Or, how a false UFO story becomes big news
Currently there is a story with images that while it was supposedly reported by “official” Chinese news, has demonstrated an effect I will call "Viral Snowballing". It is not isolated to UFO news, but finds fertile ground in such subjects because of a distinct and almost ravenous hunger for information and confirmation of a reality many have experienced, but have no proof of. Many don’t want to think they have psychosis, or they know in their hearts what they saw was real and want desperately to tell others without ridicule. Others, in their hearts just believe, and, wanting to have a hopeful or wondrous experience are gathering proof for themselves and to share.
On this Chinese event, we have many people with more enthusiasm than knowledge and real tools of discernment on the subject of UFOs. Many, like me are serious about taking the issue into a scientific formal study. We know true unknowns exist and that knowledge of this in itself represents the skin of a critical paradigm that as a planetary civilization we sense we are about to be challenged with. Implications of such a reality or realities are something most people, in fact even most UFO believers know little about. This is why our quest for knowledge is generating so many organizations, groups and individual public and professional discussions with people who are taking this to the highest media they can. Because, the media, up and until now has failed to appropriately communicate the daily wide spread news on these so called fringe subjects, unless whole cities of people are pounding on their news editors desk. Prime examples are Phoenix 1997, O'Hare 2006, and Stephensville 2008 where outcry from hundreds of citizens drove news to tell the story and answer their questions . I myself was witness to such a massive but unreported event in the 1980s, but the hundreds of people reported to have seen that event with me had no one to go to, and no one, reporters, investigators, UFO or otherwise went to them. Times have changed. At least since then.
The most damaging thing we can do to this quest for knowledge, and our challenge to understand in bringing this awareness to our species, is to allow false positives to dilute the attitudes of greater numbers of people who are interested in, or have a basic belief that this phenomena and similar such events are real issues of importance. We can then see as a collective that we need serious and organized formal study. This is why many now, like I find it imperative to study, investigate, educate and inform. Without help from military, governmental and scientific disciplines within industry, it is all up to us, "The People".
Science is a good tool, and critical thinking is essential for science to be a useful, Now new tools for science are beginning to be adapted. Helping us to recognize truth. We are learning to use these tools, like intuition, psychic and higher forms or “frequencies” awareness. In most cases this need be personal as they do not fit into accepted formal scientific method as yet. These new tools, combined with the tried and true sciences are important to balance the understanding of what we are experiencing in UFO, alien and many other challenging issues. Leaving any of these tools behind can be devastating and undermining to a clear understanding and sound awareness. So, it is important we examine stories such as this in much better detail.
This Chinese event is one of many sensationalized UFO news stories that propagate through the web and blogosphere easily, because we instinctively know something is going on and are naturally intrigued. We want to believe, as the poster in Mulder’s fictional FBI X-Files office testifies.
In this particularly “visual” case, the Chinese "story" of UFO and a closed airport is looking like someone took events well out of context, and might have decided it was important enough to augment with photos that had more drama than actual accounting of reality. We are still reading the details, but the photos might tell the story best. It is well worth our time then to bring what we have learned from past events to our current thoughtful laboratory.
Our collective investigation
If you notice, all the Chinese event photos are night shots. Night and low light imaging always takes longer exposures to resolve. Time can actually be seen in photographs if you know how to look at them, especially such un-staged nighttime exposures.
An example in two Arlington webcam UFO images below shows the same effect that also traveled widely through the web in 2005.
The webcam that was set up in an Arlington office building recorded these images one night. The image was photographed over the U.S. Capitol, Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument between approximately 3:15 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. EST Feb 10, 2005. This was a long exposure due to the early morning hours, but it was so intriguing to people, including myself, that it was a big web UFO event. Not much news attention was given, but I saw many linked articles and listened to some talk radio chatter on this. We can look at the similarities with the Chinese images to see that this has been seen before.
Image #2 NPS Webcam Image 2005
Image #1 NPS Webcam image 2005
After the excitement of such clear images we began to look closer. Upon investigation, we found that features in the image gave clues to what we were actually seeing. The clues and their implication were confirmed by other investigators seeing the same evidence days, weeks and even months later in some cases.
If you notice, in Image #2 the car lights on the State Freeway 110 below in the image are streaks. In Image #1, actually the first exposure, the landing light looks like it is not on, but about to be, as the jet approached Reagan National Airport several miles to the right of the image. Only one car on the freeway gave a small clue if you knew what and where it was. Most missed this clue in their excitement. The light streaks are an artifact of the long exposure of the webcam in recording the light over time. A longer exposure, in this case slightly more than a second or so, was recorded by the processor buffer in the camera so the software could create an image that was not just lights in a black backdrop. That’s a long time for a camera exposure. Night shots and long exposures in general regularly see this streaking effect with any moving object or light source, including an unsteady handling of the camera. Here are just a couple examples.
Long Exposure of starry alpine sky.
Times Square, a long exposure and a rotating camera.
Another clue in the Arlington NPS images were the discreet lights we thought we were seeing on the object that changed configuration from one exposure to the other. This would mean the lights where intermittent or blinking and the time recorded their light only when they were lit when strobing. The long exposure recorded the blinks as distinct sources as the blinks where only a fraction of a second. The landing lights of the aircraft where on throughout the exposure, so where recorded as a long streak. Another clue that this was a standard aircraft on approach for a landing was in the lighter more yellower streak, which after some logical thinking was obviously the tail rudder of the aircraft, illuminated by a light on the rear of every commercial jetliner that clearly lights their logo. It’s being distinct from the longer brighter streak was evidence that it was on the tail of the aircraft and was trailing in the direction of travel. This was an indicator that it not only was a passenger jet, but that it was a commercial transport and not a military jet, a helicopter or a light aircraft that has no such tail lighting.
So it was not a mystery why this 2005 event was not accompanied by reports of any UFOs by alarmed citizens or sharp eyed national park service security people. We can see now that it was simply a landing passenger jet caught in flight by a long webcam exposure, the blinking running lights highlighting the long streak of the bright landing lights. Our ending question might be then, how did this become such a viral phenomenon at the time? We can now look at what we might see as a real UFO event.
In July of 1952 photos appeared of an event that was not only observed by national park security personnel, but also where recorded by Radar by air controllers for the commercial and the military.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington_D.C._UFO_incident
This story, if it happened now, would deserve the attention of the Chinese story. Many think, that in the case of the 2006 Chicago O’Hare sighting, where news was found to be hushed, or even discouraged, that it is now a regular practice to quiet such events within agencies and public corporate and civic utilities. In part to avoid the embarrassment of ridicule, but also, in this case to not suggest to passengers that airspace over airports is not possibly safe from unknown obstructions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_O'Hare_International_Airport_UFO_sighting
So, It is true UFOs have been confirmed over some of the most protected airspace on Earth.
Taking this information, and having a knowledge of photographic and scientific theory, we can start to see what actually happened in China was not in the supplied or associated photos.
What it looks like to me and now others, and what we see in these alleged Chinese images, is likely helicopter with a searchlight, and, a long exposure.
In the below images, the length of the object is consistent with the time exposure effect explained above in the Arlington images. The discreet lights we see on the object are actually standard blinking running lights, in colors consistent with FFA rules for commercial aircraft. The blue cast light of a bright search light creates a curtain of light where the beam can be seen, as it backscatters in the hazy or smoggy air for the long exposure. You might notice they moved the searchlight during the shot too if you look carefully in the last image. (below)
Unknown Image Source
The long exposure in this image captures the glow of sodium vapor or other red spectra lighting. It is a long exposure so the helicopter search light is shifted to a more evident blue or cooler color. Such light (5000k like sunlight tempeture) is used for search lights to represent true color when looking for a specific color car, or colored clothing of a person, and so becomes distinct from the ambient foreground light in this image. You can also see the running lights just beyond the glare of the spot light that is oriented toward but not directly at the camera. The red tail light of the helicopter on the right showing the direction of the aircraft moving to the left in the image.
Unknown Image Source
In this image, again, the very long exposure causes the long streak of the spotlight source, and the back-scatter of the light in the haze or smoggy air. You can more clearly discern the lights color being blue or toward daylight spectra also.
Unknown Image Source
With this dramatic image the camera was more directly under the helicopter, where the spotlight was angled more directly at the lens, causing the light to flare and wash out the main object. You can still see the blinking running lights and a bit of the helicopter fuselage stretched however. The back angled spotlight also gives the impression of a propulsion or trailing jet, when actually the helicopter was possibly moving in the direction of the pointing beam so the pilot could navigate and see the target they were searching for, or following.
Unknown Image Source
This is the image most saw in the viral articles. You can see all the signs now of what this is, taking into account the long exposure, the spot light in the haze showing its changing orientation as it is illuminating the ground and searching for something or someone.
We can now maybe better speculate that this was a police or military helicopter doing an air search. Much like we have all seen in our own cities with police and park service aircraft activities, or on TV and in movies.
If in the pursuit or investigation of a suspect or a criminal on the run, the air search had to search near an airport, they would naturally radio the tower and have to stop air traffic from landing or taking off for safety reasons. This would account for such a “closing” event at an airport. You can see this happening anywhere where official law enforcement air or ground activities must come into airport controlled airspace. The official airport event report is has not yet been made public however, so we have no advantage in understanding the true nature of the air controller’s reasons for closing the airport, or if in fact this even happened at all. With the current nature of the web, and the fact that all information in Chinese news is controlled, we know that each paper is likely allowed to entertain the people, but at the exclusion of any modulation of official government editorial. We have no solid evidence of an actual event however as yet.
We also do not know if the news or a news reader who posted the article decided the story needed a picture or two. Lacking such an actual image, either a news editor scrambling for a suitable image in the newspapers visual archives, or an exuberant Chinese UFO blogging enthusiast may likely have thought they had just the right images in their picture folder. Such an individual, armed with such a solid feeling duty to the editorial selling newspaper, or the individual filled with wonder and awe at such an event, and coupled with a need to affirm their belief of UFOs in others, posted their story and images. At that time the hook was set and the bait was firmly attached.
Editorial ethics have never been reliable in the Chinese national or regional news. In fact, even most news in the west is controlled at a level unimagined now to a degree most would find hard to believe. So the responsibility for truth lies almost solely in our ability to think for ourselves, or know how to find more thoughtful information when we need it. Also, thinking more carefully in how we pass to others possibly earth-shattering stories, pictures and accounts of events. Remember the results of the War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938?
I myself, have seen and recorded what I and those whom also observed these events with me believe to be true unknowns, or UFO's. I have been convinced for many years, and are constantly reinforced in the knowledge we are being visited, through my experiences, my research, reading, watching, listening and most of all my own critical understanding of the subjects. Yet this Chinese event, while seemingly spectacular, but with scant-data, and such a strong viral web distribution, is what I would call “Viral Snowballing”. Made by uninformed and enthusiastic but uneducated UFO believing people.
If we had statements of the actual witnesses, dates, times and more official written or verbal accounting with images we could also account for time, date and the specific camera Exif data to know what really transpired for the event, I seriously doubt this case would have any merit as a UFO story if that data was in hand. As it is, we just have several falsely strange images, and sketchy and officially unconfirmed story. What we did have however was a very willing and excited web and social networking audience.
In any case I would not be discouraged and would keep looking and spreading the word that there are real UFO cases that cannot be explained so easily. I don't want to disappoint anyone at all, but would want us to allow ourselves to educate and become more critical and intelligent, if not skeptical. There will definitely be more clearly real events. Possibly in the near future. We want to be able to tell the difference between truthful and dubious data and be informed by knowledge rather than excitement alone. By “we”, I mean anyone that knows, wants to know more, and wants to not be fooled by a lack of critical thinking. We, many of us, know UFOs are real. Now we should attend to the work in bringing this awareness to others with clear and sound evidence. While avoiding time and credibility lost to viral snowballing and misinformation in general.
ZG
