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Post your UFO photos! or ghost..

PictureofCraft9medium.jpg
 
Patricio Elicer said:
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http://www.mediamax.com/pelicer/Hosted/OVNI-G.wmv
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Very good!

I don't have sound on my work computer, so I may have had a bit of an advantage while watching this.

Immediately, I surmised the technique you used, and I have zero background in UFO investigation. I am, however, interested in camera trickery and special effects

The bit where the light went behind the tree was a noodle-scratcher, I'll admit. It must have been a bit awkward, holding the light and camera at the same time.

This would be something I'd love to duplicate with my kids, as an experiment in critical thinking. My son has a show-and-tell coming up at school, and I think this would go over really well with the third-graders. How many takes did it take to get that part of the illusion correct? How did you attach it to the chair? I'd appreciate it if you could provide a bit more detail on your technique, if it's not too much bother. How big was the cardboard silhouette? How close to the cardboard did the light come? How close to the window was the cardboard? If you could help me out here, I'll give it a go too. I have both an analogue camera and a good digital. I'll share my results with you.
 
Crop circles in the sky, a great idea. We did it with a weather balloon from Edmund Scientific with a small flashlight suspended below, aimed up at the balloon.
 
cool, we sometimes do Snow Circles...instead of crop. Nicer for farmers
 
HeyLeroy said:
Very good!

I don't have sound on my work computer, so I may have had a bit of an advantage while watching this.
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Thank you.

As I said earlier the sound is important, because it adds to the illusion that the object is floating in the open.
The bit where the light went behind the tree was a noodle-scratcher, I'll admit. It must have been a bit awkward, holding the light and camera at the same time.
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It was very difficult indeed, because I had to do it on my own. The camera on the right hand and the flashlight on the left, all at once. It took me a couple of hours of trial and error to get a decent take of the light passing behind the tree. Go figure!, after two hours of trials I was pretty tired on my left hand, that's the reason why that segment is too shaky. As I said, an assistant is necesary to get a good trick.

This would be something I'd love to duplicate with my kids, as an experiment in critical thinking. My son has a show-and-tell coming up at school, and I think this would go over really well with the third-graders.
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That's certainly a great idea to teach and motivate children on critical thinking. I'd love to see a well and carefully done trick of this kind.
How many takes did it take to get that part of the illusion correct? How did you attach it to the chair? I'd appreciate it if you could provide a bit more detail on your technique, if it's not too much bother. How big was the cardboard silhouette? How close to the cardboard did the light come? How close to the window was the cardboard? If you could help me out here, I'll give it a go too. I have both an analogue camera and a good digital. I'll share my results with you.
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That would be great. I'll be more than happy to share my experience and the details of how I did it.

Essentialy everything was a matter of trial and error, it was painstaking because it took me ages to adjust all the parameters. It is essential to have a good location to do it, that is, a big window and clear objects on the outside, poles, buildings, trees, etc. at a certain distance. A large window is important because for the light to move on the glass you have to move the flashlight parallel to the window plane. Projecting the light to the window at angles other than 90º won't work for it to move on the glass.

The cardboard was essentially a rectangle about 15 cm in width and 30 cm in height (in fact height didn't matter in this case). As I said I cut irregular shapes on either side to simulate the tree branches. You can enhance the illusion on trees by cutting small holes in the middle so that bits of light are seen while the "object" goes behind.

I don't recall exactly how close the flashlight was from the cardboard, but it was no farther away than 50 cm. The cardboard silhouette was about 1 meter away from the glass, and I attached it to the back of a chair with duct tape.

As I said, it's essential to work with an assistant to get a good trick, one person to hold the flashlight with both hands to get a smooth movement, and the other to be in charge of the camera. It's also very important to reduce the light intensity by adding filter layers so it looks natural, and to add to the illusion that it is a dim distant object. Also, one must be very careful not to produce reflection beams on the glass, that would spoil the trick immediatly. I achived this by slightly inclining the flashlight with respect to the window plane. I found that a straight 90º projection would produce a lot of light beams around the UFO.

Another idea that crossed my mind to get a better illusion, but I didn't do it eventually, was to purposedly decrease the video quality by making multiple copies (maybe two or three) of the end product tape. I figure it may be a good thing to the trick that the UFO don't look too sharp and well defined, but a bit blurry.

Well, in summary I'd say that it is, for the most part, a trial and error thing to get the trick done.

Good luck, and please don't hesitate to ask anything else, if I can be of any further help.
 
Since shooting kids is what I do for a living, (hobby too...) I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising that I managed to get pictures of the ghosts of #4 and my granddaughter. The biggest problem is that they're both still alive...
 

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At
http://www.baloesrio.hpg.ig.com.br/fotos/noturnos/noturnos.html
You will find pics of home made paper hot air baloons from Rio de Janeiro. They can be huge, and are IMHO responsible by many UFO sightings in Rio and neighbourhoods. Quite often they carry fireworks, an extra source for weird light displays.

Please note its an illegal activity, since they quite often start forest fires. They are also a hazzard for airplanes and in a number of occasions they have fallen over oil refineries. The only reason I provided this link is due to their connection with UFO sightings. Mods, if this post somehow breaks any forum rules, please delete it.
 
Here's a crop circle. It almost seems as if someone is trying to send a message.
 
hcmom said:
Since shooting kids is what I do for a living, (hobby too...) I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising that I managed to get pictures of the ghosts of #4 and my granddaughter. The biggest problem is that they're both still alive...
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OHHHHH!!! I love those photos!!!

Very spooky and I'll bet the kids love the photos too.

And the fairy princess whatever is way better than the Cottingley fairies.
 
grayman said:
Here's a crop circle. It almost seems as if someone is trying to send a message.[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_9246451ea5419f61f.jpg[/qimg]
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Only a superior intelligence could make that. I have people I have delt with on askanexpert.com that would be very serious in saying that the aliens are just messing with our brains by making that.

As they learn OUR culture, their crop circles are reflecting that, including having a sense of humor. No, I did not make that up. Someone really believes that.
 
kittynh said:
As they learn OUR culture, their crop circles are reflecting that, including having a sense of humor.
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If this were true, crop circles would have "evolved" into weed wads by now...
 
The kids and I shot an amazingly spooky video Saturday night. A glowing orb can be seen hovering, circling and dancing just outside our patio. You can see it as it slowly flies behind the bars on my patio gate. At one point it flies into a parked car, disappearing through the windshield. At another, you can see it fly by my daughter's head and she jerks around to avoid it!

I've burned it onto a DVD, but I'm not sure how to rip it to a format that I can post to a viceo hosting site. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
HeyLeroy said:
The kids and I shot an amazingly spooky video Saturday night. A glowing orb can be seen hovering, circling and dancing just outside our patio. You can see it as it slowly flies behind the bars on my patio gate. At one point it flies into a parked car, disappearing through the windshield. At another, you can see it fly by my daughter's head and she jerks around to avoid it!

I've burned it onto a DVD, but I'm not sure how to rip it to a format that I can post to a viceo hosting site. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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Great!, I can't wait to see it.

You can use Xilisoft Video Converter to convert it from DVD (VOB format) to wmv format for example. The trial version will allow you to convert up to 5 minutes (I think).
 
Patricio Elicer said:
Great!, I can't wait to see it.

You can use Xilisoft Video Converter to convert it from DVD (VOB format) to wmv format for example. The trial version will allow you to convert up to 5 minutes (I think).
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Thanks. Look for it soon.

Over about an 1-1/2 hours we shot about 25 minutes on my digital camcorder. We edited it down to 3:59 minutes. When I burned it to the DVD, there was an option to lower the video quality, and I set it to the middle setting. It's friggin' amazing! The kids are so proud.
 
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