Transients in the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey

[StarfieldRep]

A $150K RFP hosted on ResearchHub will fund independent searches of other observatories' pre-Sputnik plates. It opens October 15.
Some relevant details:

Applications are required to be submitted as pre-registrations on ResearchHub.

Null and refuting results are equally eligible.

Researchers already published on the Palomar transient phenomenon are not eligible to compete.

So each study is pre-registered and searches a different archive. The RFP also asks for data and analysis code to be published openly. A null result is as eligible as a positive one. Citizen scientists can apply. If you've built your own pipeline and haven't published on the transients, you may qualify. Full eligibility rules, award sizes and deadlines will be published October 15: https://www.researchhub.com/grant/32931/coming-soon-project-lost-light

 

[Robert Sheaffer]

When I post a piece debunking a prominent UFO case (the only such piece on that case that I am aware of), I'm glad to see people concentrating on important things, like the misspelling of a foreign name.

I also misspelled "Alvan Clark" as "Alvin Clark."

Now, does anyone have any reply of substance?

 

[jarlrmai]

When I post a piece debunking a prominent UFO case (the only such piece on that case that I am aware of), I'm glad to see people concentrating on important things, like the misspelling of a foreign name.

I also misspelled "Alvan Clark" as "Alvin Clark."

Now, does anyone have any reply of substance?

The politeness of spelling someone's name correctly is of substance.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Now, does anyone have any reply of substance?

Having read your blog for years, including your recent one about the transients, as they are called, I'd respond that the over all claim made by Villarreol et.al is a bit more complex than just a red spectral class starts appearing on the red sensitive plate and not appearing onto the blue sensitive plate. While it's true they seemed to have used only digital scans of the red sensitive plates, or more likely digital scans of analog copies of the original plates, the various claims are not just that the supposed transients don't appear on the corresponding blue plates. Rather, they only appear on the scans of the plates from '50s and not on subsequent star catalogs or even in other Palomar plates from later dates. so, whether the transients appear or don't on the blue plates is irrelevant as they didn't really look at them as far as I can tell.

In addition, they make the claim that these transients are somehow related to the earths shadow. My understanding is that the claim is IF these transients represent actual physical objects in space, the original plates captured their momentary reflections. Therefore, IF they are real objects, more of them would appear out of the shadow as opposed to something like scratches and damage that would be spread across the shadow and non-shadow areas equally.

I'm in no way saying any of this is accurate and there are a number of problems identified up-thread by various members, including but not limited to, the variation in the amount of transients used for the various claims, the lack of public data and the overall complexity of the software pipeline that was used to identified the various transient datasets, which doesn't appear to have been shared. All of the supposed "reproducebility" involves various people just reusing the same data that was produced via the original pipeline.

I don't think many people outside of UFO circles are convinced these transients are even real, aside from errors, scratches and other similar defects, let alone the notion that the Palomar team unknowingly captured "alien techno-signatures".

However, IF as you describe in your blog Villarreol presented side by side scans of contemporaneous red and blue plates and suggested the transients were alien because they don't appear on the blue plates, than that's a bit different from the overall claim as I think many of us understand it. IF she did this to in effect "dumb down" the claim and make it easier to understand for a general audience in a quick news blurb, than the critique you gave is warranted.

 

[Ann K]

The politeness of spelling someone's name correctly is of substance.

It's important if you want to Google someone ...although search engines make allowances for misspellings. Otherwise, it's as important as correctly identifying the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. I speak as someone whose name is almost always either misspelled or mispronounced. It's not usually done "impolitely".

 

[Mendel]

It's time to end this nonsense about 'missing stars' on photographic plates being orbiting satellites.


https://badufos.blogspot.com/2026/09/about-those-orbiting-flashes-of-dr.html

The post misses the mark—existing stars are culled from the transient set—somewhat—as when it's done rigorously (Solano 2022), only 5399 features are left, not enough to work with. So Villarroel did not match against the IR catalogs this time.

While it's true they seemed to have used only digital scans of the red sensitive plates, or more likely digital scans of analog copies of the original plates, the various claims are not just that the supposed transients don't appear on the corresponding blue plates. Rather, they only appear on the scans of the plates from '50s and not on subsequent star catalogs or even in other Palomar plates from later dates. so, whether the transients appear or don't on the blue plates is irrelevant as they didn't really look at them as far as I can tell.

I've been wondering what one would find if one was to analyse the blue plates with the same methods as the red plates. I think they were not used because the exposure time is shorter? and obviously the emulsion is different, but I wonder what we'd see.

 

[MapperGuy]

I've been wondering what one would find if one was to analyse the blue plates with the same methods as the red plates. I think they were not used because the exposure time is shorter? and obviously the emulsion is different, but I wonder what we'd see.

Certainly other sources should be consulted. If the transients are seen by one telescope they could have been seen by others.
One of the hallmarks that always gives me pause is when one source is examined, the "right" result is found, and further sources are not consulted. No other photos were taken by anyone anywhere during the time period that might have captured the transients? Until every potential source of confirmation of the transients has been examined I have to wonder if it was just a problem with these particular plates. Not finding any does not of course prove they don't exist, there might be valid reasons why no others could capture them, but you at least need to perform due diligence.

Taking the "right results" and then going off on tangents and identifying all sorts of interesting unrelated things using those results could suggest that distractions were needed. So people don't look too closely at those original results, because they are talking about all these other things.

 

[NorCal Dave]

The post misses the mark

Actually, now that I'm watching the TV segment @Robert Sheaffer was blogging about, the guy is clearly comparing the red and blue plates from 7 minutes apart and claiming things are missing in the blue, though he doesn't seem to indicate there is a red and blue plates:

And they clearly use the same red and blue plates while Villarreol is commenting.

Bruell does most of the talking, basically outlining the nuclear test relationship and now from the new paper, the location of the transients, suggesting NHI is plausible:

4:57
4 minutes, 57 seconds
suggest? Well, that suggests, you know, I feel strange saying this because I know no one is supposed to say that
5:06
5 minutes, 6 seconds
they've detected any kind of nonhuman technology, but that would be a plausible explanation is that this was
5:14
5 minutes, 14 seconds
uh objects reflecting light in orbit prior to the launch of Sputnik that were
5:21
5 minutes, 21 seconds
appearing in greater numbers around the time of nuclear tests, even before those tests, which could potentially be
5:29
5 minutes, 29 seconds
something artificial. Now, we don't know where it came from, uh, but all our explanations we can come up with, uh,
5:37
5 minutes, 37 seconds
that don't involve considering this to be some type of nonhuman technology are fairly easy to dismiss for a variety of
5:46
5 minutes, 46 seconds
reasons. It's not cosmic rays. It's not um, uh, radiation effects that came from

So, in watching the TV segment, it repeatedly uses the red blue plates comparison on screen, while Villareol and Burell never explicitly say that's where the they found the transients. It's a bit misleading. I think just watching the TV segment, Mr. Scheaffer's blog is reacting to what is shown, the transients appear when red and blue plates are compared. I think in all of our looking into this, it seems they rarely if ever looked at the blue plates.

Maybe Sheaffrrer's blog is correct, but what it's reacting to isn't.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_93vhH8X9o4&t=5s

 

[John J.]

No other photos were taken by anyone anywhere during the time period that might have captured the transients?

I wondered that too. Maybe the chances of another large telescope photographing an area of sky within the 6 degree square being imaged by Oschin Schmidt at the same time are low. If it happened the area of sky covered would probably be a fraction of the area photographed by the Schmidt.

I don't know how comprehensive the list of Schmidt cameras in the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt_camera is, but it's possible there weren't any others with sensitivity (22 magnitude) or field of view similar to the 122cm aperture Oschin Schmidt at Palomar during POSS1.
An 80cm Schmidt started work in Hamburg in 1955, part way through POSS1, but it wouldn't be able to photograph the same area of sky at the same time as the Palomar Schmidt. The Wikipedia article doesn't list any Schmidt cameras of the same scale as the Palomar instrument before 1960.

 

[Mendel]

So, in watching the TV segment, it repeatedly uses the red blue plates comparison on screen, while Villareol and Burell never explicitly say that's where the they found the transients.

Yeah, but Sheaffer attributes the error to Villarroel (now spelled correctly), not NBC.

I don't trust journalists to get everything right. That's why I always seek out the source, if possible. In this case, that would be the published papers that are the subject of this thread. The images are taken from the nuclear testing paper, where they appear side-by-side; reproduced in the OP of this thread.

 

[RobertBillyBob]

Maybe the chances of another large telescope photographing an area of sky within the 6 degree square being imaged by Oschin Schmidt at the same time are low.

That is only needed to confirm specific transients.
Finding transients within another telescope imagery independently of Palomar plates would already be a step in the good direction.

 

[FatPhil]

The politeness of spelling someone's name correctly is of substance.

I have noticed that I have consistently made the etymologically-curious (though I am not a language scholar) single 'r' spelling mistake multiple times. I now genuinely feel bad about that, given how pedantically correct I have tried to be with the Beatriz-es. Sorry BV, not that you will ever see this. Get people's names right, people, that's just ground level respect. Unless you're taking the piss; in which case, have at it, and make it good, but not on MB.

 

[Eburacum]

the guy is clearly comparing the red and blue plates from 7 minutes apart and claiming things are missing in the blue, though he doesn't seem to indicate there is a red and blue plates:

Something doesn't add up there. These plates were 50 minute exposures. How could they be seven minutes apart? If there was a seven minute gap between exposures, the total time involved would be 107 minutes.

 

[John J.]

Something doesn't add up there. These plates were 50 minute exposures. How could they be seven minutes apart? If there was a seven minute gap between exposures, the total time involved would be 107 minutes.

I suppose the telescope had some form of tracking to keep it aligned on the chosen area.
Have no idea about the process of changing plates, but 7 minutes might not be a problem.
If the exposure and collecting of each plate pair (1872 plates, 936 pairs) took 2 hours, there was plenty of time to do it.

The first photographic plate was exposed on November 11, 1949. 99% of the plates were taken by June 20, 1956, but the final 1% was not completed until December 10, 1958.

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Society_–_Palomar_Observatory_Sky_Survey

99% of 1872 = 1854 plates (rounded up), 927 plate pairs taken over the 2413 nights 11 Nov. '49 - 20 June '56.
Final approx. 1%, 18 plates (9 pairs) from 21 June '56 to 10 Dec. '58, 902 nights.

Edited to add: I probably misunderstood the point that @Eburacum was making, see @NorCal Dave's post #976

 

[John J.]

That is only needed to confirm specific transients.
Finding transients within another telescope imagery independently of Palomar plates would already be a step in the good direction.

Agreed. It would be particularly interesting to see the frequency of transients (or transient-like features) in the Earth's shadow compared to elsewhere in other photos, assessed by other researchers. I don't think there's much doubt that transient-like features will be found on many images, e.g. Hambly and Blair don't seem to doubt the existence of such features in themselves, just Villarroel et al.s' interpretation of what some of those features, identified by their pipeline, represent.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Something doesn't add up there. These plates were 50 minute exposures. How could they be seven minutes apart? If there was a seven minute gap between exposures, the total time involved would be 107 minutes.

My bad! The red plate was time stamped 8:52:00 and the blue one was 9:45:00. I mistook the 8 for a 9.

I think the point is, NBC was using red and blue plates from the same session to illustrate transients, both in the intro and in the b-roll repeatedly. It really makes it look like the transients were being identified by their appearance or absence between red and blue plates, which is what Sheaffer was bloging about. That seems to be incorrect as many people hear have read through the various papers and the transient identification process was much more complicated and didn't seem to use the blue plates at all, or very little.

Villarreol and Burell may or may not have been aware of what was used in the intro or was being used as b-roll while they were commenting. However, further complicating things, as @Mendel noted up-thread, the red-blue comparison graphic is from the Nuclear Testing and UFO paper, which is part of what BV & B were discussing in the segment. So, it's their graphic from their paper, which infers transients are identified by comparing red and blue plates. If there is confusion about NBC using the misleading graphic, it came from BV et. al and they used it in their paper.

So, for me, I would maintain Sheaffer's blog post critiquing the use of red/blue plates comparisons is accurate as related to that particular NBC story. And that NBC story is one of the more public facing discussions of the whole transient topic. It was over 8:00 long, hardly a quick blurb by TV standards. It was on NBC, and while TV news has changed a lot in the last 10-20 years, NBC is still considered 1 of the big 4 networks in the US. It's definitely considered several steps up from Ross Coulthart's UFO hunting shows. It's about as close to "mainstream" as one can get in our highly fractured media world.

If there is confusion, it seems BV et. al's use of the red/blue comparison to show transients in their paper has lent to that confusion. If they did not use red/blue comparisons to identify transients why use a red/blue comparison to illustrate transients. It sets up a situation where everyone is talking past each other.

 

[jdog]

Agreed. It would be particularly interesting to see the frequency of transients (or transient-like features) in the Earth's shadow compared to elsewhere in other photos, assessed by other researchers. I don't think there's much doubt that transient-like features will be found on many images, e.g. Hambly and Blair don't seem to doubt the existence of such features in themselves, just Villarroel et al.s' interpretation of what some of those features, identified by their pipeline, represent.

Going back to the earth's shadow question, which I haven't really looked into since the data is rather opaque, doesn't that also assume something about the altitude of the supposed object? Granted these are all shots from the northern hemisphere during hours it's dark enough to collect images, but unless you're shooting directly away from the sun the range to be out of the umbra is going to vary substantially (see thin yellow lines on top of this Wikipedia image).

 

[Eburacum]

When you get to geosynchronous orbit, the Earth's umbral shadow is very small, (about 2% of the sky) and I am not particularly surprised that there are random irregularities in the distribution of 'transients' that might appear to be significant just by chance.

 

[Mendel]

Get people's names right, people, that's just ground level respect.

Some people have difficulties spelling, and names are rarely in autocorrect (and if they are, they can be wrong). I would not attribute any error to malice, unless the person persists in not correcting it if asked politely—and Schaeffer Scheaffer has done so.

 

[NorCal Dave]

and Schaeffer Scheaffer has done so.

Sheaffer

As the resident bad speller, especially with names, I couldn't help it.

EDIT: It appears I also added a "c" to Mr. Sheaffer's name up-thread, before completely butchering it abain with some extra "rr" for some reason.

EDIT 2: Mendel alerted me to the mangling of @Robert Sheaffer name, but it's out of the edit window. I can live with my mistake as long as Mr. Schaeffer Scheaffer Sheaffer is ok with it.