Sunday, November 11, 2012

UFOs Infest Denver, According to Fox News Affiliate

Some people have long been accusing Fox News and its affiliates of practicing Tabloid Journalism. The Fox affiliate in Denver, KDVR, seems determined to prove them correct. On November 8, they broadcast a video of an ill-defined, very fast moving object, that they described as a "mile high mystery," and proclaimed "nobody can explain what it is." Only one problem - this "UFO" is obviously an insect - probably a fly. This is very similar to the Chilean Fly video that Leslie Kean has been promoting as being perhaps "the case UFO skeptics have been dreading."

KDVR received some supposed "UFO" videos from a man who does not want to be identified, which to any seasoned reporter should immediately raise a red flag. The videos were taken on a hilltop in Federal Heights, at 84th and Federal, looking south toward downtown Denver. The "UFOs" appear at least several times a week, we are told, usually around noon to 1 PM. Most flying insects become more active during the warmest part of the day. The anonymous photographer, who has been filming these objects for months, believes that the UFOs are being "launched" from someplace around 56th and Clay in Denver, which is a residential area.

The "UFO" is said to be flying too fast to be seen by the naked eye; it's necessary to slow down the video. The object is seen to dive down toward the ground, between the ground and the camera (for example, at 1:29 into the video; also at 1:40 and 2:40). As in the case of the Chilean Fly videos, we are not shown the entire, unedited video. If we were, it would very likely be obvious how small the object is when it is seen clearly against the nearby ground.

The supposed "investigative" reporter Heidi Hemmat contacted an aviation "expert." Steve Cowell is described as "a former commercial pilot, instructor and FAA accident prevention counselor." As far as I can tell, this has nothing to do with optics, video photography, still photography, insects, or, for that matter, UFOs. Cowell proclaimed that the object was no kind of aircraft,  helicopter, or bird, which any fool could tell. He also proclaimed that it isn't an insect, although how he could rule that out was not stated. The FAA and NORAD were consulted, and both reported that there was no air traffic in that area.  "And it's not a bug," said Hemmat, "people keep saying it's a bug." Perhaps you should investigate that possibility? But no,  an "expert" has spoken, and Hemmat would never question that. If I had a nickel for every time some "expert" said something idiotic about UFOs, I'd be rich.

KDVR sent its own cameraman to the spot, and he, too, photographed at least one fly. This was taken as confirmation that mysterious UFOs are buzzing around Denver on a regular basis. This story is a serious contender for the stupidest news report of 2012, although there is a lot of stiff competition for that honor.

Speaking of Leslie Kean, even she is admitting on her Facebook page that "The object in these (KDVR) videos looks like the one from Chile at the El Bosque AF Base." She has traveled to Chile twice in recent months to meet with the Chilean UFOlogists of the CEFAA, the promoters of the infamous Fly video. She has promised to bring back important new information, but she hasn't shared any of it yet. She still has not stated whether or not the "experts" in Chile have determined whether or not this video shows just an insect. However, she did admit as of October 17 concerning the now-confessed Belgian hoax photo from Petit-Rechain , touted as solid UFO evidence in her book, "Yes, this photo seems to be a fake, unfortunately. Belgian researchers have looked into it. I have to update this in my book." Well, I guess that's a step in the right direction. There are still a few dozen other UFO cases in her book that need to be acknowledged as mistakes or as hoaxes, but then she wouldn't have much of a book left.

Mysterious flying object filmed in Denver! This is Lucilia Sericata, the common Green Bottle fly.


23 comments:

  1. As in the case of the Chile videos, they look like bugs and they act like bugs. They are probably bugs until somebody can demonstrate they are not. I did not see the media or the individual, who started this nonsense, bother to try and record them from two different view points. They know they would discover they were small and close. Maybe they are mini-saucers?

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  2. Even simpler than two cameras would be a single camera at 100+ frames per second. It would become pretty clear what the objects are, especially if they are insects.

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  3. They should have consulted an entomologist.

    By the way, that's one sexy fly.

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  4. Setting up a video camera in a field on a warm day basically guarantees that flying insects will be recorded. Therefore the video either shows 1) UFOs and flying insects; or 2) only flying insects. (There is no option 3) only UFOs.) Can the claimants distinguish the "UFOs" from the flying insects that must be in the video? That would be an informative and possibly humorous exercise to watch.

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  5. Kean now is stating that she expects to have her article published on the Chilean bugs soon. I would put good money down that she will proclaim them......."Not a bug". She already put her reputation on the line. For her or the chilean air force to admit they were duped by bugs is not going to happen.

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  6. The unidentified source of the video may be the same person that attempted to create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission within the Denver city government in 2008.
    TS4072

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    1. That would be Jeff Peckman. But it's not.

      I compared the voices of the mystery man in the video, and in a news interview with Packman. It isn't him.

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  7. Seeing the news clip gets me riled up at the way the news people make a mockery of the gullible share of their audience by slanting their story towards the conclusion that the bug simply has to be something mysterious and unearthly. The news people can see the bugs flying around their camera. They probably swatted them away while setting it up. Come on, letting their "expert" identifying the "thrusters" on the rear? Does it not matter that, in broad daylight, some guy in a farmer's field can see these things, but nobody else, not even NORAD, can spot them as they whiz over a populated area? And does no one ask what in the hell all that zipping around is supposed to accomplish, were the bug indeed some sort of vehicle? If an Air Force pilot were flying like that he would be disciplined for wasting fuel and time.

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    1. Exactly, the-pretend-me!

      If they were aircraft of any kind, thousands of people would certainly see them.

      It's the inherent absurdity of the "UFO" myth: If there really were "UFOs" of any kind (as Believers claim), they would have presence, substance, persistence--the minimum requirements for "things" said to exist in the World. They would be composed of "UFO" facts, but there are no "UFO" facts in the World. Not One!

      Anyone, anywhere, just about any time, could look up and say, "What is that? ... What is that "thing" up there?" As if there were some sort of unknown entities haunting the stratosphere that the world could casually ignore, or of which only Believers had knowledge. But of course that's not the way the world is. It's a fundamentally absurd idea. That's why "UFOs" only exist in viewfinders and in the minds of the beholders!

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  8. Kean's latest on the Chilean bugs:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-kean/ufo-chile_b_2123947.html

    Let's see:

    Maccabee says they are probably bugs. I am bit surprised but I have seen Maccabee draw this kind of conclusion before especially if it does not involve one of his personal prize cases (like Gulf Breeze and Trent photos).
    Haines says they can't be bugs. He triangulated one from two camera positions to prove they were distant. Based on Haines past work on some rather dubious cases, I am not surprised he could find images where he thinks that he found two of the same objects. THe link to his report is in Kean's article.

    Kean also mentions two spanish reports with one concluding they are bugs and others concluding they are metallic objects.

    Meanwhile, CEFAA says it is unsolved but feels they can't conclude they are bugs (as I stated previously, they can't afford to admit they are bugs since they promoted them as "not bugs" in front of the world at a UFO conference).

    Kean's conclusion seems to be she can't decide. Strange that she would write this now, since she was so sure they weren't bugs a few months ago! My guess is that this was the best way she could write it without admitting she was hasty in stating they were not bugs.

    Like these Denver videos, they are most likely bugs until somebody can conclusively demonstrate they weren't bugs. The case that skeptics were dreading is now the case that Kean probably wishes she did not back so strongly in the first case.

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    1. Tim,

      Kean's trying to make rocket science out of an elementary analysis. She wants to convince the world that this question is oh-so-complex and the "experts" will disagree forever. You were right when you said she couldn't possibly admit it's a fly: imagine her saying "D'oh, it really IS just a fly, after all, and it took me most of a year to figure that out. The CEFAA still hasn't figured that out!" So instead she chooses to throw dust in the readers' eyes. Even though the "UFO" is seen between the camera and the nearby ground, and hence is tiny, she still won't admit that it's a fly.

      As for Haines' analyses, if he has ever published any study that did not find a 'true UFO,' then I haven't seen it.

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    2. Agreed on Haines analyses. I have yet to read a single case where he said, "oh this was Venus" or "this was a light reflection". Long ago, I recognized one of his cases where a pilot in NY possibly confused the setting Venus and instrument malfunction as a UFO that tried to take control over an aircraft. In the report I read, Venus was never mentioned or even considered. It was almost as if he did not want to even consider another possibility or tell anybody about it.

      The only reports he ever publishes seem to take great efforts (with some highly sophisticated calculations to make it appear he is right) in making something odd in a picture or video turn into an alien spaceship.

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    3. TP writes: "Maccabee says they are probably bugs. ... if it does not involve one of his personal prize cases (like Gulf Breeze...."

      I'll bet if we give BruMac $20,000, he'll say they're TRUFOs, flying saucers, spacecraft from another world or anything else we'd like him to say! Anyone who would prostitute their supposed expertise and credibility for Ed Walters' crude hoax will say just about anything. I still get a laugh out of Ed's crude drawing of his alien visitor--on the back of house plans of course!

      That turkey of a "UFO" hoax, the truck mirror and fishing-line photos, and BruMac's "fantastic" endorsement of repeater Terauchi's hysteria over Alaska. The only thing "fantastic" about that textbook "UFO" small group scare is that there was no "UFO" in it!

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  9. Hey, maybe 1950s Canadian "flying saucer scientist" Wilbur Smith was close to being right when he speculated that the occupants of the "flying saucers" must be insect-like creatures to withstand the fantastic speeds and maneuvers of their craft. (Don't tell Kean though, she'll try to use that suggestion as evidence for her case!)

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  10. Zoam:

    For the sake of accuracy, it was Gerald Heard, not 'Wilbur' Smith, who postulated insects, in his 1950 book "Is Another World Watching?".

    Also, 'Wilbur Smith' should be 'Wilbert Smith'. Please do not confuse a nutty Canadian engineer of the 1950s with a present day novelist living in southern Africa.



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    1. Yes, Chris, Thank you. Wilbert Smith's "Sarbacher Memo," containing the accumulated "wisdom" of late-1950 ufoolery. I think I knew all that actually, but I'm inclined to temper my stony logical face with just a bit of wreckless frivolity on occassion--especially when addressing the sillier aspects of this subject among my skeptical fellows. It makes me appear almost human! I certainly hope that's permissable here. Please don't misinterpret it or my testing of the Palmer hoax hypothesis' plausibility with a disregard for facts. I've read several of your articles. Good Work! Be Seeing You. (g)

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  11. Apparently CNN felt bad about being left out of this Tabloid UFO scoop, so they're running it now, too: http://www.cnn.com/video/?%2Fvideo%2Fus%2F2012%2F11%2F13%2Fco-ufo-sightings-in-de+n+ver.kdvr#/video/us/2012/11/13/co-ufo-sightings-in-denver.kdvr

    It's the same report, just with "CNN" slapped on it.

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  12. Here is the very kind of experiment KDVR needs to set up now:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE3Jl8Kw6xA
    If these from Denver aren't bugs, we'll know it.

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  13. Hooray for the Rocky Mountain group for a complete debunking of this whole thing:

    http://www.rockymountainparanormal.com/foxufo/

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  14. Apparently KDVR just can't get enough of this story - remember, sensationalism builds ratings! Now they've consulted an entomologist - a butterfly expert - who said it's not an insect!
    http://kdvr.com/2012/11/20/insect-expert-ufos-over-denver-not-bugs-images-on-video-remain-a-mystery/

    I want to see a fast-frame video of this. That will show the bugs clearly enough.

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  15. Thanks for sharing.
    Fox News Channel always the Best

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  16. Not saying it's a UFO, but there were some of the objects in their videos that were certainly not flys. Flys don't exhibit conical reflections from the sun. If you check the light source in the clips I'm mentioning, you should only see a sliver of light as the suns reflection. Some clips show a reflection that would only come from a much larger object. It could be cg or something else and some of those do look like flys, but there are clear clips that show something much bigger.

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  17. Mrs. Leslie King says (from her blog): "Last June, I went to Santiago partly to seek further resolution on this case. General Ricardo Bermúdez, Director of the CEFAA, told me that the objects did not appear to be bugs, "but we can't be 100 percent sure; it's still under investigation." During my second visit to the CEFAA office in September, the general informed me that the case is now being put to rest, but it remains unsolved."

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