UAP Keys

[Sam_Vimes]

I have become convinced that one of the main efforts necessary to improve public an policy discussions is a "UAP Keys" document. This would be aimed at non-technical viewers of PURSUE material, especially the FMV video (maybe a bit late, but better late than never). Non-technical viewers could be the public or Hill staff. The idea is to give them the basics in identifying FMV/IR phemoneology, especially in demistifying some of the common ones that pop up. I'm thinking this is the core:

1. IR is not a photograph
Contrast, not "true shape." Bloom, glare, diffraction, polarity, isotherms, why engines become Tic Tacs.
2. FMV geometry
FOV, zoom, stabilization, look angles, ownship motion, angular rate ≠ speed, parallax against the ground point.
3. Symbology that lies politely
Lock boxes, "track," range-when-you-have-it, range-when-you-don't.
4. Artifact catalog
One artifact, one chapter: gimbal roll, glare disk, compression block, rolling shutter, mux desync, dual objects read as splitting, etc.

There's an old adage in the imagery community that an analyst is only as good as their keys. Equipping policy folks confronting weird videos to make their own judgments rather than relying on choosing between other narratives seems a positive step.

 

[Mendel]

This seems like a very good idea.
(It's missing bokeh and diffraction spikes in part 4.)

 

[Mauro]

That would be good. But I would use a more general approach: to teach childrens from pre-school upwards to use logic, to spot fallacies and to always use evidence, in order to not get fooled.

Yeah I know, there's exactly zero chances of this happening. A lot of people find too much comfort in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and (to quote Genesis' Nursery Crime) in 'kingdoms beyond the sky' to give children the tools to understand (quoting again) that 'the nurse will tell you lies'. When they're grown up, the damage has already been done.

 

[FatPhil]

As someone who was working in imaging tech back in the 90s, I wouldn't go as far as "IR is not a photograph". If you had to push me to an extreme, I might even support "IR is about equivalent to a grainy b/w photograph", but imaging tech has moved on in leaps and bounds, and some "IR" is now actually composite, with both an IR and a visible channel combined. Sure, you need to know how to read IR imaging, because it's not telling you what your eyes are used to seeing. IR is more susceptible to some optical artefacts, obviously (e.g. where your own heat merely by being a piece of operating electronic equipment can partially blind you), but IR imagery can nowadays theoretically give you as much detail as what was state of the art in optical wavelengths three decades ago (which was good enough for government work).

Heck, anyone who's seen a J.J. Abrams movie would say that annoying optical artefacts are more annoying at the visual wavelengths!

 

[MapperGuy]

1. IR is not a photograph
Contrast, not "true shape." Bloom, glare, diffraction, polarity, isotherms, why engines become Tic Tacs.

IR can be a photograph, it is just a photograph at wavelengths we can't see unaided.
And depending on the imaging system (camera) it will often be at a lower resolution than we expect from other cameras (imaging systems).
I fact I would say the use of the term photograph is kind of obsolete in this era of digital imaging. When many people see the term photograph they think film camera, sent away for developing and the result printed on paper. Not much of that going on these days.

The distinction between images from various types of imaging systems as to what is being displayed is important, but the variation within what a particular type will look like can be considerable. All are capable of producing "photo realistic" images, or just fuzzy blobs. And the difference between video clips and still (one frame) images is also very important. A single frame from a video may look mysterious, but when the entire video is shown and the UFO starts flapping its wings the mystery can vanish.

Unfortunately the best examples of the range of current imaging systems comes from the Drone Wars in Ukraine and Russia. Drones with EO (visible light) cameras, IR cameras and thermal imaging cameras, which are also IR but processed to mimic visible light cameras. Lots of videos on-line, many with NSFW videos and pictures of people being killed and wounded. For the curious who don't mind seeing the death and destruction the drone wars videos display the state of the art in imaging systems today.

 

[jarlrmai]

I doubt drones in Ukraine show the state of the art, FPV drones will use whatever is cheap and available whilst being just good enough to get the job done and often we are seeing recordings from analogue RF transmission.

The state of the art will be on whatever the latest US prototype surveillance platforms are.