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Selby Saucer case
Introduction Cases My Story by Russ Kellett News & Views |
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The photo shows a self luminant
object with two conical tiers bounded by three dark conical sections, the
lower of which seems to be reflecting light from illuminated tiers above and
all three sections appear to be reflecting light from a source above and two
the right. At first glance the object strongly resembles a white LED solar
garden lamp with a two tier diffuser lens, similar to a 'Ring' 'Pagoda' garden
lamp infact - and this is one hypothesis of the analysis.
An absence of background details makes it very difficult to judge size and
distance for the object, however inspection of the camera gives some assistance.
The background when light/contrast enhanced shows that nearly all hoped for
background detail such as stars, buildings, street lights etc are lost in
sensor dark noise as the camera applies ccd long exposure noise cancelation,
contrast optimisation and (using digital zoom on a cybershot series camera)
zoom spline interpolation. Edge detection filtering and false colour contrast
enhancement does show a small amount of light from the object reflecting from
a horizontal object near the bottom of this object, but is too indistinct
to positively identify. Initialy this leads us to suspect that this is light
reflecting from ground/grass beneath the object, giving weight to the garden
lamp hypothesis - however, the light reflected from below is inconsistent
with the expected shadow/burnout characteristics expected from such a lamp.
Further, vertical edge detection algorithms fail to highlight the vertical
support pole associated with such lamps.
The camera used was a Sony Cybershot
series pocket camera with 4mpix resolution and no optical zoom. Relative aperture
is fixed at a minimum of f2.8. This is a relatively 'slow' lens arrangement
for night shooting and the camera has struggled to take a decent shot - using
a long exposure for the purpose in compensation of its limited optics, further
compounded by 'zooming' to a 4x magnification ... which in this case is actually
achieved by the camera croping the normal 4mpix sensor image to a standard
exif format size of 640x480 pixels and spline interpolating dithering errors,
as mentioned above. As a result, all we can say is that the normal 30degree
field of view has been digitaly reduced to 7.5degrees and that fine, low light
background details are lost from the image's dataset as the camera's internal
processing attempts to cancel noise from a long exposure dark image. Also,
Jodie has managed to hold the camera extraordinarily still if taken without
a tripod ... as I have seen him do on several occasions. (Others from the
series suffer camera shake)
The light reflected from the dark sections is not of the same relative spectrum
as the self luminance and at first looks like flash return, further supporting
the small object, close by, garden lamp hypothesis - this cannot be the case
however as the reflected light firstly indicates an incidence angle above
and to the right of the object, therefore not from the same point source as
the camera and has a spectrum which is far too red for a xenon tube discharge
under the auto white balance conditions of the camera. It would seem therefore
that this is light reflected from a reddish orange (to the eye) lightsource
above and to the right of the object as viewed by the camera/observer.
Analysis of the self luminance further discounts the garden light hypothesis
- although very tempting a first glance : The LED 'bulbs' in such lamps work
by being in effect a nanoscale collection of red, green, orange and blue light
emiiters - not a single colour temperature emmiter such as a tungsten/halogen
bulb. The relative balance of these four colours (like 4 colour printing)
is adjusted to provide a light that appears to be white to the naked eye.
The eye however is not uniformly sensitve to the colour spectrum (being most
sensitive to orange and similar ) and so orange/red levels are relatively
reduced whilst blue/green are relatively increased. false colour interpretation
shows that the colour levels are infact constant for red,blue,orange,green
- not the expected result for a 'white' LED and far closer to the expected
spectrum for a xenon strobe. Further, comercial white LEDs (luxeon series
excepted as their cost is prohibitive in such applications) are generaly held
within in a plastic capsule, which has a lensing effect on light radiated
fron the LED. This should show up as variations in light concentration within
the self luminant, diffuser area - but none is present, further discounting
the led garden lamp hypothesis. The emitted light is also too uniformly white
(and with too much blue) to be either tungsten or tungsten halogen. Whatever
it is - even though it looks like one, it is unlikely to be a garden lamp.
What is it? I cannot say - there
is insufficient information from the photo. Having seen the camera video clips
and other photos from the series, this is an unknown object, that appears
to be airborne (no ground flash return in any foreground) and above the buildings
surrounding the garden - as described by Jodie. A second red flashing object
is seen to approach this one and the dark section reflected light is consistent
with light from this. Further an unlit structured object that is rather aircraft
shaped is seen directly beneath this object in other photos ... whether this
is attached to it or projected from it is hard to say.
I have viewed the garden from which this was filmed - it and the surrounding
gardens have no garden lights that could be mistaken for this object. Last
but not least, this was filmed by a highly experienced ufo photographer/investigator
whose sincerity and honesty I have never found to be in question ... he is
a seasoned observer and his recounting of his observation is consistent with
the filmed evidence. Having eliminated any honestly mistaken low light filming
constraint errors, the photo is what it claims to be - the best possible photo
of a mid distant self luminant airbourne object using a very limited camera
as decribed by a seasoned observer.
I hope this is of some use and a pointer for
more detailed analysis, Win