Here's a Decisive and Convincing Way to Prove Some Extraordinary Claims: The Two-Camera UFO...
Fireballs and meteors are notoriously difficult for observers to describe accurately, let alone UFOs, UAPs, and other strange things seen in the sky. Distance, in particular, can be very misleading. Meteorite hunters often hear from witnesses things like "it landed just beyond that hill over there", or "look just past that row of trees because I saw it land there". When meteorites are finally located, they are almost always literally hundreds of miles further away from where the witnesses swore they saw them land.
UFOs and UAPs are often bizarre, literally alien-looking objects, sometimes moving with mind-numbing accelerations unlike anything in our normal experiences. Getting accurate distance perceptions can be very problematic, to say the least - even more frustrating than with meteors and fireballs.
How Big Was That Object?
The size of an object, that is its diameter or length, is intuitively gleaned from its perceived distance. So if the distance is misunderstood, the object's size is just as much in doubt. Scientifically-minded UFO investigators are trained to ask for the angular size of an object, that is, how big was it compared to a common object held at arm's length, or how did its width compare to the full moon? The angular diameter of an object and its distance, if this data is accurately known, can be used to calculate an object's actual size.
Videos and Photographs Can Be Misleading
Just like with direct observation with the human eye, UFOs and UAPs in photographs and videos can be extremely hard to interpret. Dots of lights in a video might be bugs at a distance of five feet, airplanes a few miles away, or astronomical objects such as planets at millions of miles distance.
Fortunately, there's a way, with a little planning and two cameras, to determine distance and size information with much greater accuracy. Read on to learn how this can work well for objects at various distances from the cameras.
It Takes Two to Tango
There is a better, much more accurate way to get distance, size, and velocity calculations made of objects in videos and photographs. If two separated cameras record the same scene at the same time, it is very possible to calculate distance, size, and velocity parameters with much greater accuracy.
The trick to making accurate calculations is to accurately know the distance between the cameras. Also, make sure the videos or images are synchronized in time, and have the same objects in the background for reference. Knowing the Field of View (FOV) angle of each camera and the exact geolocation of background objects can help as well. A couple of real-world examples helps clarify how this works.
Calculating the ISS Altitude With Accuracy
As you may know if you've read my other articles, I'm passionate about math, science, and using the Python programming language to hack my life's details for fun and profit. Recently, with my wife's help, we photographed the International Space Station (ISS) as it crossed the night sky, with our two cell phone cameras set for 10-second exposures so we could capture its trail along with the stars in the background. She set up her phone in our back yard, and I drove a little over 20 miles away to a spot in the country.
Our Samsung phone cameras record precise GPS time and location in each image's metadata. The stars in the sky, along with the free program Stellarium, allowed me to calculate with mathematical certainty the ISS azimuth and elevation angles second-by-second in our simultaneous photographs. Because of the parallactic shift in the images, the altitude of the ISS above sea level could be calculated with better than expected accuracy.
These calculations were more complicated than described here, but all the data we needed was in the camera images and their metadata. When all the details were accounted for, the altitude of the ISS worked out to be 265 miles. A check online showed the actual altitude was right at 260 miles. I was very happy with the accuracy of these results!
Skinwalker Ranch UAPs
On a recent episode of Skinwalker Ranch (one of my favorite shows), Travis Taylor claimed that an object shown crossing the sky, shown in a video for home viewers, was moving at several thousands of miles per hour. In another case, a white orb in the clear sky was stated to be "right over the mesa". Perhaps Travis had information and calculations edited out by the producers when he made these claims, I hope so, but it appeared he was making his quick mental calculations based on perceived distances of the objects, which can easily be in error, sometimes by a lot.
An easy and obvious fix for the technological wizards at Skinwalker Ranch would be to mount two, or more, cameras separated by exact distances, and imaging the same parts of the mesa and trees in the background. Using exact geolocations for the cameras and the various rocks, peaks, trees and other objects, along with each camera's FOV (angular field of view), the simultaneous imaging of orbs and objects would allow these unknowns to be digitized and exact locations in the air space around the ranch to be calculated.
Erik Bard, I can help with the calculations, but I'll bet you and your awesome tech team can do this too!
Farsight Claims Are Bugging Some of Us
Recently, video experts at Farsight, another interesting television show, modified special cameras to take infra-red, very high-speed videos showing many objects zipping around in the sky, not otherwise visible to the naked eye. Their claim is that these objects are moving at extreme speeds (many thousands of miles per hour) based on the claimed distances to the objects, and the high angular velocities in the videos. "They couldn't be bugs because you can't see their wings flapping" was one of their verbal "proofs" that the objects were anomalous, high-speed UFOs at a distance.
People can debate shutter speed, exposure time, ISO settings, infra-red sensitivity, and similar details all day long about this, with the appearance of the uniquely photographed objects being interpreted subjectively and with perhaps biased opinions that are actually not proof of true UFO phenomenon. But by using two cameras spaced apart a few meters, with identical background clouds or other known objects in view, two simultaneous images of the same objects could prove once and for all, without debate, if the objects are bug-sized, or not.
It's All About Parallactic Shift
If they are bugs, the parallactic shift of their pixel locations as compared to the known objects in the background could be used to calculate distance from the cameras with great accuracy. Bug locations in the images would shift noticeably and measurably, and distant high-speed UFOs would not. It's that simple.
I want to challenge the Farsight crew to do the digitization and calculations using multiple cameras, imaging the same objects at the same moments to verify with certainty their claims that the objects they are imaging in infra-red are not bugs. I'm hoping they can, but I'm not yet convinced they will do so. We'll see.
Other Applications
I'm sure there are other applications where stereoscopic simultaneous videos or photographs can be used to extract distance, size, and velocity information that otherwise could be elusive to acquire. If you know an application, I'd love to hear from you!
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