Lets suppose for a moment that an amateur astronomer did happen to spot an "alien spacecraft" in orbit while imaging something else. The question is, would he or she realize the extra-terrestrial nature of what they happened to catch? If it's just sitting in orbit it'll move like any other satellite, and provided it's not excessively large and/or in a very low orbit, and the telescope/CCD combination doesn't have a high arcsecond/pixel resolution (most amateur astrophotography is gravitating to wide field work anyway), the alien visitor will look just like any other satellite; an annoying streak in the image. Now how many amateurs bother to check and see which satellite showed up in their image every time that happens? And even if they did so and returned no hits, they'd assume it was just a classified spy satellite whose orbital elements aren't easily accessible. In my opinion, if an amateur were to accidently capture an image of a "visitor" in orbit they'd never even realize it. And if an advanced race were to visit I doubt it'd be for anything that required a lengthy stay; any sightings would be exceedingly rare, if they occured at all, and would ultimately be discared in the pile of hoaxes, lies, and mistaken sightings. It's like an extremely bad signal/noise ratio. We'll never know if we've been visited or not, and though we can say the odds aren't good, there's too much nonsense out there to find out if even one sighting was for real (and even if it was it'd never be provable scientifically). I know my story is just that, a story. It's not supposed to prove anything, but as a personal family experience it's shaped how I view the subject of hypothetical alien visitation. I don't rule out the possibility, only the "provability." You couldn't prove an encounter happened unless they went out of their way to make it provable, in which case the whole world would know about it. There'd be no chance for a "government coverup."

With regards to the original post....there are 286 pictures here:http://www.ufoevidence.org/photograp...t/photo426.htm

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A second rate theory explains after the fact.
A first rate theory predicts.
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I'm glad someone else with a bit more experience in the area mentioned this. My first thought was whether he had contacted any other observatories for confirmation. To me, that's the first step, taken while observing it.

Your average, backyard, 2.5", "Let's see if we can find Saturn" astronomer might have a problem. However, the large majority of comets are spotted by amateurs looking specifically for something out of the ordinary; I'd guess they'd have a pretty good idea of what belonged up there and what didn't, even if it were an uncatalogued satellite.

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I am not so certain about this. Many amateurs are recording the ISS with little difficulty and in enough detail to identify it. Yes, I have plenty of satellite streaks in my photographs and all are very small but I use a digital SLR with a low focal length. Many amateurs using CCDs are imaging galaxies in very long focal lengths and with fine resolution. My guess is they could probably identify large satellites (about the size of a bus) if they passed the field of view. Of course, they would just be wide streaks and not show detail.

Then we have the survey's done by NEAT, LONEOS, LINEAR, etc. They are covering larger areas of the sky looking for fast moving asteroids (and sweeping up just about everything else in near earth orbit). I am sure any foreign object invading the earth environment would be imaged and identified. I believe there was one such object some time ago that was thought to be an old Saturn rocket stage that may have returned into earth orbit (although this was never confirmed and could be just a small asteroid).

The amount of sky monitored by these surveys have pretty much eliminated the comet discoveries by amateurs (not completely yet). It would seem these instruments would be able to detect any large objects in earth orbit or approaching earth orbit.

The object jumps around in the video but one must realize that the video is a collection of exposures taken over a period of time.

I didn't realize that. Yes, it does change the character of the evidence. It's still a moving object, but it's not flitting about.

...there may have been internal reflections involved especially if he was using some form of telecompressor or other lens/filter.

Can we know whether we're looking at the entire optical field of view, or has the image sequence been cropped and registered? Internal reflections usually correlate to deflection either of the target or of the optical axis. The apparent lack of change in field of view or of any object within the field of view counterindicates an internal reflection. However if we're looking at registered crops then the axis can have changed and put that big bright object through different parts of the optical path to create a varying reflection.

Why contact NASA? If he were a real astronomer, he should contact the IAU and we also would be fed RA and DEC so others could see if they imaged the same thing.

A quick Google indicates he may have personal contacts at NASA, if I'm reading the Spanish correctly. That may explain his choice of escalation. There may indeed be celestial coordinates available for this sighting, but they won't be given in a news report. If I'm hearing the Spanish report correctly, the observer operates a significant observatory, so I think he can be considered reasonably qualified.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

It appears he is a professor of Math and Physics but not astronomy. If this is the case, he is just a professional who is quite involved with amateur astronomy. This observatory may be run by him but he is not a full time professional. I also did a quick check on him and I noticed that he had some images back in 1996 of Comet Hale-Bopp that were being used to suggest an object was following the comet. I can't tell if he was the source of somebody got his images and used them. The image I saw showed an artifact that was obviously dust on the CCD sensor. When I see this, I become increasingly skeptical. He also did not report his observations to the IAU and instead ran to the media to report his "find" just like Chuck Shramek of the Hale-Bopp companion fame. Makes you begin to really wonder about his methods.

It is hard to say what he is using and what the source of light may be. He may have also employed a field derotator. I am just wondering with it bouncing about if it weren't some sort of stray light/internal optical problem.

I don't think that is good enough. See my post about Chuck Shramek and the Hale-Bopp companion "discovery". You don't go public with a discovery of something if you are a professional astronomer. You go straight to the IAU with a find and let them see if it can be recovered by others. Just because you are "director" of an "observatory" does not mean much. I know many amateurs who consider themselves "directors" of their own observatories. Some do very good work and all know to go to the IAU with any finds and not the media. If you examine the IAU site you will see why when they talk about "new" discoveries:


For every real new comet discovery, the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) gets perhaps five reports of "discoveries" that do not pan out. And in most of these unconfirmed or erroneous discovery reports, the observers declare "NEW COMET" or "COMET DISCOVERY", even though they have only seen the possible object once (with no detectable motion), or even though they only have a single photograph on one night with a suspicious-looking object.

This does not completely apply in this case but you get the idea. All discoveries require some skepticism and that should apply in this case. Running to the media declaring you discovered something anamolous is not exactly what one would expect from a professional astronomer.

I too have tracked and imaged ISS, but ISS is unique; it's very large and very low (relatively speaking). In order to see any kind of significant detail you have to really crank up the magnification. Put ISS at a significantly higher orbit, like geosynch orbit, and it'd turn into a dot in most amateur scopes, even at high magnification. And yes, some amateurs still do image small galaxies and such, but I think the trend is towards wider and wider fields. It used to be that with amateur CCDs all you could really do was narrowfield galaxy work, now it's like a competition to see who can soak up the widest field of view in one shot. You're right about LINEAR and so forth, but even that only rules out a "presistant visitation" or a visitation with large numbers. What are the odds a single craft (say no larger than ISS) could go undetected without even trying to evade detection, provided it didn't do anything grandiose and stayed to a relatively high orbit most of the time? NEAT, LINEAR, et al are very good at detecting things that stick around in our neighborhood, but could very easily miss a transient event like someone just "passing through" our neighborhood might be.

One study I found particularly fascinating was an attempt in the 70s to search for ancient von neumann type probes the size of at least skylab hanging out at the lagrange(sp?) points. The theory was that if anything from a distant civilization were to visit us for a significant period of time in order to monitor us it might hang out at these handy gravitational zones to minimize the effort needed to remain in one place for long periods of time. Of course they didn't find anything there, though I believe the search only could have found objects with roughly the same size and albedo of skylab or larger. But what if we were to be visited by someone who didn't stick around? It could have very easily happened before a point history where we had the knowledge and technology to monitor our sky, or even if it happened today or anytime in the near future I doubt we'd catch it, or if some non-professional saw it they'd either disregard it or be disregarded themselves. Just my two cents though.

I am just wondering with it bouncing about if it weren't some sort of stray light/internal optical problem.

I agree that it's consistent in some ways with an unintended catadioptric effect. And I'm going to defer to you and others for the specifics of that kind of investigation since I'm not as familiar with the behavior of the equipment that might have been used to produce this image. I agree with your interpretation that an obviously overexposed element in the image should alert a skilled interpreter to be aware of the possibility of reflection. He would have the burden to eliminate that possiblity by evidence or experimentation prior to telling someone it "defies all explanation."

As a general rule, any claim framed in that language should immediately be treated with skepticism. What it says is that it defies all the explanations that hold under the intepreter's assumptions. When you falsify all the hypotheses that arise from the assumptions, then you start examining the assumptions.

In fact, I'm reading BAUT right now because in the other window on my desktop I've got two data sets from two different sensors that purport to measure the same thing, and they don't agree, and I have to find out why. I've already gone through all the hypotheses that arise within the design assumptions, and then relaxed those design assumptions. I'm still stumped, so I'm trying to come up with all the unstated assumptions so that we can relax those. In this case, "A wizard did it," is not an acceptable answer just because I'm currently out of ideas.

I don't think that is good enough. See my post about Chuck Shramek and the Hale-Bopp companion "discovery".

I did, after writing my post. I saw previously that Quijano had been mentioned in conjunction with the Hale-Boppe anomaly, but I couldn't draw a conclusion from my own reading whether he had been associated with the extraordinary claim

You don't go public with a discovery of something if you are a professional astronomer.

Yes, that's suspicious.

I know many amateurs who consider themselves "directors" of their own observatories.

I'm the director of Jay's Backyard Observatory, but the only thing we've ever discovered is a whole lot of light pollution. I named my discovery after my cat.

All discoveries require some skepticism and that should apply in this case.

I agree, which is why I'm wondering idly how much we can know about how much was done to eliminate uncommon ordinary causes.

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Clavius Moon Base

In the little bit of night photography I have done, I have had this problem.

The camera sits on a motorized mount because the exposure time is so long, and the Earth is moving agianst the backdrop of stars.

A piece of dust on the lens will then move along with the sky-seeming to follow it.

Given your name, Im well certain you do quite a bit of proffessional quality night photography and so are causally familiar with such things.

But to those who don't have that experience at all to fall back on, it simply doesn't occur to them.

To those readers who aren't Im pointing this out to clarify how a speck of dust can be significant.

Actually, my images don't really compare with a great many others. I just took the name because I do dabble. Unfortunately, my funds are insufficient to keep up with the technology. Despite this, I am familiar with many of the issues and problems with CCD imaging. I would be interested in seeing what other astrophotographers, who tend to use this equipment (I use a digital SLR), think of these images.

I could not either but there was one posting where it appeared he was looking for anamolous objects (he admits they were later determined to be stars, which to me was obvious), which makes me wonder.

Im skeptical, and since you made the claim it is your responsibility to prove it.

Lets see a link to some images

Unless you post on this board that thread that is for this purpose...

...there was one posting where it appeared he was looking for anamolous objects (he admits they were later determined to be stars, which to me was obvious)...

I don't see anything that suggests he was looking for "anomalous objects." He photographed Hale-Boppe, which was probably then a justifiable activity for all astronomers professional and amateur. He initially attributed two items to comet debris, which (if true) would have been fortunate but not anomalous. The ultimate attribution to background stars he says was based on corroboration with another observatory's results, which strikes me as a responsible thing to have done. Whether he should have immediately recognized them as stars is something I'm not qualified to judge.

We have to be very careful not to embroil people in scandals to which their names are involuntarily attached. While I do think it's strange that he seems to favor publicity, there's not enough evidence for me to pigeonhole him as a habitual UFO-hunter.

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Clavius Moon Base

I don´t see where he is looking for anomalous objects? All i see is some pictures taken by him, pics that are used on that website, could you provide the text where he in person is specifically looking for anomalous objects?

Edit: Same observation as JayUtah.

Sorry for my english.

I stated that it "appeared" he was looking for anamolous objects. The two stars were trailing the same length as the other stars. I don't see how he could confuse them as cometary debris as it is obvious they were stars. If they had been with the comet, they would not have "trailed" since they appeared to be tracking the comet against the stars (as most astronomers do when photographing comets). Anyone that has any experience with this sort of thing would have known that.

Actually, my avatar is one of the images. You can browse my webpage:

http://members.aol.com/TPrinty/index.html

I particularly enjoy photographing comets:

http://members.aol.com/TPrinty/comet.html

I hope that meets my obligation.

Extraordinary Andromeda.

Consider your claim debunked.

The two stars were trailing the same length as the other stars.

Yes. It makes perfect sense under that observation that he should have concluded they were also stars.

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Clavius Moon Base

...could you provide the text where he in person is specifically looking for anomalous objects?

I think I see Astrophotographer's point a little better. The identification of the objects as stars is so straightforward that it is odd for Quijano to have considered anything else. It is odd for him to have considered them comet debris because debris would have more closely matched the movement of the comment, which Quijano was ostensibly tracking during his exposure. In other words, to overlook such a simple, obvious answer in favor of one for which there really was no evidence calls into question Quijano's motive in interpreting his photographs.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

You are saying that because he may have done an erroneus interpretation at first on that sighting, that makes the motivation of Quijano´s questionable an all his sightings ?

What I am questioning is his qualifications and ability to accurately eliminate potential sources of the "object" in his images. Based on what I see with the comments he made about his Hale-Bopp image, I am not sure he really is that much of an expert. Without more details of his image sequence/equipment, it is difficult to draw any conclusions. However, I am not about to take his word for it that he has shown that it was something in the sky and not in his computer or imaging system.

You are saying that because he may have done an erroneus interpretation at first on that sighting, that makes the motivation of Quijano´s questionable an all his sightings ?

No, I think that's too simplistic an evaluation.

His interpretation of the Hale-Boppe photo isn't just an error such as any astronomer might innocently make. It's a conspicuous abandonment of a straightforward, common explanation. That means he either doesn't know about the straightforward explanation, or he doesn't care. If he doesn't know, then it doesn't much matter what he can't explain. If he doesn't care, then we have reason to distrust his judgment.

About the recent video, it is indeed odd that he would go so prematurely to the media. It's less about one occurrence tainting everything he does subsequently, and more about what might be seen as a recurring pattern of publicity-seeking.

If you want us to respect Quijano's judgment as something other than ordinary, then we have to look carefully at examples of his judgment in other cases.

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Clavius Moon Base

Jay, I've always seen the comet's name spelled Hale-Bopp. You've been consistently spelling it Hale-Boppe. Is the latter a typo, or a different but legitimate spelling of the discoverer's name?

Or do I get the T-shirt?

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Relight the Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

It is Hale-Bopp. No "e". I've met Thomas Bopp and he seems like a pretty nice guy.

The "e" is a mysterious companion some say they have seen accompanying Hale-Bopp.

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I've been consistently misspelling it for no better reason than carelessness. I think the jury is still out on whether misspellings are a shirtable offense.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

NGCHunter

"Lets suppose for a moment that an amateur astronomer did happen to spot an "alien spacecraft" in orbit while imaging something else. The question is, would he or she realize the extra-terrestrial nature of what they happened to catch? If it's just sitting in orbit it'll move like any other satellite, and provided it's not excessively large and/or in a very low orbit, and the telescope/CCD combination doesn't have a high arcsecond/pixel resolution (most amateur astrophotography is gravitating to wide field work anyway), the alien visitor will look just like any other satellite; an annoying streak in the image."

Well i dont know enough about astronomy to comment really but i believe humans are naturally curious and inquicisitve and if enough astronomers kept seeing objects in images that were not supposed to be in a particular part of the sky - we'd start hearing about it.

Instead we just get loads of photos and footage from UFO entusiasts which never is really decisive.

Hmmm... Photo #1 out of 286 Photos in this Section looks exactly like an upside-down dinner plate thrown into the harbor.

The intentionally faked ones look far more realistic.

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If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

I dunno... If you were a super-intelligent alien life form, and you wanted to keep your presence on earth a secret, wouldn't you very cleverly disguise your space ship to look like "an upside-down dinner plate thrown into the harbor?"

Seems like solid proof to me.

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