George Adamski's photograph of a UFO
When it comes to the UFO evidence, credulity is something that one can best be used to describe many UFOlogists. Nothing gets a UFOlogists more excited than a photograph or video tape of a UFO. After all, such images are the next best thing to a real piece of an alien spaceship. However, are these images really good evidence?
Each day, photographers, both professional and amateur, are out with their cameras and capture many astonishing and unusual events. For instance, during a daylight fireball event in July 2001, a photographer in his backyard managed to capture this brief event (lasting only seconds) on film clearly showing the meteor. There are many other instances of brief and unusual events that are clearly captured by lucky photographers. However, UFO events are rarely recorded well, if at all. This even though (at least according to UFO databases), most UFO events last minutes and not brief seconds. Despite this advantage most UFO photographs are smears, vague images, or distant lights, which are open to interpretation. Add to this that many good photographs are often considered or discovered to be fakes. With so many fakes populating the good UFO photographs what does it say for the remaining photographs?
Hoax methods
Hoax photographs are created by many methods. Several early UFO hoax images involved taking a picture of a disc thrown through the air or a small model on a string. In some cases, the thread was easy to see but in others, it was more difficult. As technology improved, computers were called upon to reveal these hoaxes. Strings that were not seen before were now exposed in several cases but not in all. The possibility of these remaining few being hoaxed was reduced but not eliminated. Ironically, with the escalation in detection methods, there was an additional escalation in the ability to hoax images. Computers could now paste two images together and create a pretty authentic looking UFO picture. Any good hoaxer could make a rather authentic looking picture as Rob Irving did when he created a convincing image of a UFO in a hanger at the USAF base in Aviano, Italy. There are other methods of producing a fake UFO picture, which can not be easily detected by computer analysis such as double exposures. The method of hoaxing such images is varied and detecting each method is extremely difficult even when done by competent analysts.
Alan Hendry notes in his book, The UFO Handbook, that when it comes to UFO photographs, there are a significant amount of hoax pictures:
I noted earlier in examining the conclusions of the 1,307 UFO reports that hoaxes did not figure at all into the scheme of things--rather misperceptions of some existing stimulus were responsible. This situation is not the case, however, when it comes to cases involving photographs, where a significant population of deliberate fraud exists. The failure of photographs to serve as impersonal proof of the existence of UFOs up to now lay largely in the ease of fabricating fake photos of small models that couldn't be distinguished from the real thing. (Hendry 204)
Detecting hoaxes depends on the expertise of the hoaxer and the experience of the investigator. Photographic analyst William G. Hyzer once wrote:
In my opinion, fakery is virtually impossible to prove in a well-contrived image. If certain anomalies are detected, the best that any photographic analyst can do is to point them out as possible or probable artifacts of photographic fakery. (Hyzer Deceptive13)
Considered "Mr. PhotoInstrumentaion" in the February 1991 issue of Photomethods magazine, Hyzer's qualifications are above reproach and one should not take this statement lightly. The possibility of detecting a hoax is not clear-cut and may take a lot of work. How careful have some of UFOlogy's most treasured UFO cases been investigated and how likely is it that they were faked?
Movies in Montana: UFOs or fighter jets?
In August of 1950, general manager for the Great Falls, Montana baseball team, Nick Mariana, was out at the ballpark. Suddenly he noticed two bright disc shaped UFOs traversing the sky. He quickly obtained his 16mm camera and filmed the UFOs for some 15-20 seconds. The film showed two dots moving across the sky and then slowly disappearing after they passed from behind a water tower. While, the images are not clear as to what the dots were Nick states the USAF had removed the more impressive sections of the film, which according to him, clearly showed that the objects were disc-shaped objects and not just points of light. Nick had felt that he had recorded two UFOs on film but did he?
The USAF investigated the case and discovered that two F-94s landed at the base shortly after Mariana had filmed the UFOs. In the original news paper release Nick did not mention these jets but in accounts months after the event he suddenly makes it a point to mention seeing them. Was he aware by this time that the USAF was explaining the films as F-94s? He also claimed he had a letter from the USAF stating frames had been removed but when asked for the letter by Dr. Roy Craig of the Condon Study, Mariana stated the letter was lost during his move. Dr. Craig also questioned the one witness who was with Mariana that day, his secretary. When Dr. Craig asked her about the missing footage, she hesitantly replied, "What you have to remember in all this is ...ahh...that Nick Mariana is a 'promoter'" (Craig 231). Could it be that the films were simply of two F-94s that Mariana had initially thought were UFOs?
An in depth analysis of the film has been performed by Dr. R. M. Baker in the 1950s. He determined that F-94s would have to be within six and a half miles to equate to the top speeds of the aircraft. Additionally, Baker realized that the camera should have resolved the forty-foot aircraft at this upper limit, which the camera did not. Baker also felt that the sunlight could not have reflected off of the aircraft for the 16 seconds seen during the film. All of these are good points but have some basic flaws. First, the distance to the F-94s may not have resulted in the F-94s being resolved. In one of his test photographs, Dr. Baker recorded a 100-foot airliner from a distance of twelve miles. It looked a lot like the blobs seen in the film. So convincing was the image, that one of the Blue Book officers had drawn a note on this test image saying to compare this with the original film frames! Therefore, the resolution capabilities of the film are in doubt. On his other main point, Phil Klass points out that he assumed a linear path but if the aircraft were in a parabolic orbit, it would be theoretically possible for them to reflect the sun for this duration. In the Condon report, Dr. Hartmann shows a proposed plot of such a flight path and it appears that the reflection could have lasted as long as sixty seconds if conditions were ideal. Baker assumed that the total duration of the event was much longer than the film. Of course, this assumes that Mariana was accurate about the way the events occurred. However, if these were UFOs, wouldn't they also be subject to the laws of reflection as the aircraft? The images fade out so the idea that these were lit up internally by the UFOs themselves makes this hypothesis unlikely. The images appear to be reflections of something flying through the air but could they have been F-94s?
Baker's opinion was they could not have been F-94s. He has written several reports using his tests he made during the 50s. In one he wrote, "The photographs shown in Appendix II do seem to indicate that airplane reflections might possibly look like the images shown on the film" (Klass UFOs 157). However, in later years he stated, "...planes at the largest distances compatible with these speeds and the angular rate of the image would have been identifiable on film" (Sagan and Page 198). It seems that he dismissed the one photograph he had taken of an airliner from 12 miles away as an anomaly. Couldn't the F-94s also be recorded under the conditions that produced the same effect?
Dr. William Hartmann conducted more evaluation of the films during the Condon study. His conclusions were, "The data at hand indicate that while it strains credibility to suppose the these were airplanes, the possibility nevertheless cannot be entirely ruled out" (Condon 415). Hartmann uses the Mariana excuse for seeing the airplanes as well as the UFOs and the duration of the reflections as his principle reasons for not endorsing the F-94 explanation. As previously stated, the first seems to be a late addition after the fact by Mariana and the other seems to be possible even though it may have certain conditions. Hartmann's conclusions in this case are based partly on Marianna's testimony, which may not be accurate.
I also found it interesting in my research that the F-94s were jets landing only temporarily at the AFB. The AFB at the time was mostly used for transport aircraft. The jet was something new to the civilian public in 1950. The speed of such jets compared to slower propeller driven aircraft may have given Mariana pause to assume that what he was seeing was something unusual when he decided to film the event.
Could it have been F-94s? Dr. Baker seemed to indicate that there was a probability but ignored one of his own test shots. The key may be Dr. Craig's interview with the only other witness present. A possible scenario is that Mariana filmed the event not realizing what he was recording. He then presented the film as UFOs. When it was suggested the F-94s were the cause, he could only take two possible routes (assuming F-94s were the source). The first would be to "brass it out" and figure that nobody would doubt his word or the film. The other was to admit that he had made a mistake and filmed two jets getting ready to land and tried to pass them off as UFOs. For those that suggest this as good evidence of alien visitation, look at the film closely. There are no drastic maneuvers and no distinct images to indicate anything out of the ordinary. The coincidence of two jets (the same number of aircraft as the UFOs) making a landing around the time of the sighting makes one consider that this is a likely source for the images.
Oregon's best case ever: Actual UFO or just a truck mirror on fishing line?
In May of 1950, probably the most "authentic" UFO photograph to date was obtained. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Trent lived in McMinnville, Oregon and were outside one evening when they noticed something odd in the sky. The story that ran with the photographs described what happened:
It was getting along toward evening - about a quarter to eight," said Trent's wife, Evelyn. "We'd been out in the back yard. Both of us saw the object at the same time. The camera! Paul thought it was in the car but I was sure it was in the house. I was right - and the Kodak was loaded with film. Paul took the first picture (above left). The object was coming in toward us and seemed to be tipped up a little bit. It was very bright - almost silvery - and there was no noise or smoke. (Klass UFOs 146)
Years later this story seemed to change a bit. In one case, Mr. Trent was inside the house when the UFO appeared. In other cases, there are additional witnesses who later told the Trent's they had seen the same UFO. With such confusing details, only the basic core story can be considered accurate. That is, the Trent's had photographed the UFO twice during the evening of May 11, 1950. However, there were some interesting results produced from detailed analysis of the images.
Dr. Hartmann of the Condon study closely examined the images and initially concluded, from the brightness levels of the UFO's bottom, that it was of a physical object far away:
This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological,and physical appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses. It cannot be said that the evidence positively rules out a fabrication, although there are some physical factors such as the accuracy of certain photometric measures of the original negatives which argue against a fabrication. (Condon 407)
Despite this potential endorsement, Hartmann also noted the possibility of fabrication. At one point he suggested that an object with a bright shiny bottom could have caused the photometric measurements:
There is one last possibility for fabrication which has not been ruled out. Suppose the object is a small model with a pale grey top and a bright white bottom (e.g. an aluminum pie pan sealed on the bottom with white paper). Could this account for the apparent lightness of the bottom, shaded side of the UFO? (Condon 407)
While Hartmann noticed that shadows in the picture indicated a different time of day than what the witnesses reported, he ignored the implications. It was Robert Sheaffer that wrote to Hartmann and discussed the meaning of these shadows:
The existence of the shadows in the photographs allows us to determine the time of day that the photos were taken, provided that we can accurately determine the solar azimuth...It can be seen that the shadow of the eave farthest right, on the very edge of the garage, has its shadow directly below it, on the extreme edge of the garage. This indicates that the sun is within a few degrees of being due east...A simple astronomical calculation shows that in McMinnville on May 11 the sun is in this position at about 8:20 AM, Pacific Daylight Time. Its elevation is then approximately 25 degrees. (Sheaffer Investigation)
This is in direct contradiction of the story told by the witnesses whom stated it was evening when the event occurred. Philip Klass pointed out that the Trent's may have changed the time of the event since this would explain why potential witnesses that were outside in the morning could have missed the UFO. Sheaffer also demonstrated that any oils/dirt/smudges on the lens would produce faulty photometric measurements. He concluded, "Of course, this does not "prove" that the photographs do not show an extraordinary flying object, but it has shown that there is no reason to believe that they do" (Sheaffer Investigation). When presented with this information Sheaffer, Hartmann agreed with the analysis, writing, "I think Sheaffer's work removes the McMinnville case from consideration as evidence for the existence of the disklike artificial aircraft" (Klass UFOs 150). Hartmann now felt that the pictures were not so convincing.
Dr. Bruce Maccabee completely disagrees with the model concept and Sheaffer's analysis. He has done his share of work on the Trent images since the mid-1970s and proposed that a bright eastern cloud could have reflected the sun's light back towards the house in order to explain the shadow problem discovered by Sheaffer. He even managed to photograph a wooden beam during the evening showing a shadow that was produced by sunlight reflected off of such a cloud. This could indicate that the photographs were taken during the evening. However, Sheaffer's research on weather data showed that there were no such clouds in the area and that such a reflection would not have duplicated the shadows seen in the Trent photographs. Sheaffer added:
What we skeptics want to see is not these shadows; we want instead to see the remarkable cloud causing them, that violated all normal laws of atmospheric optics. Unlike normal clouds and sunset conditions, whose contrast with the background sky diminishes to its lowest value of the day ... this one Super-cloud in the east (it must have been a single object of extremely compact angular size, and extraordinary brightness) got brighter and more contrasty as the sun went down in the west - a type of cloud never reported before or since. (Sheaffer Saucer Smear)
Maccabee does show a photograph of the cloud but if this cloud produced the effects, it was under unusual conditions since he was only able to photograph such a condition once. What would be the chances that a particular type of cloud under just the right conditions would be present that day to produce the shadows under the eaves? Maccabee's point is that unusual circumstances had to exist in order to explain a more likely scenario that indicated the Trent's were not being accurate in recounting what had happened.
Maccabee also puts a lot of weight on the photometric measurements. His conclusion is, "To echo Hartmann, the simplest interpretation of these photos is that they, indeed, show a distant object. However, simplicity does not necessarily imply truth. Further research will be necessary to resolve this case 'once and for all' " (Maccabee Trent). Maccabee, who has endorsed these images as authentic until proven otherwise, has challenged all information indicating that there was a hoax involved. Maccabee's analysis, while apparently thorough, seemed to be done in such a manner to downplay all data indicating a hoax may have occurred.
It was investigator Joel Carpenter whom expanded the analysis of the photographs to a new level in the late 1990s. Joel analyzed the location of the camera and pointed out that it was very low to the ground. The type of camera used would have resulted in two possibilities. The photographer was either kneeling down to take the photograph or he was looking down through a small viewfinder that would have made centering the image difficult. Such a possibility that the photographer would use the worst viewfinder instead of standing up to go through the main viewer increases the probability that the images were obtained in an orderly setup fashion vice a hurried snapshot as described by the Trents. Carpenter writes:
Sparks argues that Trent remained rooted at the spot and must have used the waist-level finder due to his concern about stabilizing the camera. If this theory is correct, Trent actually used the viewfinder that was least likely to permit him to quickly frame the object and produce a stable exposure. Instead of moving toward the object and shooting the photos from eye level in the unobstructed front yard, he shot the two photos up, from a very low level, from the back yard. For reasons explained above, it seems likely that he actually used the viewfinder on the body of the camera while kneeling. The overall geometry of the positions and the attributes of the camera suggest that he was attempting to frame a nearby object in such a way as to maximize the amount of sky around it and enhance its apparent altitude. (Carpenter)
Even more interesting is that Joel noticed that the UFO had a resemblance to a side view mirror of an old truck. This works with Robert Sheaffer's observation that the UFO's center of axis on the "tower" was not in the middle of the UFO but slanted to one side. The use of a mirror would explain why the bottom of the UFO was so bright in the densitometry readings therefore destroying the best reason to believe that the object was far away. Joel also suggested how the UFO was suspended with fishing line using two weights and the line thrown over the overhead wires in the photograph. When one examines the images, the wires do appear to sag downward in the center of the picture near the UFO. Dr. Maccabee, always ready to defend his endorsements of UFO photographs, was dismissive of Carpenter's findings and considered that the likelihood of such a hoax was outside the Trent's ability.
Even though there seems to be no reason for the Trent's to have conducted a hoax, there appears to be sufficient evidence to suggest they did. It probably was a simple trick they tried and it got out of hand (as so many simple hoaxes do). You have to look at how the negatives were treated by the Trent's to realize how little importance they initially gave the pictures. When news reporter William Powell came to the Trent's house to initially obtain the negatives, he discovered that they were "on the floor under a davenport where the Trent children had been playing with them" (Klass UFOs 146). If they had taken an actual image of an alien spaceship, I would think they would have placed them in a safe area for keeping and not on the floor. The lack of care the Trent's gave the negatives indicate they were not that important at the time and, again, indicate the probability of a hoax.
These photographs have been intensely scrutinized by UFOlogists and Skeptics alike. All have presented their opinions/analysis over the years. UFOlogists often rely on the excuse that the Trent's were not smart enough or had no reason to produce such a hoax. Carpenter demonstrated the simplicity of the setup and investigators have known for years that people for reasons other than money or fame will generate hoaxes. Many just want to see if it can be done. In the case of the Trent's, when the images suddenly became big news outside their little community, they would not admit the images were hoaxed to prevent public embarrassment. What may be the best photographs of an unknown physical craft ever taken, may be nothing more than a simple hoax using a truck mirror and some fishing line.
Tremonton, Utah: Birds or extraterrestrial craft?
On July 2, 1952, Navy warrant officer Delbert Newhouse was driving in his car with his family when they noticed a dozen objects nearby. Newhouse describes the events:
Driving from Washington, D.C. to Portland, Ore., on the morning of 2 July my wife noticed a group of objects in the sky that she could not identify. She asked me to stop the car and look. There was a group of about ten or twelve objects - that bore no relation to anything I had seen before - milling about in a rough formation and proceeding in a westerly direction. I opened the luggage compartment of the car and got my camera out of a suitcase. Loading it hurriedly, I exposed approximately thirty feet of film. There was no reference point in the sky and it was impossible for me to make any estimate of speed, size, altitude or distance. Toward the end one of the objects reversed course and proceeded away from the main group. I held the camera still and allowed this single one to cross the field of view, picking it up again and repeating for three or four such passes. By this time all of the objects had disappeared. I expended the balance of the film late that afternoon on a mountain somewhere in Idaho (Condon 419)
The images on the 75-second film showed bright dots that fluctuated in brightness and moved about in a circular pattern. The witnesses heard no sound. With the UFO wave of 1952 near its peak, Newhouse supplied the film to the USAF "for whatever value it may have in connection with your investigation of the so-called 'Flying Saucers' " (Condon 420). Newhouse's film would become a controversial piece of evidence still debated today.
Investigation was conducted by the USAF, which concluded,
"We don't know what they are but they aren't airplanes or balloons and we don't think they were birds" (Ruppelt 221). The Navy's photographic interpretation lab took over at this point and measured the angular velocity of the single object that Newhouse had tracked. The Navy felt the objects were intelligently controlled and appeared to moving at speeds well over the sound barrier measured in the thousands of miles per hour. The film appeared to be showing something extraordinary.
In January 1953, the Robertson Panel was asked to examine the films and had many questions. One of the scientists (apparently this was Luis Alverez, a future Nobel Prize winner), asked to watch the film several times and then offerred the opinion that they appeared to be sea gulls riding a thermal current. Only the navy's speed calculations seemed to indicate they weren't birds. A film was presented later on that showed birds soaring on such thermals. UFOlogist Dr. Michael Swords felt there was something sinister about having such a film so quickly available but Ruppelt readily explains, "We had thought of this possibility several months before..." (Ruppelt 222). They obviously had a film shot long before for comparison during their original analysis. It was no great leap to obtain the film when the question was again raised. There was nothing sinister at all about this bird film but UFOlogists are always willing to create a conspiracy out of nothing. After viewing the film and examining the Navy's analysis, the Robertson panel felt the reasons for the speed problem had to do with the photographer's panning motion during the film and the distance to the objects being overestimated. Ruppelt seemed to reluctantly agree when he saw a flock of birds when he was in Los Angeles,
... they were so high that you couldn't see them until they banked a certain way; then they appeared to be a bright white flash, much larger than one would expect from sea gulls. There was a strong resemblence to the UFO's in the Tremonton Movie. But I'm not sure this is the answer. (Ruppelt 222-3).
It became accepted that birds were the answer to this UFO puzzle but UFOlogists were not about to accept the answer and neither was Newhouse.
In 1955, Dr. Robert Baker conducted an evaluation of the film and also interviewed Newhouse again. Newhouse now added more information that seemed to disagree with his earlier testimony,
When he got out, he observed the objects (twelve to fourteen of them) to be directly overhead and milling about. He described them as 'gun metal colored objects shaped like two saucers, one inverted on top of the other.' He estimated that they subtended 'about the same angle as B29's at 10,000 ft.' (about half a degree i.e. about the angular diameter of the moon). (Condon 420)
In his earliest reports he stated he could not estimate size or distance, now he was able to do this as well as describe the shape. Newhouse suggests before filming they appeared overhead and then went off in the distance when he finally got the camera going. Newhouse, like Mariana with the F-94s, seems to have altered the story in order not to look foolish in misidentifying birds.
Baker's analysis suggested the closest the objects could have been, if they were birds, would be 2000 feet. This makes the speeds not thousands of miles per hour but in the tens of miles per hour. The speed problem had been tentatively answered. However, Baker was not that convinced and later wrote:
A rather appealing explanation is that these objects were birds. On the other hand, this motion is not what one would expect from a flock of soaring birds; there are erratic brightness fluctuations, but there is no indication of periodic decreases in brightness due to turning with the wind or flapping. No cumulus clouds are shown on the film that might betray the presence of a thermal updraft. In addition, there is the soft data question of why a person would be so struck by a flock of birds milling about that he would go to the trouble of photographing them ... I have never seen bird formations so striking that I would not recognize them as birds, or so unusual that I would film them. The motion pictures I have taken of birds at various distances have no similarity to the Utah film. Thus, to my mind, the bird hypothesis is not very satisfying and I classify the objects as anomalistic observational phenomena. (Sagan and Page 200-1)
Baker's statement about never seeing birds appear in the same manner seems to contradict the testimonies of Ruppelt and Alverez, who stated they had. Baker was convinced that these were not birds but his opinion seemed more firmly rooted in a "gut feel" than by scientific reasoning.
Dr. Hartmann, of the Condon study, analyzed the films in the late 1960s. His conclusions differed from Bakers and agreed with the Robertson Panel,
In favor of the hypothesis that the Tremonton objects were birds, probably gulls, we have the following arguments: (1) White gulls are known to be present in the area. (2) Bird-sized objects at a distance of 2,000 ft. would be on the limits of visual resolution, moving at about 45 to 55 mph east to west, with relative motions up to 9 mph; (3) Such motions are independently supported by the testimony that the objects overtook and were first sighted from a moving car traveling toward the NW. The objects were kept in sight until the car was stopped, and nearly a minute and a half of film exposed. (4) Baker points out that the departure of a single object from the group is typical of a bird seeking a new thermal updraft. (5) Variations in motion and brightness suggest wheeling birds. (6) The bulk of informed opinion among those who studied the film, both in and out of the Air Force, is that birds were the most probable explanation.
Arguments against gulls include the following: (1) The distances and velocities cited are on the margin of acceptability. If the gulls were slightly closer, they should have been clearly identified since their angular size would exceed 3 min. of arc; if they were slightly further away, their velocity would become unacceptably high. This argument is considerably weakened by noting that somewhat smaller birds could be unresolvable but slow. (2) Arguments have been raised that the weather conditions would not be conducive to thermal updrafts that would allow long, soaring flights of birds. This is not a strong argument, however, since there is insuffient data concerning weather conditions. (3) No clear, periodic flapping is observed on the film. This is not critical, since there are erratic brightness fluctuations, and since the objects were evidently below the limits of resolution. (4) The strongest negative argument was stated later by the witness that the objects were seen to subtend an angle of about 0.5° and were then seen as gun-metal colored and shaped like two saucers held together rim to rim, but the photographs and circumstances indicate that this observation could not have been meaningful.
Although I cannot offer an expert ornithological opinion, it appears to me that the Tremonton objects constitute a flock of white birds. The data are not conclusive, but I have found nothing in the detailed Blue Book file incompatible with this opinion. The objects are thus provisionally identified as birds, s, when the images suddenly became big news outside their little community, they would not admit the images were hoaxed to prevent public embarrassment. What may be the best photographs of an unknown physical craft ever taken, may be nothing more than a simple hoax using a truck mirror and some fishing line.
Tremonton, Utah: Birds or extraterrestrial craft?
On July 2, 1952, Navy warrant officer Delbert Newhouse was driving in his car with his family when they noticed a dozen objects nearby. Newhouse describes the events:
Driving from Washington, D.C. to Portland, Ore., on the morning of 2 July my wife noticed a group of objects in the sky that she could not identify. She asked me to stop the car and look. There was a group of about ten or twelve objects - that bore no relation to anything I had seen before - milling about in a rough formation and proceeding in a westerly direction. I opened the luggage compartment of the car and got my camera out of a suitcase. Loading it hurriedly, I exposed approximately thirty feet of film. There was no reference point in the sky and it was impossible for me to make any estimate of speed, size, altitude or distance. Toward the end one of the objects reversed course and proceeded away from the main group. I held the camera still and allowed this single one to cross the field of view, picking it up again and repeating for three or four such passes. By this time all of the objects had disappeared. I expended the balance of the film late that afternoon on a mountain somewhere in Idaho (Condon 419)
The images on the 75-second film showed bright dots that fluctuated in brightness and moved about in a circular pattern. The witnesses heard no sound. With the UFO wave of 1952 near its peak, Newhouse supplied the film to the USAF pending any demonstration by other investigators that they could not be birds. There is no conclusive or probative evidence that the case involves extraordinary aircraft. On 23 August 1968 after completion of the above report, I had occasion to drive through Utah and made a point of watching for birds. The countryside near Tremonton is grassy farmland with trees, streams, and meadows. It was within 30 mi. of Tremonton that I noticed the greatest concentration of bird activity. A number of large gulls were seen, some with white bodies and duskytipped wings (rendering the wings indistinct in flight) and some pure white. About 10 mi. south of Tremonton and again about 20 mi. north of Panguitch (in southern Utah) I saw flocks of white or light birds at once distinctly reminiscent of the key witness's films. The birds milled about, the whole group drifting at about 20 or 30 mph. (I noticed no surface wind) and subtending 10° to 20°. The individual birds (in the second case) were not quite resolvable, yet appeared to have some structure. Sometimes pairs would move together and sometimes individuals or pairs would turn and fade out as others became prominent. As suggested by the key witness they appeared to require a telephoto lens for photography. They were not prominent, but distinctly curious once noted - a group of white objects milling about in the sky. (The only proof that my second group of objects, which I observed from a considerable distance, were indeed birds, was that I saw them take off.) These observations give strong evidence that the Tremonton films do show birds, as hypothesized above, and I now regard the objects as so indentified (sic). (Condon 425-6)
Despite the protests of Baker, it seems that Newhouse had filmed a flock of birds and later altered his story to make it appear they were something else.
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