Eight Minutes Old

Florian Freistetter announced the competition ‘Who fakes the best UFO image‘. As I always wanted do try this out, I faked two pictures. To test whether they might be accepted by the UFO Community, I have posted each of them in a forum, including a short background story and a fake name.

And, as these are my only fakes up to date, I decided to participate at the ‘Your Best Fake’ blog-parade over at Shockmotion, too.

The Story

Hello, my name is Patrick Weinheim. I am new to this forum and to the whole topics of UFOs. I came here because a friend suggested that you might help me. I hope I post this in the right place of this forum.  In December last year I spend several weeks in Australia, visiting friends in Canberra. I am a photographer and very much enjoyed that there was summer on the southern hemisphere (I am from Germany) so I could shoot infrared pictures. I use black and white infrared film and love that the results are somewhat unpredictable and show things we don’t see that way with our eyes.  Now, after going back to Germany, I have developed my films. On one, I found a strange structure in the sky (scan, not cropped, no corrections applied but resized):

…

It was a hot and very sunny day with a clear blue sky. There were no planes or helicopters around and all I saw were some white clouds near the horizon. The picture was taken close to Tidbinbilla, a nature reserve, at about 1pm. Wikipedia tells me that some kilometers away there is a NASA station, the Deep Space Communications Complex. I have already showed this photo to friends who are photographers too, but nobody could explain it. That is why one of them suggested it might be a UFO that was not visible to my eyed, but to the film. That is why I would like to ask you experts: what can it be? I am sceptical about a UFO because it does not look like a flying saucer at all. Have you previously heard of strange things appearing on infrared films?

The first photo was at least not immediately rejected in the forum. It was suggested to send the negative to MUFON, speculated that this might be an incredible stealth technology if real. The object might be designed for atmospheric flight with jets or fans. Other ideas are that someone might have thrown something in the air while I took the photo. Up to now, nobody suggested it might be photoshopped! The suggestive might of film photography.

In detail:

The other one, in an Australian forum, was spotted immediately to be a radio dish. But still I like the picture, it is more classical, showing a flying saucer.

The Making-Of

Most of the details are true: The pictures are shot on infrared black and white film, also the UFOs. But of course they are from an other picture on the same film. They are parts of a model of the Voyager Spacecraft which you can find at the entrance to the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex. See yourself:

The photo is actually a rather bad one, but good enough to cut out some unknown ‘flying’ objects So, in fact what you see in the photos are indeed spacecraft (-parts)

My story is also true in many respects: The photos are from Australia, close to Tidbinbilla, shot around noon in December on a bright and sunny day. And it is also true that I did not see any flying object in the scenery, of course. The interesting thin is that film photographs seem to be accepted better, there is a negative you can check. I wonder if one could not fake that one, too: Just take a photo of the faked image. What do you think: should I try it? I think I would go to far with faking the negative, but maybe you are of other opinions?

Tags: Canberra, Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, Rollei Infrared, Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, ufo community, UFOs, Australia, black and white, Clouds, Fakes, Film Photography, Filter, Infared Photograpy, Sceptic, Sky, Space Flight, Spacecraft, Space

Here I am again, from Australia. I didn’t post earlier because of two reasons. First: I was overwhelmed by the palace here. The landscape around Canberra is magnificent. Especially the view from the Mount Stromlo Observatory. Due to the huge bushfire in 2003, the forest on the mountain was lost. This gives a wonderful view of the surrounding hills and of the city of Canberra. The second reason was work: I am not here as a tourist, but had to concentrate on the talk I was to give. (And squeezed in some sight-seeing, which I found more important than sitting around with my laptop in some spot where I could find free WiFi to blog, sorry. The apartment unfortunately didn’t have internet.)

Now, where shall I start? Well, I gave my talk last Friday, which was well received, with lot’s of interested questions and discussions. The discussions here have been fruitful, I had the chance to learn more about the ‘Stromlo Missing Satellites Survey’ and right now several new ideas for my future research are developing. And I gained experience in giving talks to people that don’t know me nor my work. Interestingly, there are several German-speaking scientists here, like my host who is from Switzerland originally and one of his post-docs is from Germany.

The city of Canberra, even though it is the Australian Capital, is a bit, well, sleepy. Shops close at 5 pm, the city has only a few buildings with more than one story and the streets are wide. The whole city stretches over a big area, over 800 square kilometres, while the population is only short of 350 000. Compare this to Singapore, where I have been before: It covers an area of only 700 square kilometres but has a population of about 5 million! That’s what I call a city.

One benefit of being on the opposite side of the globe, on the southern hemisphere, is the weather. We mainly have a bright blue sky, temperatures between 25 and 35 degrees and light from 6 am to 8 pm at least. Much better than the winter in Bonn, for which the weather forecast predicts freezing temperatures. Seeing Christmas decoration here, on the other hand, is a bit strange (but the Christmas tree balls are much more shiny in the direct sunlight ). And it does not feel like Christmas time. I don’t worry much about this, I usually feel annoyed by all the holiday preparations in Germany. But seeing a TV advert with the slogan “Barbeque better this Christmas” simply sounds ridiculous to me :-).

Well, enough writing for the moment. I’ve got some pictures for you:

The lanscape surrounding Canberra as seen from the Mount Stromlo.

For some signs, the heat of direct sunlight seems to be too intense …

Some of the Telescope domes on the Mount Stromlo. The right building is completly burned inside, the telescope was completely destroyed. But it is cheaper to leave the domes standing (after a new paint-job), than to remove them.

I think this is the ruin of the directors house on the Mount Stromlo. You can see the signs of the fire everywhere, even though it happened over six years ago.

A band playing christmas songs at the ‘Old Bus Depot Market’, a regular market in Canberra that is turned into the local christmasmarket in December.

The decoration for the Observatory’s Christmas party is shining in the sun.

Tags: Australian National University, Canberra, Mount Stromlo, Mount Stromlo Observatory, Australia, Bonn, Bushfire, Christmas, Observatory, Satellite Galaxies, Science, Singapore, Sky, Sun, Talk, Telescope, Travel, Southern Hemisphere

I’m busy with the final preparations of my trip to Australia. A college of me an I will visit the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Canberra for two weeks, giving talks on our research on Satellite / Tidal Dwarf Galaxies and discuss with the local researchers about their projects. Especially interesting for me is the so called “Stromlo Missing Satellites Survey” (SMSS), a project where they map the southern sky searching for not-yet-known satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. That should give me more observational input for my theoretical works.

We will start next Monday, arriving in Singapore on Tuesday for a short stop-over of one night. It’s ‘perfect’ timing: there is monsoon-time right now. But so what, they have a constant 30 degrees Celsius all year round. Then we will depart for Australia on Wednesday, arriving in the early morning (local time) in Sydney to catch a bus to Canberra.

I must admit I am a bit excited about the trip. Until now I never traveled this far. I never left Europe, actually (the continent that is, I have been in Switzerland which is not a member of the European Union). I wonder how I will react on the jet lag, and the different climates. From late, not too cold Fall to humid, tropical, to dry and hot Summer … I was told that there were 35 to 40 degrees in Canberra some days ago.

I will try to blog while I am traveling, and of course take black and white pictures. I’ll take only one of my Canon EOS 50E bodys with me, with the favorite 24mm/f2.8 and the 17-40mm/f4.0 lenses.  Unfortunately my tripod would be too heavy. Last week I got the last 77mm red filter that was available from Amazon, making the 17-40 lens finally usable for me. I  love to see everything in red when looking through the viewfinder, it improves the contrasts and makes it easier to see in black and white.

Hopefully the films I pack are enough. I decided for ten rolls each of Fuji Neopan Acros, Tri-X and an Rollei Infrared. The latter is of not much use in winter, so I am even more happy for the trip into the summer right now. (No, I did not forget that I promised to write something about infrared photography.) The films will have to wait to be processed until I am back, though, so maybe I blog some shots from my cell phone. I don’t like these at all, but it is an easy way to show and share impressions. Or I can convince my wife to present some of her digital shots, as she is accompanying me.

Tags: Australian National University, Canberra, Kodak Tri-X, Mount Stromlo Observatory, Rollei Infrared, Sydney, Astronomers, Astronomy, Australia, Canon EOS 50E, EF 24mm f/2.8, EF L 17-40mm f/4.0, Flight, Fuji Neopan Acros 100, Observatory, red filter, Satellite Galaxies, Singapore, Summer, Telescope, Tidal Dwarf Galaxies, Travel Photography, Travel-Photography, Travel

Some other part of France this time, but again in black and white: Cap Frehel in Brittany. The photo shows the new lighthouse there, looking over the cliffs. The sea and tip of the Cap Frehel are behind me in this shot. The two touristscopes of a previous image are situated in front of the smaller building to the right, but they are only visible in a higher resolution version.

Tags: black and white, Brittany, Cap Frehel, Cliff, EF 24mm f/2.8, Film Photography, France, Fuji Neopan Acros 100, Lighthouse, Light

There obviously isn’t only coast in Normandy. Most of the landscape consists of farmland, dotted with bales of straw in the autumn and lots of cows all the year round. This was in the summer, with perfect weather. The sun was high in the sky, giving the harsh contrasts I like.

Tags: black and white, Canon EOS 50E, EF 24mm f/2.8, France, Fuji Neopan Acros 100, Haute Normandie, Normandy, Sky