Twentynine Palms, Camp Wilson "Triangle UAP" [Flares]

Has someone claimed that these are artillery shells?

There are three types of mortar illuminating shells currently in use:
  • 60mm
  • 81mm
  • 120mm
There might also be 155mm mortar parachute illuminating flares currently in use by the U.S. military, but I can't confirm that.

In the past there were 105mm and 155mm howitzer illuminating shells, but I don't know if they're currently in use.

But these have got to be much larger flares dropped by aircraft at high altitude. An important issue.
 
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Has someone claimed that these are artillery shells?

There are three types of mortar illuminating shells currently in use:
  • 60mm
  • 81mm
  • 120mm
There might also be 155mm mortar parachute illuminating flares currently in use by the U.S. military, but I can't confirm that.

In the past there were 105mm and 155mm howitzer illuminating shells, but I don't know if they're currently in use.

But these have got to be much larger flares dropped by aircraft at high altitude. An important issue.

To the best of my knowlege the USMC removed all the 120mm mortars from service 5-6 years ago.

M485A2 is the 155mm illumination round in use with the US, including the 'Corps.

 

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And more precisely, based on the ADS-B positions and timestamps the 1036 photo timestamped 20:09:18 was taken at 20:23:53
2023-07-10_20-15-40.jpg
We can tell this as the white line here is the 6-second exposure of the photo. 2 more seconds gets us to 20:24:01, so -8 gives 20:23:53

9:18 to 23:53 is 14 minutes and 35 seconds.

So this one at 20:12:03+14:35 = 20:26:38
2023-07-10_20-19-39.jpg

Which fits in with the timelines from the iPhone photos and the Weaponized timeline.
1482 overlay annotated.jpg
 
The first image with the visible light flares (and just smoke from the IR flares) is 1046, at 20:16:38, +14:35 = 20:31:13, which is consistent with the timeline. 2023-07-10_20-31-11.jpg
This is taken with the same camera, but also through a night-vision device.
 
All digital clocks drift without correction, it's why time sync services like NTP are so important in computer networks.

Camera clocks generally have no built in time correction, a few models may have GPS built in but even then people turn it off or it may not even use it for time correction and some others may correct it when attached to phone app, but generally they need manual correction.
 
Seems that the story has now reached the Daily Mail ...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-base-2021.html?ico=topics_pagination_desktop

1689092499883.png


Videos of a 2021 incident some marines believed to be a triangular UFO hovering over their California base, have been debunked as simply flares. UFO researcher John Greenewald Jr. obtained dozens of photos, video and documents from the Pentagon last week which appear to explain the lights filmed on April 20, 2021 at Camp Wilson near Twentynine Palms, California, mistaken for a triangular 'craft'.

In May, documentarian Jeremy Corbell and journalist George Knapp shared with DailyMail.com three photos and five videos from the 2021 incident, showing five lights appearing to hover in the sky.

One of the photos appeared to show a solid triangular shape around the lights, and two marines who witnessed the incident said they believed it was a craft. Corbell and Knapp said they had investigated the incident for two years.

But videos and photos obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) this month by Greenewald – an expert in such requests – show smoke trails above the five lights indicating they were flares, and long exposure effects suggesting they were not hovering but slowly descending, as flares do.

Veteran debunker Mick West, who often appears on UFO shows voicing a skeptical view on alleged exotic incidents, managed to match with precision the alleged UFO lights to a confirmed video of flares shot during a training exercise that evening on the military base.

UFO researcher John Greenewald Jr. obtained dozens of photos, video and documents from the Pentagon last week which appear to explain the lights filmed on April 20, 2021 . In a video posted on YouTube, West explained the triangular shape around the lights in one of Corbell and Knapp's photos as 'just the color bleed, which you can see around other objects in the scene.'

Flares often stay lit for between four and seven minutes, and the parachutes they hang beneath can descend slowly enough that they appear from a distance to hover.

'The five lights start out in a nice formation that evokes a triangle, but they quickly separate into more random positions like flares do,' West said in his video.

'John found footage of five flares that looks very similar, I realized this looked like it was taken from the other side. So I flipped it and overlaid it, and it's a near perfect match.'
Content from External Source
 
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Is that that wording a direct lift from a tweet by Mick? No quote marks.

But that's actually fairly well done article..
 
1689093365023.png
Is that that wording a direct lift from a tweet by Mick? No quote marks.

But that's actually fairly well done article..

Contrast it with this one....

https://www.liberationtimes.com/hom...-triangular-twentynine-palms-ufo-being-flares


New information acquired by reporter John Greenewald has shed new light on a reported Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) case from April 20, 2021, witnessed by Marines from Camp Wilson in Twentynine Palms, California. Marines stationed at the base captured and provided footage indicating what seemed to be an unidentified object with five lights and a triangular outline.
The new information, provided by Greenewald through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, shows images and footage from the night of April 20, 2021, which appears to depict five flares in a similar formation captured by the Marines on the same night.
UAP researcher, Dave Beaty, who also made a FOIA request, searched through detailed logs of a training exercise conducted at the time of the sighting. After analysing the data, Beaty wrote:
‘The usage of parachute retarded illuminating flares fired from Super Huey helicopters and the Hyda-70 rocket system by the Marines seems to explain the images the other group of witness Marines, from Camp Wilson, filmed. It’s possible that they were not briefed on the operation or confused by the appearance of the flares over the mountains.’
Baffled by what they witnessed that night, the Marines fired illumination rounds, an event captured in footage by the troops. This footage was accompanied by other videos and images provided to investigative journalists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp, who published the story on their WEAPONIZED podcast in May 2023.
However, according to eyewitnesses, the lights (and what was believed to be a craft) had disappeared before anything could be illuminated.
But newly released material obtained and released by Greenewald seems to show two flares illuminating what appears to be five smoke trails, which may have not been clearly visible to marines who witnessed the event.

This further suggests that the lights seen by the Marines were, in fact, flares, with the apparent shape perhaps being explained by smoke trails or related - although there is no definitive conclusion to explain the outline of a shape. It is worth noting that witnesses also describe seeing the outline of a shape with their own eyes, not just through a camera.
Speaking to Liberation Times, one of the Marines present at the time didn’t believe the shape could be caused by smoke trails and is still searching for other explanations - explanations which were not provided by high-ups:
“We were not briefed beforehand by any higher-ups about any training going on at the time. We were not offered an explanation afterwards either.
“I just know we had photos showing a shape and other Marines said they could see a shape with their own eyes. In the photos released with the FOIA you can see that the smoke trails were above the lights and remained there - that can’t be an explanation on why a shape appeared to us beneath the lights.”
The new evidence does seem to provide a compelling explanation for what was seen by witnesses. However, the Marine witness who was present at the time remains uncertain as to whether flares did cause the sighting. Ask for his assessment on the probability that the lights could be explained by flares, he stated:
“I’d honestly say 60/40 after these other images have come out. 60 being that they aren’t.”
Jeremy Corbell, who has been seeking explanations and gathering additional testimonies since initially publishing footage and testimonies from the Marines that night, welcomed the new evidence. He believes it may provide some answers to the Marines, who were not given any explanation by senior personnel at the time. Corbell told Liberation Times:
“I am very happy that new information has emerged, which may help provide answers that the eyewitnesses have been searching for.
"Similar to any unsolved investigation, be it concerning UAP or otherwise, it is an ongoing process wherein one can anticipate the unveiling of new information, leading us closer to comprehensive answers. This is precisely why we made the decision to share this case with the public and actively pursue additional information to crack it wide open.
"At first glance, the lights did appear to show a craft. But the newfound information appears highly compelling, pointing towards flares as the most plausible explanation. However, just like the U.S. government's own investigation into UAPs, it is imperative for us to meticulously scrutinize the evidence and arrive at a definitive conclusion before relegating UAP to a non-UAP status.
"We are now duty-bound to undertake our own verification of the presented data, ensuring rigorous validation, before categorizing this as a solved case. Our honorable service members deserve nothing less."
Historically only a small proportion of UAP cases have been left unresolved, often meaning the vast majority of events have some prosaic explanation.

From 1947 to 1969, the U.S. Air Force investigated UAP under Project Blue Book - of 12,618 sightings reported 701 remained unidentified - meaning the vast majority could be explained. The ongoing French UAP investigation, known as GEIPAN (an acronym for Groupe d'Études et d'Informations sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés, or Study Group and Information on Non-Identified Aerospace Phenomenon) has found that just 3.3% of cases investigated remain as unambiguously explained phenomena.

The historical data trends, along with the compelling new information obtained through the FOIA, strongly indicate that flares were the likely cause of this case. However, with Marines convinced they saw a physical craft with their own eyes, investigations are expected to continue.
Content from External Source
 
However, with Marines convinced they saw a physical craft with their own eyes, investigations are expected to continue.
Optical illusion and the nature of human perception is an important issue.

But I'd like to concentrate on another issue.

First it's important to re-emphasize that the flares in this case were aircraft deployed flares, not artillery rounds.

An issue that may have contributed to witness misperception; and why the witnesses might continue to reject the flares explanation:

They may have had prior experience with artillery illumination flares but had never seen the much larger and much more distant aircraft deployed illumination flares.

It's a much different experience.

This may also be true for the current or veteran ex-military people who are reading about this case, but reject the flares explanation.
The US military uses different types of parachute illuminating flares:

Hand held rockets



Artillery rounds

80mm mortar



120mm mortar



I'm going to point to this recent thread which will give more info on the large parachute illuminating flares dropped from aircraft at high altitude.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/strange-lights-over-las-vegas-april-25-2023.12946/#post-289814

In regard to cases that involve large flares that are many miles away from the observer/camera - 10 miles and more:

In this case, and in many others that involve large and very distant parachute illuminating flairs, we see comments from people who identify themselves as military or ex-military who claim the flare idea as impossible. This video illustrates why we get this type of claim.

It's reasonable to conclude that these people have only seen relatively small and relatively close artillery rounds.

The flares we see in this video are hundreds of yards away - not tens of miles away.
We see:
-Noticeable movement
-Obvious smoke trails
-Short duration

But very large and very distant flares appear quite different due to the great distances.
-Very slow or no noticeable movement
-Very little or no trace of smoke trails
-Long duration

These flares, for example, were never part of a UFO case. They are well documented to be illuminating flares dropped by an aircraft in a search and rescue mission. Distance from the camera - about 20 miles. (The aircraft sounds are from a nearby airport, not the aircraft dropping the flares.)




The difference in this present case is that - as already noted here - these seem to be IR illuminating flares. They are designed to illuminate the landscape primarily with infrared light, and are useful for troops who are equipped with passive infrared sensors. (And would be a positive boon if the enemy troops were not equipped with IR sensors.)

So rather than burning with a bright orange flame, they appear to the naked eye to be dimmer and burn with a more magenta flame. In other words, they are most likely Northrup Grumman LUU-19B/B Infrared Flares.

Still another issue is that these were IR flares. They look quite different from the visible light flares.
 
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Following the link to Dave Beaty's blog via @flarkey's last post:
Article:
The USMC uses the Bell UH-1Y (Venom or Super Huey) style support helos the night of 4/20/21. In my FOIA flight logs, these helos each loaded 5 Hydra 2.75" IR Illumination rounds. This is the same number of flares seen in the UFO video. In 2021, Northrup began production of these new flares the M257 visible spectrum flare, and the M278 infrared (IR) spectrum illuminating flare which are shot out of the same launcher as the Hydra high explosive rockets.

Fired from a Hydra rocket launcher on the helos, these have a parachute to retard the flare and illuminate the ground for the assault troops at night.

https://www.bulletpicker.com/rocket-warhead_-2_75-inch-illu.html

These rockets can be fired at standoff distance to deploy parachute retarded flares over the battlefield.

We now have a very good idea what these lights were, and where they came from.
 
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@Arthur 33 has been challenging @Mick West and I on Twitter to confirm the method used to determine the time of the photo.


Source: https://twitter.com/XExcalibur333/status/1772426652657574189?t=KBFxIzItFZ8ztrgAz4InqQ&s=19


I've reviewed the data and it all checks out, as posted above.


Source: https://twitter.com/flarkey/status/1772545387238130132?t=TEoRLynhWUSUC1fjSUFyPQ&s=19

Original Photo with Aircraft Lights
1711442978802.png

Adsb Exchange Playback
1711443012376.png

Recreated view from Mick's kml file above in Google Earth
1711443033193.png

Google Earth view annotated with colours to match ADSB Exchange playback.
1711443054515.png

It's a match.
 
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I've reviewed the data and it all checks out
I've also reviewed and improved the Sitrec model.
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?sitch=29palms

I've added the capability to overlay one view on another, which you can see best in the MISB sitch, but here when I overlaid the image on the 3D view, I noticed the aspect ratio was wrong. Fixing that and adjusting the PTZ, and we get a perfect match. I've also set the animation time to siz seconds, the same as the in the photo exif.



(Note, I've added pink lines over the plane tracks in the original photo, as they are hard to see at this scale).

This gives a slightly more accurate start time of 2021-04-21T03:23:51.000Z, the photo timestamp in 03:09:18, meaning it's 14m33s slow, accurate to about 0.5 seconds.

In Sitrec, adjust the "Transparency %" parameter to see the overlay.
 
Of slight interest, refraction makes the stars and the planes be somewhat vertically compressed near the horizon. I've aliged the image so the nearby stars (and the horizon) match, which gives the perfect match with the ADS-B tracks. But that means the higher stars are vertically too high in the sim. Something to keep in mind in the future.

Ideally I'd incorporate at least an approximation of refraction into the rendering, but it's a bit fiddly, as it's not a pure angular thing, it depends on distance - so rendering terrain might be fiddly. I'd previosuly used the 7/6R trick, but removed that for consistency. It's a small thing.
 
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