Strange streak discussion: 2004 Dec 7 APOD

[Bob]

Here is a new shot of the sky in Miamisburg Ohio - the guy is walking thru a crop circle-

http://www.earthfiles.com/Images/news/M ... tsJeff.jpg

Here is the full Article. I'm not the Doug in the article by the way. The Page 61 post on this thread has two more different example pictures.

http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm ... nvironment


Anyone see what I'm talking about?

This is a description of a crop circle forming from long time researcher Nancy Talbot, a tube of light ( an energy tube ) is mentioned and you can see the small white star objects.

http://www.rense.com/general17/talbot.htm

Aw geez... come on, enough with the bogus crop circle nonsense. Double your lithium treatment please...

[Doc Bluto]

At least somone decided to finally go all out and follow the line of empirical science to it's end. It's unfortunate that everyone so caught up in explaining the phenomenon, can't come to grips with the simplest fact of experimentation and support for a working theory. I myself am as equally guilty of trying to conjure up any possible explanation for the image (particularly exploding light bulb, and even less likely, ball lightening), that its' good to see some real evidence at work.
But it wouldn't be science if everyone and their mother didn't throw in their 2 cents worth on the subject. Just broadening the possibilities, and conjuring up an imagination that seems to be taken for granted in this downwad spiral of society.
I think your experiment pretty much clinches the bug theory, at least by 99%. There's still that probabilty something else may have happened, but given the results, and slapping together a working experiment to achieve that, it's honest science as far as I'm concerned. Issue's settled, at least in my book.

You are, unfortunately, wrong. Use the word science, use bigger words if you like, you're still wrong. As wrong as 99% of the other pseudo-scientists here. You are STILL NOT allowing the most obvious, most reasonable, most simple explanations despite all your backslapping congratulations about a bug, or energy tube, or contrail, or exploding light. .

As a matter of fact, you refuse to entertain the most obvious, most likely explanations, and that, unfortunately, means you are not following ALL the facts. Therefore, ALL your assumptions and paths of research are prebiased... your ego will not allow that you have missed the obvious and most likely. And that goes for 95% of the rest of the posters here. I'm not trying to FLAME here.. it's just straight forward fact. You are NOT allowing the most obvious most likely solutions, and as a result, your methodology and results are completely bogus. You wouldn't know science if it jumped up and bit you on the butt!

Sorry if you take that as nasty criticism (it isn't meant to be) - but if you do, that only proves my point about your conclusions and mindset and lack or logical reasoning.

[Doc Bluto]

I have been posting about this one the Bad Astronomers board but those guys are all so highly educated that they can't entertain a simple explanation.

The Admiral

What in the world are you saying? You really have GOT TO BE KIDDING!!!!

You're saying that they're SO educated they cannot accept your explanation... SO, therefore.. they're what.... wrong? And you, obviously not as educated, are right? Wow...

So, sure, what do they know... right?

Oh man.. no wonder we're in trouble...

[Ruidh]

You are, unfortunately, wrong. Use the word science, use bigger words if you like, you're still wrong. As wrong as 99% of the other pseudo-scientists here. You are STILL NOT allowing the most obvious, most reasonable, most simple explanations despite all your backslapping congratulations about a bug, or energy tube, or contrail, or exploding light.

And yet you fail to give the obvious explanation we are all supposedly missing. And that would be it's a hoax?

I'd believe it was a hoax if the photographer was trying to pass off the picture as one of a falling meteroite. The photographer seems to be very quiet in this whole brouhaha.

Do you think he went to a lot of trouble to create a false image of an insect flying in front of a camera? That's absurd.

The bug theory seems pretty well clinched. Sorry it wasn't as exciting as whatever you had in mind.

[Medici]

You are, unfortunately, wrong. Use the word science, use bigger words if you like, you're still wrong. As wrong as 99% of the other pseudo-scientists here. You are STILL NOT allowing the most obvious, most reasonable, most simple explanations despite all your backslapping congratulations about a bug, or energy tube, or contrail, or exploding light. .

As a matter of fact, you refuse to entertain the most obvious, most likely explanations, and that, unfortunately, means you are not following ALL the facts. Therefore, ALL your assumptions and paths of research are prebiased... your ego will not allow that you have missed the obvious and most likely. And that goes for 95% of the rest of the posters here. I'm not trying to FLAME here.. it's just straight forward fact. You are NOT allowing the most obvious most likely solutions, and as a result, your methodology and results are completely bogus. You wouldn't know science if it jumped up and bit you on the butt!

Sorry if you take that as nasty criticism (it isn't meant to be) - but if you do, that only proves my point about your conclusions and mindset and lack or logical reasoning.

I always love when a post inspires respect, and shows understanding and clarity of mind.

Doc Bruto, would it be possible for you to come down to us mere mortals and share you omnipotent and omnipresent knowledge with us?

Or in less flamboyant words, tell us the truth. After 109 pages of posts, we really need to know the truth. Release us of our burden, PLEASE!

[Guest]

As a matter of fact, you refuse to entertain the most obvious, most likely explanations, and that, unfortunately, means you are not following ALL the facts. Therefore, ALL your assumptions and paths of research are prebiased...

So... reveal your words of wisdom then! What is the most likely origin of this little beggar?

[victorengel]

victorengel

I have done my analysis four times, each time utilising a different colourspace and parameters. Each time I have seen a clear termination of the profile at the jusnction of the sky with the horizon. That is why I posted asking for others to complete a detailed analysis at the sky/ horizon boundary.

Rather than quote others peoples posts at me could I respectfully suggest that you attempt this for yourself and then report you findings to the deiscussion.

Derek Smith

Evidently, you have not read through the whole thread. I have done this several times. Have you posted illustrations of your work? If so, I missed them.

[HawaiiArmo]

Apparently, with all your posturing Doc Bluto, you don't even site any theory whatsoever? As you know, science does work with criticism, but you can't criticize with a vacuum? State your hypothesis, give me a reason what you think the object/phenomenon is, and disprove the experimental apparatus. I could not find a problem with the results achieved through EXPERIMENTATION, instead of the pompous language you use, without explaining what you think it is.
I welcome all criticism, as long as it's constructive and reaches a scientific end. The way I see it, there are two types of posts which I think benefit us all. The fist type, working hypotheses, as well as the constructive criticism associated with them. Ultimately, it's great when it's followed by solid experimentation, as was done (once you put the effort into reading the last few pages of posts). The second type, the humerous and goofy posts are great as well, science needs levity. Without the occasional breaks in laughter, things would get too serious too fast.
The ones I find unacceptable are empty vacuous posts with nothing to contribute, either scientifically, or for that matter, humerously.
My gratitude goes out to everyone who supplied so many reasonable (and even not so reasonable) theories, as well as those altering the photograph digitally, and others making us roll in laughter. Most importantly, thanks to the experimental scientist who actually went out and stuck a bug on an apparatus and tried to replicate the photo. No matter how low tech it may have seemed, it answered the puzzle far better then 100 pages of posts.
Call me a dork, but at least I can sleep at night, as for Doc Bluto, looks like you're losing enough sleep trying to think up a theory.

[Philip T]

I have two pictures of honey bees that were taken at 1/4th second and they may help support the insect theory. They are fairly high resolution - 2560 X 1920 pixels and show unusual streaks due to the bee movement.

How can I send them to you? There doesn't appear to be a way to attach the pictures to this email.

Please advise how to do so and I will send them.

[Rob Crouch]

My gratitude goes out to everyone who supplied so many reasonable (and even not so reasonable) theories, as well as those altering the photograph digitally, and others making us roll in laughter. Most importantly, thanks to the experimental scientist who actually went out and stuck a bug on an apparatus and tried to replicate the photo. No matter how low tech it may have seemed, it answered the puzzle far better then 100 pages of posts.
Call me a dork, but at least I can sleep at night, as for Doc Bluto, looks like you're losing enough sleep trying to think up a theory.

I loved the low tech experiment, wich proved to me exactly what had happed. It also explained why I had such a wierd photo of my kitten. (forgotten what page I posted here is a url: http://www.lenoury.net/blogimage/DSCN2091.JPG rather large and I do nit wish to further clutter up the postings)
It seems that digital cameras have a way of distorting things when objects move close to the lens when prefocused on other objects, even more than traditional film cameras.
The photo was a lucky shot in the sense that the trail and bug were lined up with the pole, if it was centred over the water or clouds I believe it would have been more obvious what the object was.

[Guest]

I have two pictures of honey bees that were taken at 1/4th second and they may help support the insect theory. They are fairly high resolution - 2560 X 1920 pixels and show unusual streaks due to the bee movement.

How can I send them to you? There doesn't appear to be a way to attach the pictures to this email.

Please advise how to do so and I will send them.

That sounds interesting; you need to have a web site to host the pictures on though. Alternatively, if you mail them to me, I'll post the pictures on here for you (and credit them appropriately, of course).

My email address is hapod <at> hazeii.net (replace <at> with @)

[Huff]

As a matter of fact, you refuse to entertain the most obvious, most likely explanations, and that, unfortunately, means you are not following ALL the facts. Therefore, ALL your assumptions and paths of research are prebiased...

So... reveal your words of wisdom then! What is the most likely origin of this little beggar?

Bravo, I have dropped the weak lightning discharged theory, the mechanics of flight, the reflected light and this little guy puts this event to rest.

Enjoyed most of the posts, entertained by some

Good day folks.

[Guest]

It looks like sunset and light is bouncing all around between breaks in the clouds.

Yes, if the camera's clock is to be believed, it is 3 minutes before sunset on 22 November 2004 in Darwin, Northern Territory.

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

As a matter of fact, you refuse to entertain the most obvious, most likely explanations, and that, unfortunately, means you are not following ALL the facts. Therefore, ALL your assumptions and paths of research are prebiased...

So... reveal your words of wisdom then! What is the most likely origin of this little beggar?

Bravo, I have dropped the weak lightning discharged theory, the mechanics of flight, the reflected light and this little guy puts this event to rest.

That is a doctored image.
Here is the picture as taken, which your eyes see as an insect.

[Vayenn]

Please advise how to do so and I will send them.

I used http://www.savefile.com/filehosting ; no registration needed.

[Vayenn]

That is a doctored image.
Here is the picture as taken, which your eyes see as an insect.

I don't know what you mean by "doctored", of course it is a processed image. I just subtracted the before-image (which is actually after) from the event image, enhanced the result for brightness, contrast, gamma, and finally rotated and enlarged it. I did this just to try myself what was already done by MadCadmium in http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... =2878#2878 (so I earn no credit for it).
I don't think it is doctored really, since there is no artificial elements involved, only the original images, which are uniformly processed in their entirety. The only step which you could call doctored, is the choise of rotation angle, which indeed is intentionally to align the "wings" horisontally.

[Vayenn]

And here you have it.

Is there by any chance a before or after image you could post that we may use to verify various processing made on the apod images?

[sales@aerialvieiwpictures]

While returning home from an aerial photography job in Ohio about 2-weeks ago in the Dayton area, my pilot and I saw the same streak phenomena. We both commented on it, for it was so unusual. I'll check my camera and see if I took a shot of it. When we first saw the streak, moving from 270-degrees towards the ground at about the same angle of the one in your photograph, the streak was dark. It appeared lighter as we moved east. Looking up, we could see a contrail high above. We were flying about 140 knots towards the east. The sun was to the south of us, and the streak was from west towards the ground to the east. As we moved to the east the streak became lighter and lighter. I surmised that we were moving under the linear contrail, which was a SSW-NNE line. The streak extended as a shadow all along the horizontal plane of the contrail to the ground. Once once we moved past that linear position, the shadow became lighter and eventually disappeared from view. Neat phenomena.

[So So]

From the very bright line that stretches across the water from shore to shore the line on the water appears to be an underwater power transmission line that is shorting out and burning up. The streak in the sky is light reflected from burned dust from a meteorite, which hits the power line.

Lightning tends to be more jagged. Jet contrails don't aim to water. Normal sunlight would not show an abnormal streak. Too slanted for rain. How could there be a line in the water almost perpendicular to the streak in the sky?

[Doc Bluto]

You are, unfortunately, wrong. Use the word science, use bigger words if you like, you're still wrong. As wrong as 99% of the other pseudo-scientists here. You are STILL NOT allowing the most obvious, most reasonable, most simple explanations despite all your backslapping congratulations about a bug, or energy tube, or contrail, or exploding light.

And yet you fail to give the obvious explanation we are all supposedly missing. And that would be it's a hoax?

I'd believe it was a hoax if the photographer was trying to pass off the picture as one of a falling meteroite. The photographer seems to be very quiet in this whole brouhaha.

Do you think he went to a lot of trouble to create a false image of an insect flying in front of a camera? That's absurd.

The bug theory seems pretty well clinched. Sorry it wasn't as exciting as whatever you had in mind.

Well... it only took me five minutes to create multiple fakes of the same image, as well as other images... while retaining all digital information. And I am not a graphics artist. So what you are sayng is that the whole thing relies heavily upon your belief in the utter purity of heart of a person you don't know. OK, I can buy that. But, you must state that as a prerequisite in your explorations of the truth here. Thanks. Have a good holiday!

[Doc Bluto]

Apparently, with all your posturing Doc Bluto, you don't even site any theory whatsoever? As you know, science does work with criticism, but you can't criticize with a vacuum? State your hypothesis, give me a reason what you think the object/phenomenon is, and disprove the experimental apparatus. I could not find a problem with the results achieved through EXPERIMENTATION, instead of the pompous language you use, without explaining what you think it is.
I welcome all criticism, as long as it's constructive and reaches a scientific end. The way I see it, there are two types of posts which I think benefit us all. The fist type, working hypotheses, as well as the constructive criticism associated with them. Ultimately, it's great when it's followed by solid experimentation, as was done (once you put the effort into reading the last few pages of posts). The second type, the humerous and goofy posts are great as well, science needs levity. Without the occasional breaks in laughter, things would get too serious too fast.
The ones I find unacceptable are empty vacuous posts with nothing to contribute, either scientifically, or for that matter, humerously.
My gratitude goes out to everyone who supplied so many reasonable (and even not so reasonable) theories, as well as those altering the photograph digitally, and others making us roll in laughter. Most importantly, thanks to the experimental scientist who actually went out and stuck a bug on an apparatus and tried to replicate the photo. No matter how low tech it may have seemed, it answered the puzzle far better then 100 pages of posts.
Call me a dork, but at least I can sleep at night, as for Doc Bluto, looks like you're losing enough sleep trying to think up a theory.

Surely I can accomodate. My theory is simple. It's a hoax. It's a created work of art.

Why do I say that?
Two reasons.

1) I was able to recreate this streak (freehand - not copy) multiple times on this digital image. I created a sky full of streaks in about 5 minutes without copying the original streak. They all pass muster when magnified, and mimic exactly what everyone has been discussing here. AND - I was able to easily maintain the original digital image data with the jpeg. AND, I am not a artist or graphics specialist and I did NOT use PhotoShop (I did use PhotoImpact and another application). It was easy, took no time, no training, and no specialization. I then created new images, at will, using the same technique. They would cause quite a stir, I assure you.

2) This should sound the alarm about digital images. Why try to conjure up exotic, 1-in-a-billion explanations, when #1 above is so easy. This is NOT to say the image could not have been a bug, or contrail, or space tube, or whatever. It merely moves ALL those explanations to the LESS LIKELY column. THAT is Occams Razor. AND.. when you have NO way to determine what actually happened now... you must take into account ALL possibilities, whether you like it or not. That INCLUDES the possibility that this image is a hoax. Based on my own simple 10 minute research, that places HOAX at the TOP of the probability list by FAR. When you ignore that, you are prebiased and not 'doing science', you are playing a guessing game at best and most assuredly ignoring all possibilities.

You can wave that aside, and therein is the root of my criticism...









in all ways using the pre and post images as a start

[hazeii3]

Well... it only took me five minutes to create multiple fakes of the same image, as well as other images... while retaining all digital information. And I am not a graphics artist. So what you are sayng is that the whole thing relies heavily upon your belief in the utter purity of heart of a person you don't know. OK, I can buy that. But, you must state that as a prerequisite in your explorations of the truth here. Thanks. Have a good holiday!

To have faked it, the photographer would have had to be cleverer than everyone on this board combined. He'd have had to introduce the subtle curvature of the trail along the apparent wobble, faked an image that on close examination looks remarkably like an insect, *and* have had to do all this in such a way as the effect could be experimentally reproduced by waving a bug in front of a camera set to the mode he says his was set to.

Anyone that clever would surely have better things to do with his time.

[Doc Bluto]

Well... it only took me five minutes to create multiple fakes of the same image, as well as other images... while retaining all digital information. And I am not a graphics artist. So what you are sayng is that the whole thing relies heavily upon your belief in the utter purity of heart of a person you don't know. OK, I can buy that. But, you must state that as a prerequisite in your explorations of the truth here. Thanks. Have a good holiday!

To have faked it, the photographer would have had to be cleverer than everyone on this board combined. He'd have had to introduce the subtle curvature of the trail along the apparent wobble, faked an image that on close examination looks remarkably like an insect, *and* have had to do all this in such a way as the effect could be experimentally reproduced by waving a bug in front of a camera set to the mode he says his was set to.

Anyone that clever would surely have better things to do with his time.

You forget that the human eye/brain looks for patterns - even where none exist. As for being clever, what you are viewing is digital artifacts created by the application. It took me no work at all. Cleverness is not required. Again, you wish to ignore probabilities and possibilities, that's called opinion, not science. And when it comes to opinion, ego gets in the way quickly. I'm reminded of a good RUSH song with the lyrics: "everybody knows everything..." Thanks.

Doc Bluto... signing off for the Holidays.
Keep seaching for the truth folks!! This is a good exercise.

[Doc Bluto]

Sorry, I meant to ADD "camera artifact" as covered by HOAX. Meaning, an image created by the camera not mimicking reality.
I think that should be satisfactory, my apologies.

[Guest]

And here you have it.

Is there by any chance a before or after image you could post that we may use to verify various processing made on the apod images?

Sure; I've only kept images that have the 'experimental subject' in frame, though. The one above is image20, I've got image19 which would be just before, and image23 (so no 21 or 22).

Note there's a bit of movement between 20 and 23, because I had to flick the wheel every 2 or 3 shots to keep the speed up and the apparatus wasn't exactly stable - so probably the best diff is between 19 and 20 (haven't tried myself, though).

Here's the links - each images is a 2048x1536 jpg, about 500k each.

Image 19
Image 20
Image 21