd tell it because, honestly, it's fairly new information and needs to be told.

She gave me the following:
  • Gel was part of an online forum dedicated to creating 3D art. She was in a sub-group who did artwork about aliens and UFOs. The group members eventually wanted to create an online UFO e-zine as most of them saw themselves as "experiencers" and thought there might be other people who would want to read it and not feel alone.
  • "Stephen" (who would later release the 4th and 5th sets of photos taken off Big Basin Highway 9 in the Saratoga Mountains near the winery) was the man behind the first group of photos ever released (dubbed the "Chad" photos) that eventually made their way to Coast to Coast. THAT, however, was not Stephen's intention.
  • There was a man on the forum by the name of "Isaac" whose real name was Chad. Chad saw money to be made on the e-zine and proposed charging people money to read it. When the forum basically told him to screw off with that idea, this enraged him and Chad made off with a bunch of their renders (including the "alien tech" seen in the "Isaac documents") and bolted for Coast to Coast, releasing Stephen's photos.
  • When Stephen found out that Chad had done this (idiot used his real name), Stephen went after Chad, threatening to tell everyone that it was a hoax but Chad countered with legal action. When that never materialized, Stephen sent Chad a C&D and that scared Chad enough that he stopped his roll.
  • This didn't stop a friend of Chad's from releasing more renders. Another user named "Raj" (yes, another real name) released more photos, claiming to have seen these things in the sky. When people found out Raj had done this, he was kicked off the group for stealing renders and claiming them as his own.
  • Rather than attempting to beat them, Stephen attempted to get in on the act and tossed his in a Listserv to see if he could fool people. These were the "Stephen" and "Ty" photos. When he was called out for it being a hoax (the "drones" began looking ridiculous with extra multiple parts and just looked goofy), he got upset and the ordeal tarnished his reputation with the photography group he was in. Gel says that Stephen died in 2013. He was in his 60's and had huge health issues.
  • Then, of course, we got the Isaac documents with "alien tech". Gel says she made the assembly diagrams for the pieces, but that not everything in those docs were renders and were actually man-made by one of their artists in Canada. She says the guy who put the pieces together didn't even do it correctly. She says the guy probably still has them or destroyed them. Says that guy's name was Chris.
  • She said there was a group effort to nail Chad for what he did -- but then she said that the Terminator series used their stuff and they backed off because they thought that Fox would simply call it their own or claim it was part of their IP now.
Anyhow, Gel got sick and tired of it and the final straw was when she was watching UFO stuff on YouTube in the early 2020's and came across the 2008 episode featuring the CARET drones. She had no idea it had gotten that "known". That's when she decided to tell her story.

Again, hope this all helps.
 
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Again, hope this all helps.

With what?

Maybe start with whatever this is all about. Haven't heard of The CARET dragonfly drones before, so not sure what to make of this. Start with the claim and/or event and photos. Others here may know, but I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't live in San Jose, so maybe that's why, but hey, I did grow up in the '70s in nearby Morgan Hill :).
 
Her admission on the website is understandably hard to swallow.

Yeah, I have trouble with
External Quote:
I got abducted by space aliens around the age of 4.
I've stood on the Moon
...in the "About Margaret Gel (icze4r)" section, https://margaretgel.com/about/

But she might be the designer of the characters in the images of the claimed drones. Someone was.

The CARET drone claims/ photos (CARET meaning "Commercial Application Research for Extraterrestrial Technology", Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_photographs#The_"CARET_Drones") look likely to be a not very elaborate hoax relying on some computer-generated imagery and someone anonymously claiming to be involved in reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology. That person, possibly others, then shared the images with Coast to Coast AM and Linda Moulton Howe.
There's the familiar problem of why you would test-fly secret aircraft in public areas.

There's a Wikiwand article, "CARET" Drone Incident", which gives some background, no idea how reliable it might be (if at all),
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/"CARET"_Drone_Incident. It says "Isaac", the person claiming to have reverse-engineered the drones while working at the (almost certainly fictitious) CARET program in Palo Alto, explained that the drones became
External Quote:
..."suddenly visible" due to their "cloaking" abilities going haywire.
This still doesn't explain why something so secret wouldn't be tested in a public place, away from the tracking and calibration equipment and maintenance and recovery teams of an actual test area, and why, having had your "invisible" drone reveal itself once, you'd continue flying it in public areas. And keep doing so after each time it's been seen. It's ridiculous.

Even MUFON (having described the photos as "...the most dramatic UFO Photos since Gulf Breeze"; apparently unwilling to accept the Gulf Breeze photos were debunked in 1990) didn't seem wholly convinced,
External Quote:
It appears that the Internet has become the media of choice for persons making unsubstantiated and extraordinary UFO claims while hiding behind fictitious names or anonymity. ...I would love for the drone photos and the CARET program to be real, but until the photo-witnesses come forward out of the shadows in which they hide and their identities irrefutably established, their claims are dubious.
"The Drones and the CARET Documents: One Year Later: Part 1", MUFON UFO Journal 480, James Carrion, MUFON International Director, viewable as a PDF courtesy of The Black Vault website, https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/MUFON/Journals/2008/April_2008.pdf

A bit dispiritingly, the author doesn't appear to be aware that people who have irrefutably established their identities have also told us tall tales about UFOs in the past. If the claimed "CARET drone" witnesses came forward with their real names, that wouldn't necessarily make their accounts more believable. It would be more relevant to know if they knew each other and "Isaac" or not, or if they were involved in the same on-line communities.
 
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For those who don;t recall, that was THESE things:

delme.png


delme.jpg


To me, back then, there was little need to dive deeply into them -- they seemed self-evidently CGI, and my need to prove it to anybody's satisfaction but my own was then nonexistent! ^^
 
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With what?

Maybe start with whatever this is all about. Haven't heard of The CARET dragonfly drones before, so not sure what to make of this. Start with the claim and/or event and photos. Others here may know, but I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't live in San Jose, so maybe that's why, but hey, I did grow up in the '70s in nearby Morgan Hill :).

Oh man...this rabbit hole...see below. I think someone summarized it.
 
Yeah, I have trouble with
External Quote:
I got abducted by space aliens around the age of 4.
I've stood on the Moon
...in the "About Margaret Gel (icze4r)" section, https://margaretgel.com/about/

But she might be the designer of the characters in the images of the claimed drones. Someone was.

The CARET drone claims/ photos (CARET meaning "Commercial Application Research for Extraterrestrial Technology", Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_photographs#The_"CARET_Drones") look likely to be a not very elaborate hoax relying on some computer-generated imagery and someone anonymously claiming to be involved in reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology. That person, possibly others, then shared the images with Coast to Coast AM and Linda Moulton Howe.
There's the familiar problem of why you would test-fly secret aircraft in public areas.

There's a Wikiwand article, "CARET" Drone Incident", which gives some background, no idea how reliable it might be (if at all),
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/"CARET"_Drone_Incident. It says "Isaac", the person claiming to have reverse-engineered the drones while working at the (almost certainly fictitious) CARET program in Palo Alto, explained that the drones became
External Quote:
..."suddenly visible" due to their "cloaking" abilities going haywire.
This still doesn't explain why something so secret wouldn't be tested in a public place, away from the tracking and calibration equipment and maintenance and recovery teams of an actual test area, and why, having had your "invisible" drone reveal itself once, you'd continue flying it in public areas. And keep doing so after each time it's been seen. It's ridiculous.

Even MUFON (having described the photos as "...the most dramatic UFO Photos since Gulf Breeze"; apparently unwilling to accept the Gulf Breeze photos were debunked in 1990) didn't seem wholly convinced,
External Quote:
It appears that the Internet has become the media of choice for persons making unsubstantiated and extraordinary UFO claims while hiding behind fictitious names or anonymity. ...I would love for the drone photos and the CARET program to be real, but until the photo-witnesses come forward out of the shadows in which they hide and their identities irrefutably established, their claims are dubious.
"The Drones and the CARET Documents: One Year Later: Part 1", MUFON UFO Journal 480, James Carrion, MUFON International Director, viewable as a PDF courtesy of The Black Vault website, https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/MUFON/Journals/2008/April_2008.pdf

A bit dispiritingly, the author doesn't appear to be aware that people who have irrefutably established their identities have also told us tall tales about UFOs in the past. If the claimed "CARET drone" witnesses came forward with there real names, that wouldn't necessarily make their accounts more believable. It would be more relevant to know if they knew each other and "Isaac" or not, or if they were involved in the same on-line communities.
Yeah...again, I said that her version of events might be hard to swallow but there are two things in her favor: she points out what everything means in the diagrams and how to decipher them -- and she talks, at length, about how Stephen hoaxed things and kinda screwed himself -- and she and Stephen were fairly close knit.

That Wiki article? I wrote it. The whole thing. It was dumped from Wikipedia for being "not notable" and the entire thing was becoming a mob to have it removed. Four editors got on my case, thinking I'd fight them. I asked, politely, to have the article removed if that's what they wished and they did it. Good times.

Everything else you're saying is absolutely spot on. I've said the same. Added to which, I live in the area where the photos were shot and have been to three of the four locations. There's no way nobody else saw these things from where they were shot (busy highways/populated areas/etc) and every single "witness" lied about the locations.

So, yeah, there was a HELL of a lot wrong with the story.

I know you might take Gel's story with a grain of salt...but she actually sounds like the most sane person in the bunch who tried to push this nonsense.
 
To me, back then, there was little need to dive deeply into them -- they seemed self-evidently CGI, and my need to prove it to anybody's satisfaction but my own was then nonexistent! ^^
Ugh, that's not even good CGI, the lighting's all wrong. This is CGI from the 90s, right? (So was /Jurassic Park/, so #notall90sCGI)
 
For those who don;t recall, that was THESE things:



To me, back then, there was little need to dive deeply into them -- they seemed self-evidently CGI, and my need to prove it to anybody's satisfaction but my own was then nonexistent! ^^
Haha I remember these pics! I thought they were definitively debunked, or even admitted to be faked, pretty quickly. My memory might be wrong though. Like @FatPhil said, it's not even a good hoax!
 
Oh man...this rabbit hole...see below. I think someone summarized it.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be an ass about this, but that's NOT how it's done here. Your Opening Post (OP) makes NO mention of what your talking about, aside from mentioning the name of this supposed hoax. Instead of providing us with any overview, description, reports or photos about this event, with sources, you just jumped into a quote from a Ms. Gel. Which is then followed by a lengthy list of paraphrased accounts that sounds like a Jr. High spat.

Yes @John J. provided some links related to the event and @JMartJr provided a photo, but they should NOT have to. That is your job as the thread starter. We have no idea what you're talking about in the OP, and we should NOT have to go search and look up what supposed hoax you're referring to in an attempt to understand.

Please provide the claim, with sources, that you are trying to debunk with Ms. Gel's assertions.

If appears this happened in 2007, and if this is the supposed UFO/drone thing:

1786030861602.png


Then Jamie Maussan's VFX guy, who goes by the handle Ledrack, was posting something similar around that time. I don't know if he's vamping on the CARET photos or vice-verca:

1786031131069.png



Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Bq9fC14ew
 
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That Wiki article? I wrote it. The whole thing. It was dumped from Wikipedia for being "not notable" and the entire thing was becoming a mob to have it removed. Four editors got on my case, thinking I'd fight them. I asked, politely, to have the article removed if that's what they wished and they did it. Good times.
Wikipedia, of course, doesn't want you writing content straight to Wikipedia, even if you have direct personal knowledge of the topic (and particularly if the topic is about something you were involved in).
 
Sorry, I'm not trying to be an ass about this, but that's NOT how it's done here. Your Opening Post (OP) makes NO mention of what your talking about, aside from mentioning the name of this supposed hoax. Instead of providing us with any overview, description, reports or photos about this event, with sources, you just jumped into a quote from a Ms. Gel. Which is then followed by a lengthy list of paraphrased accounts that sounds like a Jr. High spat.

Yes @John J. provided some links related to the event and @JMartJr provided a photo, but they should NOT have to. That is your job as the thread starter. We have no idea what you're talking about in the OP, and we should NOT have to go search and look up what supposed hoax you're referring to in an attempt to understand.

Please provide the claim, with sources, that you are trying to debunk with Ms. Gel's assertions.

It appears this happened in 2007, and if this is the supposed UFO/drone thing:

View attachment 92491

Then Jamie Maussan's VFX guy, who goes by the handle Ledrack, was posting something similar around that time. I don't know if he's vamping on the CARET photos or vice-verca:

View attachment 92492


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Bq9fC14ew


Oh, he was DEFINITELY trying to ride in on their coattails.

Apologies for not posting all the links. The reason I didn't was because I had assumed everyone knew about it (it's a fairly infamous hoax) and most of the links are outdated and I would have had to go fishing on the Wayback Machine to get everything since most of these links are toast.

Drone Team has all the photos and stories:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140531065044/http://www.droneteam.com/

Isaac papers:
https://ia601400.us.archive.org/31/...-report/Isaac_caret-q4-86-research-report.pdf

Hope that helps.

Wikipedia, of course, doesn't want you writing content straight to Wikipedia, even if you have direct personal knowledge of the topic (and particularly if the topic is about something you were involved in).
I wasn't involved in it. And I spoke with Gel after the fact. Also, everyone has to have some personal knowledge of something. If I had personal knowledge of guitars, am I forbidden from writing about guitars? That seems kinda silly.
 
Hope that helps.

No. It does not. Again, I'm not trying to be an ass or annoying, but I'm surprised the OP was even allowed. These are just links, and no, it's not a fairly famous hoax. Many of our members are not only not in the Bay Area, they don't live in the US.

Please see and review the Posting Guidelines from the tab at the top of the page:



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Guidelines for new threads
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  4. Link and Quote the claim. Use
    External Quote:
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  5. Debunk it if possible. Explain what the problems with the claim are - both evidence and conclusions. Link to other sites that discuss the claim.
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Specifically, note #8 Links. This refers to the No Click Policy:

External Quote:

The reader should not have to click on a link in order to understand what the post is about. When you link to something to back up something you are discussing then:
Links themselves are not content, they are references
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/metabunks-link-policy.5158/

Your just posting links and asking us to go figure out what our talking about so then we can try to understand what Ms. Gel's claims have to do with any of this.

Again, please use your sources to post quotes and photos so we can understand the context of this claim. At his point, I'm not sure what the claim is.
 
No. It does not. Again, I'm not trying to be an ass or annoying, but I'm surprised the OP was even allowed. These are just links, and no, it's not a fairly famous hoax. Many of our members are not only not in the Bay Area, they don't live in the US.

Please see and review the Posting Guidelines from the tab at the top of the page:



External Quote:

Guidelines for new threads
  1. Focus on individual claims of evidence, not broader theories, and with one claim of evidence per thread
  2. Title the thread with something that identifies that claim, preferably with an appropriate tag word/phrase describing what the first post does (e.g. "Claim:" , "Debunked:", "Fake:", "Need Debunking:" (only use descriptors that you can back up)
  3. Describe what the claim of evidence is, who made it, where they made it, what the known facts are, what are the disputed facts, and what is the broader theory that this claim is supporting.
  4. Link and Quote the claim. Use
    External Quote:
    ...
    tags
    .
  5. Debunk it if possible. Explain what the problems with the claim are - both evidence and conclusions. Link to other sites that discuss the claim.
  6. Ask specific questions about what you don't know about the claim
  7. Videos must be accompanied by a description of the video, identifying the claim made in it, with time location if longer than 1 minute. See the Link Policy.
  8. Links must be accompanied by an excerpt from the link, and/or a focussed description of what is being linked to. Not just a "this is interesting" line. See the No Click Policy.
  9. Don't just post something and say "what do you guys think?".
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/

Specifically, note #8 Links. This refers to the No Click Policy:

External Quote:

The reader should not have to click on a link in order to understand what the post is about. When you link to something to back up something you are discussing then:
Links themselves are not content, they are references
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/metabunks-link-policy.5158/

Your just posting links and asking us to go figure out what our talking about so then we can try to understand what Ms. Gel's claims have to do with any of this.

Again, please use your sources to post quotes and photos so we can understand the context of this claim. At his point, I'm not sure what the claim is.
Ok. Would you like me to edit my post above or would you like me to reply below? This is my first time here. I am sorry if I didn't know the rules.
 
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