2005/07/16 (EN)
FOTOCAT case # status
Physically, FOTOCAT is an Excel file of UFO and IFO cases where an image has been obtained on photo, film or video. It contains various data columns to register the date, location and country, explanation (if one exists), photographer’s name, special photographic features, references, etc. When completed, the full catalog will be posted in internet , for an indiscriminate access to the worldwide UFO community.
The number of events cataloged at the time of writing is 5,756. In addition to the normal “biological growth” of the catalog, many past entries have been added from valuables listings for Argentina or Italy, as well as from the photographic cases from the USAF Blue Book project’s monthly report indexes that can be reached through the extraordinary database of http://www.bluebookarchive.org
Precisely, a new data column has just been added to the FOTOCAT structure: “Blue Book Files”. Its purpose being to record which cases are documented in the USAF UFO Project, 1947-1969. It will also be an index to the posterior retrieval of actual documentation from the BB site.
An expanded version of my report “The Year 1954 in Photos” is avaliable here:http://www.box.net/shared/y1mufymo8w
International Assistance
This section reports contributions received from new collaborators (or from regular ones which most recent contribution is considered outstanding). In addition to the new names cited here, many others are regularly contributing to the enlargement of FOTOCAT.
George Eberhart, CUFOS staff member and author of memorable, encyclopedic UFO bibliographies, has provided some interesting, little known UFO photographic postcards. Lawyer and journalist Dr. Anthony Choy, from Peru, a collaborator to the Peruvian Air Force’ s Anomalous Aerial Phenomena Research Office, is closely cooperating with FOTOCAT in the review of cases on record from Peru. Voice of America´s journalist and long-time researcher and author Milton W. Hourcade is helping with the cases from Uruguay.
Sergio Canosa from Uruguay sent us a so-called “invisible” UFO photo recently taken by his wife while they were in Argentina.
Klaus Webner from Germany has provided some interesting input to consider. Wendy Connors is a veteran UFO researcher from New Mexico (USA) and an author of several reports covering some aspects of the UFO history. Her project Faded Discs is a superb collection of old-time radio recordings. She has kindly delivered to us a set of her audio CDs, some of them based on cases pertinent to our catalog.
Dr David Clarke, British sociologist and author (amongst others) of the remarkable book Out of the Shadows, did contribute some valuable pieces for the enlarged paper on the 1954 photographic reports.
Hailing from Brazil, Rodolfo Gauthier, as well as Carlos Alberto Machado, who is the chairman of CIPEX group, have also assisted in an informative manner.
Catalog Tally
Some basic statistics derived from FOTOCAT.
US Reports by State
The table that follows counts the number of FOTOCAT reports in the USA distributed by State. There are 1,719 cases in total and five States amount to almost 40% of the total: California, New York, Florida, Arizona and Texas. In theory, size, population, media and researchers factors should account for the differences. If there is any sociologist willing to examine this into more detail, FOTOCAT Project will gladly provide any additional background information needed.
Invited Article
Where regularly we will include any published literary piece on curious phenomenology.
10 Years of Scientific Research of the Hessdalen Phenomena
By Bjørn Gitle Hauge, Assistant professor, Østfold University College, Norway
Courtesy of Renzo Cabassi, Italian Committee for Project Hessdalen
For full text, please click on paper here.
Abstract
The author has been a member of the Hessdalen project research team for the last decade, and he has participated in the development of the Hessdalen interactive observatory, also called the "blue box". The author has a master degree in electronics and specializes in electromagnetic transmission. He has a long experience with radar and radio transmission from the Royal Norwegian Navy. Assistant professor Erling Strand, the founder of the Hessdalen project, conducted together with the author the first international congress of the Hessdalen phenomena in 1994. This congress attracted scientists from all over the world and boosted the scientific research in Hessdalen. Statements from the congress indicated that explanation of the phenomena could lead to new concepts in physics. This congress also started the collaboration between Østfold University College in Norway and CNR in Italy. Together with Dr. Stelio Montebugnoli the author started the EMBLA project, with the purpose of studying the electromagnetic radiation and behaviour of the Hessdalen phenomena in 1999. The author has participated in a number of investigations in Hessdalen, the last with the Italian Committee for Project Hessdalen winter mission in 2004. Since 1998 automatic surveillance of the valley has been done by the Hessdalen interactive observatory. Despite of 24-hour surveillance and well manned and equipped research campaigns in the EMBLA project, no mayor breakthrough has been done. Spectacular pictures and video recordings have been obtained, but correlation with other scientific measurements is hard to find. No "fingerprint" of electromagnetic radiation from the phenomena has been obtained which can identify an unknown light source as the real Hessdalen phenomena. The research has so far demonstrated that the Hessdalen phenomena is difficult to investigate, and explanations hard to find. Despite of this, the EMBLA/CIPH team has gained significant experience in this kind of scientific study and it is possibly the most competent team to carry out such expeditions in the world. The key to the solution lies in scientific knowledge and economic resources, and this solution may show us the way to a new storing mechanism for energy.
Ufoworld News
This is a brief item report for the serious and critical-minded UFO researcher. Some selected information sources which I judge of interest for gaining knowledge from a scientifically-oriented perspective.
Pseudo-photographic UFOs produced by the Sun
With today’s popularity of cameras, both conventional and digital, it is very common to find the apparition of lens flares and reflections produced by the incidence of sun rays in the camera lenses. The fact that in some cases the sun does not appear within the picture’s visual field does not conflict with this frequent explanation of image anomalies in the pictures. The following web is recommended reading (although it is in Portuguese, the graphics and the photos speak by themselves):
http://www.infa.com.br/imagens_fora_de_foco.html
Talking about lens flares, three of the many recently-known cases have been compared with another photograph which is held as a potential UFO. Manuel Borraz, the Spanish telecommunications engineer who has analyzed many UFO observations with great insight, has prepared the following photographic composition where we can see the images achieved (left side, from top to bottom) in Bariloche, Argentina (September 11, 2004), Cachi, Argentina (November 2004) and Tombstone, Arizona (December 2003), compared to (right side) the September 6, 2001 fuzzy UFO photographed in Florence, Oregon. The last case is described in http://brumac.8k.com/ORedSphere/OregonRedSphere.html
In all cases the sun was out of the picture field. Differences are that the first 3 typical lens flares were taken with digital cameras, while the Oregon photo was taken with a Canon camera with 35 mm film. It may explain some differences in the reflection’s structure. Such lens flares, being virtual artifacts, cannot be seen externally to the camera by the eye, but the Oregon photographer still maintains he saw the red globe before he got the snap. I frankly doubt it.
The spontaneous production of image aberrations of this kind is at the order of the day. As an example, FOTOCAT contains 186 cases of such “invisible” UFOs (unseen by the photographer) in the period 2000-2005, 17% of all 1,122 cases known in this time segment.
Call to readers
Your volunteer collaboration to the FOTOCAT Project is requested, please write to ballesterolmos@yahoo.es
We will supply you with state, regional, provincial, or national catalogs for you to check and enlarge.
If you are willing to donate photographic materials, files, literature, etc., feel free to use the following postal address:
Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos
Apartado de Correos 12140
46080 Valencia
SPAIN
Physically, FOTOCAT is an Excel file of UFO and IFO cases where an image has been obtained on photo, film or video. It contains various data columns to register the date, location and country, explanation (if one exists), photographer’s name, special photographic features, references, etc. When completed, the full catalog will be posted in internet , for an indiscriminate access to the worldwide UFO community.
The number of events cataloged at the time of writing is 5,756. In addition to the normal “biological growth” of the catalog, many past entries have been added from valuables listings for Argentina or Italy, as well as from the photographic cases from the USAF Blue Book project’s monthly report indexes that can be reached through the extraordinary database of http://www.bluebookarchive.org
Precisely, a new data column has just been added to the FOTOCAT structure: “Blue Book Files”. Its purpose being to record which cases are documented in the USAF UFO Project, 1947-1969. It will also be an index to the posterior retrieval of actual documentation from the BB site.
An expanded version of my report “The Year 1954 in Photos” is avaliable here:http://www.box.net/shared/y1mufymo8w
The
brief article in Spanish “El joven que debería ir más de
discotecas” (The youngster who should go more to the Disco),
devoted to a series of alleged UFO photos that have been identified
as the Moon has been posted here: http://www.webcitation.org/6mmRSNxVa
International Assistance
This section reports contributions received from new collaborators (or from regular ones which most recent contribution is considered outstanding). In addition to the new names cited here, many others are regularly contributing to the enlargement of FOTOCAT.
George Eberhart, CUFOS staff member and author of memorable, encyclopedic UFO bibliographies, has provided some interesting, little known UFO photographic postcards. Lawyer and journalist Dr. Anthony Choy, from Peru, a collaborator to the Peruvian Air Force’ s Anomalous Aerial Phenomena Research Office, is closely cooperating with FOTOCAT in the review of cases on record from Peru. Voice of America´s journalist and long-time researcher and author Milton W. Hourcade is helping with the cases from Uruguay.
Sergio Canosa from Uruguay sent us a so-called “invisible” UFO photo recently taken by his wife while they were in Argentina.
Klaus Webner from Germany has provided some interesting input to consider. Wendy Connors is a veteran UFO researcher from New Mexico (USA) and an author of several reports covering some aspects of the UFO history. Her project Faded Discs is a superb collection of old-time radio recordings. She has kindly delivered to us a set of her audio CDs, some of them based on cases pertinent to our catalog.
Dr David Clarke, British sociologist and author (amongst others) of the remarkable book Out of the Shadows, did contribute some valuable pieces for the enlarged paper on the 1954 photographic reports.
Hailing from Brazil, Rodolfo Gauthier, as well as Carlos Alberto Machado, who is the chairman of CIPEX group, have also assisted in an informative manner.
Catalog Tally
Some basic statistics derived from FOTOCAT.
US Reports by State
The table that follows counts the number of FOTOCAT reports in the USA distributed by State. There are 1,719 cases in total and five States amount to almost 40% of the total: California, New York, Florida, Arizona and Texas. In theory, size, population, media and researchers factors should account for the differences. If there is any sociologist willing to examine this into more detail, FOTOCAT Project will gladly provide any additional background information needed.
Invited Article
Where regularly we will include any published literary piece on curious phenomenology.
10 Years of Scientific Research of the Hessdalen Phenomena
By Bjørn Gitle Hauge, Assistant professor, Østfold University College, Norway
Courtesy of Renzo Cabassi, Italian Committee for Project Hessdalen
For full text, please click on paper here.
Abstract
The author has been a member of the Hessdalen project research team for the last decade, and he has participated in the development of the Hessdalen interactive observatory, also called the "blue box". The author has a master degree in electronics and specializes in electromagnetic transmission. He has a long experience with radar and radio transmission from the Royal Norwegian Navy. Assistant professor Erling Strand, the founder of the Hessdalen project, conducted together with the author the first international congress of the Hessdalen phenomena in 1994. This congress attracted scientists from all over the world and boosted the scientific research in Hessdalen. Statements from the congress indicated that explanation of the phenomena could lead to new concepts in physics. This congress also started the collaboration between Østfold University College in Norway and CNR in Italy. Together with Dr. Stelio Montebugnoli the author started the EMBLA project, with the purpose of studying the electromagnetic radiation and behaviour of the Hessdalen phenomena in 1999. The author has participated in a number of investigations in Hessdalen, the last with the Italian Committee for Project Hessdalen winter mission in 2004. Since 1998 automatic surveillance of the valley has been done by the Hessdalen interactive observatory. Despite of 24-hour surveillance and well manned and equipped research campaigns in the EMBLA project, no mayor breakthrough has been done. Spectacular pictures and video recordings have been obtained, but correlation with other scientific measurements is hard to find. No "fingerprint" of electromagnetic radiation from the phenomena has been obtained which can identify an unknown light source as the real Hessdalen phenomena. The research has so far demonstrated that the Hessdalen phenomena is difficult to investigate, and explanations hard to find. Despite of this, the EMBLA/CIPH team has gained significant experience in this kind of scientific study and it is possibly the most competent team to carry out such expeditions in the world. The key to the solution lies in scientific knowledge and economic resources, and this solution may show us the way to a new storing mechanism for energy.
Ufoworld News
This is a brief item report for the serious and critical-minded UFO researcher. Some selected information sources which I judge of interest for gaining knowledge from a scientifically-oriented perspective.
Pseudo-photographic UFOs produced by the Sun
With today’s popularity of cameras, both conventional and digital, it is very common to find the apparition of lens flares and reflections produced by the incidence of sun rays in the camera lenses. The fact that in some cases the sun does not appear within the picture’s visual field does not conflict with this frequent explanation of image anomalies in the pictures. The following web is recommended reading (although it is in Portuguese, the graphics and the photos speak by themselves):
http://www.infa.com.br/imagens_fora_de_foco.html
Talking about lens flares, three of the many recently-known cases have been compared with another photograph which is held as a potential UFO. Manuel Borraz, the Spanish telecommunications engineer who has analyzed many UFO observations with great insight, has prepared the following photographic composition where we can see the images achieved (left side, from top to bottom) in Bariloche, Argentina (September 11, 2004), Cachi, Argentina (November 2004) and Tombstone, Arizona (December 2003), compared to (right side) the September 6, 2001 fuzzy UFO photographed in Florence, Oregon. The last case is described in http://brumac.8k.com/ORedSphere/OregonRedSphere.html
In all cases the sun was out of the picture field. Differences are that the first 3 typical lens flares were taken with digital cameras, while the Oregon photo was taken with a Canon camera with 35 mm film. It may explain some differences in the reflection’s structure. Such lens flares, being virtual artifacts, cannot be seen externally to the camera by the eye, but the Oregon photographer still maintains he saw the red globe before he got the snap. I frankly doubt it.
The spontaneous production of image aberrations of this kind is at the order of the day. As an example, FOTOCAT contains 186 cases of such “invisible” UFOs (unseen by the photographer) in the period 2000-2005, 17% of all 1,122 cases known in this time segment.
Call to readers
Your volunteer collaboration to the FOTOCAT Project is requested, please write to ballesterolmos@yahoo.es
We will supply you with state, regional, provincial, or national catalogs for you to check and enlarge.
If you are willing to donate photographic materials, files, literature, etc., feel free to use the following postal address:
Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos
Apartado de Correos 12140
46080 Valencia
SPAIN
© Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos Link
