• Leer en español

2006/10/27 (EN)

FOTOCAT Status
Physically, FOTOCAT is an Excel file of UFO and IFO cases where an image was obtained in photography, film or video. Contains various data columns to record the date , time, place , province and country, explanation (if any) , photographer's name, special photographic features , references, etc. . When completed , the full catalog will be accessible from the Internet for free consultation of the worldwide UFO community.
  • Number of cases
Today , the bank data FOTOCAT reached the figure of 6,908 reports , representing a modest but steady increase of 158 cases from the previous quarter. I remember the catalog ends on December 31, 2005 .
  • Available FOTOCAT Report # 2
We have completed the second technical report produced FOTOCAT data . It is available to all readers in two versions , English and Castilian -, so you just have to click the Research Papers section of this Blog: Argentina, The year 1965 in Photos .

This work represents the most thorough comprehensive collection of UFO photographic cases generated wave in Argentina during 1965. The key components of this test are the summaries of the cases , the results of recent research on the sightings , a rich graphical support and analysis of the period under study.

International Collaboration
This section reports contributions received from new collaborators ( or regular ones which are relevant recent contributions ) . In addition to those cited here, many others are regularly contributing to the growth of FOTOCAT .

Thank Guatemala colleague Gerardo E. Mendoza Palacios information provided concerning photographic observations in your country.

In the process of establishing the complex panorama of photographs and films taken in New Zealand in the period December 1978 to January 1979, Dr. Bruce Maccabee has helped us with advice and sending an unpublished essay written in 2005 entitled A History of the New Zealand Sightings of December 31 , 1978.

Gems from the past
In this section some UFO photographs from past decades with a new interpretation will be reviewed.
  • 1952 graphic document comes to light
It is no longer unusual to find old photographs of UFO - fifties , for example - that are unknown to the specialist. But this one just happened when the skeptical French Raoul Robé ( member groups as notable CNEGU and SCEAU ) referred to this chart FOTOCAT Project document, published in the magazine Point de Vue . Images du Monde , corresponding to August 21, 1952 , page 31. Shows a pair of UFOs over an eminently tourist site of the capital of Spain in 1952. In summary, the brief note accompanying the photo says noted French illustrator Jean Boullet he took the photograph " three weeks ago ." I was photographing this monument to Cervantes with the figures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza when a passerby asked if he had seen flying saucers , to which he replied no. However, if the film got .

The opportunity to take scenic seems that exceeds any random chance , and considering the author's profession , so I'm afraid that some form of trick has been implemented in order to show Don Quixote fighting the flying discs . We note that in 1953 , the painter Jean Boullet authored the book D'Icare aux Soucoupes Volantes , a picture book by hand on the history of air traffic and aviation , with a series of drawings of flyers at the end plates.
  • Buenos Aires , 17/09/1985 : Best UFO photographs
The website recommended Argentine researcher Luís Eduardo Pacheco, just made available to order the complete series of excellent photographs taken by photographer Guillermo E. Sierra technician from the Observatory of the National University of La Plata ( Buenos Aires , Argentina ) of object was seen on that memorable morning of September 17, 1985 :
The profuse research Pacheco as well as other scholars and amateur astronomer Carlos A. Demaria , proved beyond reasonable doubt that it was the overflight of a balloon 40 feet in diameter infrared MIR research (Montgolfier Infrarogue) of French CNES , which has been confirmed conclusively by this scientific institution .

There I found an unpublished document from the photographic collection of Roberto Enrique Banchs generously donated to FOTOCAT Project. The Argentina Air Force fighter moved to recognize the UFO that had entered its airspace. Since military aircraft pictures were taken and one which is presented below , as our own original contribution to this sighting.
  • About the film of the solar eclipse of June 30, 1954

He had written that the alleged UFO film shot by Johnny Björnulf when he was aboard a plane on June 30, 1954 , to observe and photograph over Norway on total solar eclipse that day , did not reflect anything other than solar reflections in the airplane window. The renowned Swedish researcher Clas Svahn has included a note about this well documented case in updating your personal blog of October 6, 2006 , showing the keys of the conventional explanation : 

Among other things, we learned that the author of the film was really Raun Conradi , a partner of Mr. Björnulf .

Photo example
This section will display directly sightings reported to FOTOCAT .
  • More on " UFO last picture of Poland"
In the previous update of this blog I presented a series of photographs taken in Poland on January 8, 2006 I was referred by a local research group .

As the photos I beyond the temporal scope of this catalog do not intend to give the event more coverage , except to provide a recent report in English by Wojciech Bobilewicz on the alleged sighting , for the benefit of interested readers (click here) and pass some comments received from Nick Balaskas , Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of York in Toronto (Canada ) . For this, I refer the reader to the English section (above). Entirely left to the reader to form their own judgment about this intricate story .

Count Catalogue
Some basic statistics derived from FOTOCAT .
  • Spain by Province
After the United States ( 1,987 records) and Argentina ( 745 records) , Spain is the third largest contributor of cases to FOTOCAT spreadsheet with 622 records.
This quarter we will look at the provincial distribution of cases in our country. Of the 51 Spanish provinces , there in only 2 reports ( Segovia and African spaces Ceuta and Melilla) . For the remaining , the figures vary in magnitude depending on the population, the existing means of communication , the availability of researchers , as well as other factors to be determined. For 11 reports the locality is unknown or too vague to tabulate . This is the geographic distribution :
Provincias
As more groups and individuals to commit to the goals of the project FOTOCAT , we expect these numbers to increase in the future , until a comprehensive view of the " UFO phenomenon in photos " in Spain is reached. I reiterate my invitation to all national ufologists .

Guest article
Regularly we will include some work on curious phenomenology we deem of interest to disclose .
None this quarter.

UFO World News
A brief report for the serious researcher and critical . Sources of information selected judge of interest to acquire knowledge from a scientific perspective orientation.
  • " Workshop " over Hessdalen phenomena
Organized by the Italian Committee for Project Hessdalen ( ICPH , according to its acronym in English ) , on June 17 took place at the visitor center Medicina radiotelescope in Bologna (Italy ) an international workshop on Project Hessdalen . Nine formal lectures were presented and also submitted several short papers , by a team of researchers from Norway, France and Italy. For details of this specialized symposium , see the link below http://www.itacomm.net/PH/NewsLetter_complex.pdf .

Latest news: The September 16, 2006 , Jader Monari and Fiocchi Franco (INAF / IRA , Radiotelescopes Medicine , Bologna ) visited Hessdalen , where they were joined by Erling Strand and Bjørn Hauge Gitle ( Østfold University College, Halden , Norway ), its group and students. The main objective of the mission was established during the recent international workshop on Hessdalen : incorporate new tools for collecting data in the Automatic Measurement Station , and update existing software instrumentation . The mission lasted seven days.

Thank Renzo Cabassi ( ICPH ) this information. To contact the organization can be written to this address : cabassi@itacomm.net . The website is in ICPH : http://www.itacomm.net/PH .
  • Willy Smith has died
De izquierda a derecha: Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Miguel Guasp y
Willy Smith, en casa del primero.
The July 11, 2006 , Dr. Willy Smith died in Miami after a short illness. We were good friends and on his first trip to Spain in 1967 , we have evidence that Miguel Guasp and exercised an important influence. Known primarily for the development of UNICAT , a catalog of nearly a thousand high strangeness UFO sightings , which developed with Dr. J. Allen Hynek , who was joined by a strong friendship until his death. Great debater , uncompromising character , fought with everyone who did not come to agree with him and , unfortunately , after a quarter century of understanding also was my turn. But I prefer to remember you when I visit home , when they met with my colleagues, when I passed in July 1993 a conference at his home in Florida or eating seafood paella with my family at the beach Malvarrosa . Rest in Peace , Willy !
  • A look of UFOs over Madrid
On 23 July, Vicente Fuentes Rodriguez, a 3rd year industrial engineering from Madrid and " amateur UFO investigator ," wrote the Anomaly Foundation an e- mail on behalf of a person ( the initials NG) had got a recording of 1000 or 2000 bright objects in the sky over Madrid on 10 June 2006 at 19.15 hours . Our correspondent described the scene , which he watched from the neighborhood of El Pilar, as " UFO formation with its own light emission , formation of geometric figures , smart move , UFO groups merging " etc. . In sum , described the recording of " perfect " and requested our help to spread it.

The following two video clips containing different sequences of the film , including a view of the quiet streets of Madrid during the "invasion" :



Consulted our Madrid colleagues , Heriberto Janosch correlated once said profusion of UFOs over the capital of Spain with the release of thousands of white balloons after the demonstration organized by the Association of Victims of Terrorism that afternoon in the center of Madrid , which ended at 7pm . See for this:

This stunning photograph of the newspaper El Mundo realizes instantly launching balloons.

© Diario El Mundo, Madrid
Surely these balloons were also what JM photographed that afternoon from Las Rozas , a town less than 20 kilometers west of Madrid , reaching confuse observer who appreciated as 40 or 50 round objects moved from SE to NW quite high (the direction of the winds that day was ESE to WNW ) .

Detail of one of the objects from photographs taken from
Las Rozas on 10/6/06 .
Returning to our initial correspondent , the student who sent us the recording, he writes in September that " after months of study ... I ended up agreeing with you that makes sense ... watching the video records the cloud of balloons ... the direction of wind and recording location and time agree and direction , according to the Meteorological Institute to which I have directed to investigate it personally. " I welcome the change of heart.

  • New data on the fireball of June 2, 2004
At zero hours and four minutes of June 2, 2004 a luminous phenomenon of great magnitude took place over the skies of the Iberian Peninsula. There are observers distant regions such as Galicia , Castile and Andalusia , as well as from various locations in Portugal. There is a photograph taken in Portugal. A brief report thereon mine can be read on the website of the Anomaly Foundation http://www.webcitation.org/6mmRSNxW4

The Research Network Fireballs and Meteorites of Spain designates the magnitude of the phenomenon of brightness values ​​between -4 and -10 , which is surprisingly bright , and describes it as "like a fireball but extraordinarily slow object , long-lived , 2-3 minutes " , which suggests " artificial meteors "(ie , those produced by reentry or missiles ) . See: http://www.spmn.uji.es/ESP/SPMNarti.html

Recently it has contacted us astronomer aficionadoy computer engineering student Jesus Merchan Rubira , who has provided us with a report and a photograph of the phenomenon, who was lucky to get when that day was on the roof of a building city ​​of Alcorcón (Madrid ), trying to photograph the comet NEAT . For his great descriptive value , I transcribe the words of an eyewitness :

© Jesus Merchan Rubira , Deneb Astronomical Association , 2/6/2004 .
"I was looking at NW when that object began to glow . At first it seemed an airplane is moving horizontally with → North West direction at about 23 degrees elevation above the horizon. The object visible to the naked eye and long, began leaving behind a cloud of smoke or gas, as queue very open comet, which grew to occupy a sky area of about 10 º x 10 º . Both the object and the cloud had a yellowish hue . It was then that I saw clearly that object began to turn on itself and has to describe an erratic trajectory rising above the horizon and continuing its westward . After this event , very impressed as I thought it was an accident, hastily prepared my tripod and camera equipment . The time of maximum magnitude was precisely at that moment , while the object was tumbling out of control through the atmosphere. When I set the material, the whole had lost enough brightness and object had already disintegrated into several fragments that descended very slowly ( it took 3 or 4 minutes to reach the horizon ) less than the initial object brightness , that it is the time captured by the only picture I could take. "

The official statement from the French Ministry of Defence , issued June 3 , indicated that the joint training exercise of the Directorate General of Armaments ( DGA ) and the French Navy was part of the campaign to prepare the nuclear submarine Le Vigilant , equipped with ballistic missiles. During the flight several initiatives for the future replacement for the M51 M45 missile in early 2010 technological innovations were tested. The shot was monitored from the Testing Center Landes (CEL ) and telemetry from the ship Monge.

I appreciate the information provided by Jean -Jacques Serra , a scientist at the Directorate General of Armaments ( DGA ) of the French Defense Ministry , Dr. Jonathan McDowell , director of the Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (Harvard University) , by Dr. Ed Cannon University of Texas, and Jose Maria Navarro , Madrid.

New book by Richard Field
Ricardo Campo ( BA in Philosophy and journalist) is one of those well-informed skeptics who do not mock the UFO phenomenon but criticized mercilessly abusing the good faith or ignorance of the public. From that point of view I think that even a believer in the HET will agree that his new book published this year is a public service . I personally recommend it as required reading :

Los ovnis, ¡vaya timo!
Editorial Laetoli , SL
Avenida de Bayona , 40 , 5th
31011 Pamplona
  • Crew Earth Observations NASA Photography
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/ is the link to the NASA site "Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth ." Welcomes the best and most comprehensive collection of photographs of the Earth collected by astronauts from 1961 to the present.

You can browse through the collections of photographs to select the most impressive images and click on an Earth map with blocks of 2.5 x 2.5 degrees to find the photos available from this geographical area . And for those more familiar with this database , you can perform search techniques that allow complex searches across multiple fields. Definitely a very useful tool.
  • Call your feedback
We ask for your cooperation with the altruistic FOTOCAT Project. Please write to : ballesterolmos@yahoo.es 
Supply you regional , provincial or national for review and enlarge .
If you want to donate photographic materials , files or literature to be preserved , please use the following address :
Vicente -Juan Ballester Olmos
PO Box 12140
46080 Valencia
Spain

For those readers who live in Valencia and want to do volunteer work , I invite you to write .

© Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos Link