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UFO-Forschung - Beispiel von ungenügender Recherche bei MUFON

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Wie Fall-Untersuchungen ausgehen können wenn einfachste Grundregel-Recherchen auf Grund Zeugenaussagen ausgelassen werden und man dann sich selbst die Lösung vernebelt, kann man in nachfolgenden MUFON-Fall sehen. Dies ist zwar ein Fall aus der USA aber hier in Deutschland findet man bei den sich selbst nennenden "drei großen UFO-Forschungsgruppen" ebenfalls Fälle welche durch ungenügende Recherchen zu Good-Ufo-Fälle in deren Publikationen zu bewundern sind. 

CENAP

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MOOfoN investigation falls short

MUFON has recently promoted a case on the open minds forum that they have declared as “unknown” after an investigation. It
involved a video and eyewitness report from Nashville, Tennessee on August 15, 2016. After examining the original report,

noticed that some details were missed by the investigators that prevented an explanation.

The sighting report

The witness told a story where he went out on a smoke break at 3AM on August 15th. He noticed a bright yellow line low in the sky near the horizon and recorded it on video. The witness originally thought it was the moon behind clouds but would state that it could not be the moon because the moon was overhead. He added that he had an uneasy feeling (like he was being watched) several hours prior to the sighting.

Missing details

As is typical for MUFON, they only present the report and do not bother to give us how the investigation was conducted. One would think MUFON would bother to publish specifics about the investigation because important details were missing from the witness’ report and their press release.

  • We have no idea what type of cell phone was used to image the sequence.

  • We have no idea what direction the witness was facing.

  • We have no idea where the witness was located other than “Nashville”.

    I am sure these details were known to the investigator but why weren’t they made available to everyone else? Is there a reason that MUFON fails to release their formal investigation reports when they make public announcements?

    Getting the direction

    The one detail that was most important was the direction the observer was facing. I managed to determine the direction by look- ing at the photograph the witness took in daylight. Fortunately, the EXIF data was in the image and it states that it was taken at 7:12 AM on August 15th. In the image, we can see the shadow of the photographer. The azimuth angle of the sun at that time was about 80 degrees, which means the shadows would extend towards the 260 degree angle. Since the shadow of the photographer extends parallel to the right of the image. This means the direction of observation was towards the Southwest. Was there some- thing in that direction that might have been the source of the observation?

    The probable source

    One has to wonder about the witness statement about the moon. A cursory check of Moonrise and Moonset times indicates the

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    moon was not overhead at 3AM as the witness stated. In fact, it set at 3:17 AM for Nashville on August 15th. The azimuth for

    moonset was 247 degrees, which is in the southwest. If this is true, where is the moon in the recording?

    The weather that morning was not clear. Weather records indicate scattered clouds at the time of the sighting.3 The daylight pho- tograph, taken four hours later, shows high clouds. Therefore, the probable solution is exactly what the witness had suggested but then dismissed. It was the setting moon visible through the clouds.

mufon-fall-a

mufon-fall-aa

Possible confirmation?

The EXIF data in the daytime image indicates the camera was a Samsung S6. I compared my G4 with a friend’s S6. Both showed the same image scale at full zoom, which is what the witness stated in the video. In an effort to duplicate the result in the video, I took a still image of the moon in daylight with my LG G4 phone at full digital zoom. I then scaled the two images using the width of the frame. In my image, the moon’s diameter is roughly 52 pixels. The image on the video grab was roughly 48 pixels. Considering that the image in the video only shows us part of the moon’s full diameter, this test tends to confirm that it could have been the moon that was recorded.

MUFON investigation failure?

One has to wonder how a supposedly thorough investigation by MUFON could have ignored this possible explanation. Is it possible the investigator ruled out the moon because the witness said it was overhead? If so, this means the investigator did not research the case beyond what the witness stated. If the investigator did determine the moon was not overhead, why did he promote the case as if the witness was reliable?

In my opinion, there a UFO bias by some MUFON/UFO investigators. Those individuals appear to be motivated by producing re- ports with an unknown conclusion instead of being motivated to solve a case. Perhaps there needs to be some refresher training or some kind of quality control within MUFON. Are they rubber stamping investigations prior to issuing a press release or are the reviewers of these investigations just as biased towards reaching a desired conclusion of “unknown”? In either case, the results of the investigation, and subsequent promotion of the event, indicates MUFON is not interested in employing any scientific approach in evaluating these UFO reports.

Quelle: SUNlite 6/2016

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