It may be tilting at windmills, but I couldn't resist taking a shot.
Ronald Nussbeck believes in UFOs. He believes that a Space Shuttle mission captured video proof of dozens of alien spacecraft, and that enhancement of those images reveals markings resembling letters and numbers. He is so confident that he is offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who can prove otherwise.
Following is my humble attempt at skeptic stardom.
[I sent this before I found the site confirming Ronald Nussback as the source of the offer.]
To Whom It May Concern:
In response to your challenge regarding the presence/absence of UFOs in the STS-75 "tether video," I submit the following.
You state that the objects seen in the STS-75 video are alien spacecraft and that the images can be enhanced to reveal details, including what appear to be letters and numbers. This is fallacious on two counts: (1) The objects are not alien spacecraft, and (2) the image enhancement process described does not work.
- The "UFOs" are optical artifacts.
In the video you link to on your challenge page, the large object seen in multiple close-ups has one notch near the bottom. A second large object, seen in the video at about 0:17 and 0:39, has two notches on top. These could represent objects of different shapes, except that in a wider view of the NASA video, numerous similar objects can be seen. What is also seen is that as these objects pass across the field, the notches change position. This is seen clearly in the bright object that appears toward the upper left at about 2:00, as the image stops shaking; as the object moves down the frame, the notch at the lower left disappears and is replaced by two notches on top. Several more objects take similar tracks and show similar notch changes. Furthermore, all of the objects in a given portion of the field share the same notch orientation; objects near the tip of the tether all have one notch on the bottom, all objects further down the tether have two notches on top, etc.).
For reference, the main subject of your "challenge" video (seen passing the tip of the tether at 0:26) appears to be the same object as that seen in the wider view at 2:25, which suggests that they are both copies of the same original.
For these objects to be real, not only would they have to be constantly changing shape, they would have to be basing their shapeshifting on their position relative to the camera. Furthermore, all of the objects appear more or less round. If these objects were in fact discoid, one would expect to see them in various orientations, from face-on and round to edge-on and cigar-shaped. If they were spherical, cylindrical, or some other shape with a circular cross-section, then the notches seen on the objects would be even more difficult to explain.
Also of note is that the objects vary greatly in brightness; some are brilliant, some are faint, and some change brightness as they move. For an illuminated object at a near-constant distance from the light source, such brightness changes must be due to a change in the aspect of the object relative to the light source, the observer, or both. However, none of the objects demonstrates any change in aspect, with the exception of the apparent notches, and the notches do not correspond to any possible shadow-producing irregularities on the surfaces of the objects.
Dust or ice particles near the shuttle, on the other hand, would appear as out-of-focus blurs if the camera were focused on the distant tether. The optical characteristics of the lens, including any imperfections, dictate the shapes of the blurs. The fact that the objects not only change shape as they cross the field but make the same shape changes in the same places indicates that the apparent changes are in the imaging optics, not in the objects themselves. The changes in brightness are also easily attributable to ice crystals. Since they are minute, out-of-focus specks, a change in aspect would not change the apparent shape of the object (since it is too small to be resolved), only its brightness.
In short, the objects shown in the video display none of the attributes one would expect of large, solid objects in focus at a distance and all of the attributes expected of small, out-of-focus ice crystals very close to the camera.
The objects are not alien spacecraft.
Verification of the nature of these objects could be secured by using the same camera setup as was used for the STS-75 video, at the same sun angle, to record a waste dump from the Shuttle. The images could then be compared to see if the appearance of the "UFOs" is reproduced.
- The image processing technique used for the "enhanced" images is worthless.
On your challenge page, you link to a series of images of the eye of a needle as an example of the technique. However, the series of enhancements from image #9 to image #15 clearly show an absence of increased detail. Note the pixels in the lower left corner of each image; they get larger, but all of the detail in image #15 is present in image #9. There is no enhanced resolution, only enlargement of what was already visible.
Your first pair of "before-and-after" images, on the other hand, does appear at first glance to indicate enhanced resolution using PPP. However, there is a problem. The "object/craft" in the first image is approximately 15 x 20 pixels in size. The only information available in this image consists of 300 perfectly featureless tiles of various colors. There is no further information to extract; the camera lacked the sensitivity to record it, and it is irretrievable. Enlargement only makes the pixels bigger; any additional "detail" is pure artifact: If you enlarge a pixel, it becomes a multipixel tile, with all pixels in the tile being identical, as demonstrated in the needle sequence. Meaningful enlargement of an image beyond the resolving power of the original recording instrument is impossible.
There is a possible question regarding exactly what image processing technique was used. Your challenge page states that APPEP was used. However, examiner.com reports that the process used was PPP (Penetrating Photographic Process). An online search for PPP led to this article about the "Phoenix Lights," which per your challenge page were enhanced using APPEP. I am therefore presuming that APPEP and PPP are essentially one and the same, and my above objection would hold true in any event.
The accuracy of APPEP/PPP, or any image enhancement process, can easily be determined: Simply take low-resolution and high-resolution images of the same subject, process the low-resolution image in whatever way you see fit, and compare the result to the high-resolution image.
To summarize, the STS-75 video does not prove the existence of alien spacecraft, and the image enhancement process does not prove the existence of alphanumeric markings on ice crystals.
I await your response.
Sincerely...
[end]
Feel free to criticize, correct, whatever.
And it's just coincidence that this is my second straight UFOish diary. Really.