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Rex Heflin Photographs (Santa Ana, California; 1965)

feinman

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Hi folks, didn't see a dedicated thread for the Heflin photos yet.
Here is another analysis of them, PDF download:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.552.6587&rep=rep1&type=pdf
They like to isolate folks on roads; they have control, and observed thinks it has safety and control (in car). Kind of like an old drive-in restaurant, except instead of girls on skates, you get flying discs and no mikshake or fries...
 
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How things change:

Rex-Heflin-UFO-Fortean-Walnut-Myford-Tustin-CA.jpg


Myford Rd., junction with Walnut Ave., Tustin, CA, looking north

maximus otter
 
I always thought the Heflin ufo was really 'dorky' looking. And for Pete's sake why would an advanced alien craft have a 'smoke ring'...?
What's that all about?
 
I always thought the Heflin ufo was really 'dorky' looking. And for Pete's sake why would an advanced alien craft have a 'smoke ring'...?
What's that all about?
I think it is 100% real --it is a road encounter, a common tactic. The "smoke" ring might be space dust (like micrometeoritic dust) or some other kind of muck, dislodged when the object took off at speed. UFOs don't look like the Baroque creations of special effects departments, but are very simple compact devices that can do amazing things --that's "advanced". Same with the McMinnville object and many other photos and descriptiokns ginign back to the Sternenshiff, etc.
There is a photo of a UFO traveling on edge that is totally covered with dirt or dust to the point it was described as a "flying crisp" --it's in the historic articles section.
 
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I think it is 100% real --it is a road encounter, a common tactic. The "smoke" ring might be space dust (like micrometeoritic dust) or some other kind of muck, dislodged when the object took off at speed. UFOs don't look like the Baroque creations of special effects departments, but are very simple compact devices that can do amazing things --that's "advanced". Same with the McMinnville object and many other photos and descriptiokns ginign back to the Sternenshiff, etc.
There is a photo of a UFO traveling on edge that is totally covered with dirt or dust to the point it was described as a "flying crisp" --it's in the historic articles section.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'common tactic'.
Space dust....really? Where did you come up with that? I have never heard that one before . :hahazebs:
I'm sorry but that looks fake to me .....I recall seeing those many years ago and thought they looked really silly.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by 'common tactic'.
Space dust....really? Where did you come up with that? I have never heard that one before . :hahazebs:
I'm sorry but that looks fake to me .....I recall seeing those many years ago and thought they looked really silly.
If you look through the old articles, you'll find many road encounters, of the flash and dash variety. Appearing to folks isolated on roads, or appearing over a body of water near an observer -like over the ocean, is a not uncommon tactic.
If you continue to look through the old accounts you'll find that UFOs emit all kinds of vapours, mists, angel hair etc. some are described as dirty or having a used-up looking metallic surface. The flying "crisp" I mentioned, was covered with dust or dirt or something. In the case of the Heflin photos (which have been found to be of a real something) the "smoke" ring appears to have dislodged from the surface suddenly after a sudden instantaneous acceleration by the object. The analysis in that paper is good.
Space is full of dust too.
 
There seem to be some other examples of people photographing smoke rings in online papers, most if not all are offered up as "mysterious" in the headline but then put down to some mundane source. Maybe no-one witnessed them actually appear, which still leaves a mystery.
But, could it be that Van Heflin legitimately saw the smoke ring first and took a picture, then subsequently faked the disk? I hope not
Was the film examined to see what order the pictures were taken?
 
Yes, and there was no way to tell which order the photos were taken in. The photos were taken as Polaroid self-developing photos, so they each came out of the camera separately as positive images, without going through a negative stage. When these photos were taken there were no serial numbers on the individual photos, so no-one can tell which image was taken first.

I note that James McDonald never fully accepted that the 'fourth' photo was taken on the same day, since the clouds in that image are completely different; if McDonald's suspicions were correct, then the smoke ring photo might have been taken at any time, before or after.
 
McDonald had trouble with the clouds visible in the "smoke" ring photo, but photo analysts didn't, blaming the discrepancy on exposure and other factors. I believe Heflin drove a short distance and then took the pic of the smoke ring, too. This re-analysis posted before is excellent, concludes the photos are real, as do I:
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.552.6587&rep=rep1&type=pdf
I think it is just a typical road flash and dash, caught on film. Also describes a sighting in the area right before Heflin's that really reminds me of the Woonsocket-style "saucers-by-a-powerline" thing; this one had the outline of a saucer but the whole thing was glowing.
 
The Heflin pictures are fakes.

A basic yet critical question appears to never have been asked by investigators about the Heflin photos:



Did people in the area know about the photos before they were published in the local newspaper?



Yes they did. And one such person is Mr. Edward Riddle. Ed Riddle was a professional who was later employed as a senior-level technical writer, including for a leading Menlo Park, California electronics technologies company. But in the summer of 1965 Riddle was a young man who was employed by the local telephone company. In the lunch room, Riddle remembers, a fellow that Riddle described as being "in a jolly mood" had come into the company lunch room and had brought with him what Riddle would soon later clearly and instantly recognize as the "Heflin UFO photos."



Riddle recounts that the man had told him that "his neighbor he knew had rigged up a toy train wheel and some monofilament fishing line, hung them out of his truck window, shot them and would maybe just take them to the paper for some fun."



Riddle explained that he did not want to be a "spoil sport" but "jeez, a joke's a joke." He agreed it was time to come clean about what he knew. Given his professional station and that Riddle avoided coming forward on this for decades – and that he never sought or received any compensation or notoriety for this – it is highly likely that he is telling the truth as he remembers it.

Riddle continued with his story: Some time after he had seen the UFO "toy train wheel" photos at work, he saw them in the newspapers, just like he heard they might be. The story had soon become huge, it had become very big news. It was then that Riddle became conflicted and genuinely concerned. He thought that Heflin was affable enough, but Riddle said that he knew what he knew, now what to do? He went home and asked his family what they felt should be his next step. They disapproved of his telling anything. No need to get involved. It will die down and no one is getting hurt or anything. Why spoil one nice guy's fun? The other folks at the office felt they should say nothing. So Riddle held his tongue too.

Today his family supports Riddle coming forward with his revelation, and they confirm that it happened just as he said it did at the time. And Riddle has confirmed this story to reporter Amy Wilson of The Orange County Register for the record. He is 100% certain that the Heflin photos were shown to him prior to their publication – and that they were explained by Heflin's neighbor as a hoax using toy train wheels. He also detailed to her that he was still wrestling with "talking or not talking" about what he knew to be the truth about the Heflin incident.

Heflin UFO blowup

Blow-up of Heflin UFO
aa4aac_cc30ae769ef04c7f931c394522405caa~mv2.jpg

Screen Capture of Toy Train Wheel
Digitally Overlayed with Heflin UFO

And even though the Heflin photos at first seem somewhat impressive – they also seem damn terrestrial. The craft is so "plain" in its features that some had speculated it was not ET at all, but rather a secret Air Force experimental vehicle. But it is frankly not even as "interesting" as such a secret vehicle would appear.

And even less "spectacular" is Heflin's fourth and less-shown photo. It is less-shown probably because it is simply a smoke ring, likely from an air show:
aa4aac_05cf34fa25b4410189355b05caa1427a~mv2.jpg

Heflin's "UFO" Smoke Ring Photo
aa4aac_f19fa746c3e64b71a69de0d34b37315c~mv2.jpg

Air Show Smoke Ring at Base

https://www.ufoexplorations.com/ufos-that-never-were-classic-photos
 
Because all these images (except possibly the smoke ring) were take from inside a truck, the object could have been faked quite easily by an assistant perched on the roof of the van, either dropping or gently throwing a disk-like object past the windows. They aren't really in good-enough focus to get an exact distance estimate; the object was probably quite small, and presumably robust, since it would need to hit the ground several times before the photoshoot was finished.

I like the idea of it being a toy train wheel - perhaps quite a big one, Gauge O or above. Note that we don't see spokes, so it could have been a wagon or carriage wheel - perhaps a wheel from a real narrow-gauge tub wagon, which could have been as much as six inches in diameter.
 
Because all these images (except possibly the smoke ring) were take from inside a truck, the object could have been faked quite easily by an assistant perched on the roof of the van, either dropping or gently throwing a disk-like object past the windows. They aren't really in good-enough focus to get an exact distance estimate; the object was probably quite small, and presumably robust, since it would need to hit the ground several times before the photoshoot was finished.

I like the idea of it being a toy train wheel - perhaps quite a big one, Gauge O or above. Note that we don't see spokes, so it could have been a wagon or carriage wheel - perhaps a wheel from a real narrow-gauge tub wagon, which could have been as much as six inches in diameter.

An O-gauge loco wheel would seem to be about 40 to 45mm in diameter, based on 7mm/foot, and a real-world loco wheel being about 6’ to 6’ 6” in diameter.

You’d need gunfighter reflexes to synchronise the throw by your partner on the truck roof, your own reaction time and the time lag of the camera’s shutter release.

I reckon Heflin’s bosses would be faced with a pretty massive Polaroid film bill before he achieved three well-framed results.

maximus otter
 
Fishing line. No throwing needed. It’s in the text.

Riddle recounts that the man had told him that "his neighbor he knew had rigged up a toy train wheel and some monofilament fishing line, hung them out of his truck window, shot them and would maybe just take them to the paper for some fun."
 
Fishing line seems to be a favourite for hoaxers.
Objects stuck on glass are another favourite if you’re looking for a no strings solution.
Once you suspect the photo is a fake, you can reassess the image with the scale of the object being a lot smaller and closer.

1620059177481.jpeg


This is supposed to be a large object but look how the background fades into the distance losing black in the shadows and contrast on the other side of the foliage separating the truck from the field. The contrast on the object is more consistent with the foreground than the faded middle of the field or the faint greys further in the background. And if you look in the rear-view mirror, the vehicle is parked very close to some overhead phone wires. Very handy.
 
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It seems so obvious when you look at it.

Most, but not all, photos and videos showing nuts-and-bolts UFOs are fakes; the few that are not have some other mundane explanation. Maybe one day there will be a real alien craft in one of these photos; it hasn't happened yet.
 
It seems so obvious when you look at it.

Most, but not all, photos and videos showing nuts-and-bolts UFOs are fakes; the few that are not have some other mundane explanation. Maybe one day there will be a real alien craft in one of these photos; it hasn't happened yet.
I just believe that anything capable of travelling interstellar distances will be capable of building something more high tech than a metallic-looking spheroid. I think we'd be talking vehicles built of light particles or plasma. Because - why wouldn't you?
 
Perhaps.
In the earliest stages of development of interstellar flight, any travellers would probably arrive in a tiny, badly eroded module - they would expend so much energy in acceleration and deceleration en route that they would have barely anything left for life support when they arrived.

But after several thousand years of technological development, their craft could probably be made to look like anything - even a toy train wheel. I should note that (despite the mythology) a saucer is a shockingly bad aerodynamic design.
 
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We’ve done smoke rings too. In fact I saw one of these daytime fireworks created very near me in 2014...

1620146161793.jpeg

The eventual answer came in the middle of Tuesday afternoon when a statement from Warwick Castle confirmed that they had been testing fireworks.
A Warwick Castle spokesman said they had been trying out "fire effects" to go with the daily firing of the Trebuchet Fireball - a giant catapult.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27037579


Space Dust indeed.:sshot:
 
Perhaps.
In the earliest stages of development of nterstellar flight, any travellers would probably arrive in a tiny, badly eroded module - they would expend so much energy in acceleration and deceleration en route that they would have barely anything left for life support when they arrived.

But after several thousand years of technological development, their craft could probably be made to look like anything - even a toy train wheel. I should note that (despite the mythology) a saucer is a shockingly bad aerodynamic design.
But they needn't travel using acceleration and deceleration - there may be other methods of transport that we, using our human analogies, are unable to comprehend. Wormholes, teleportation, travelling by light...none of these would require 'conventional' craft. They would likely not need 'life support' as we imagine it either. We are so human-centric that we seem to believe that nails bolts and rivets with engines attached are the only way to go - anything that really wants to travel beyond the home planet and has the ability, is likely to have moved far beyond eroded metal and life supports.
 
Here is a rebuttal to the "close but no cigar" train wheel idea:
http://ufoupdateslist.com/2007/feb/m13-008.shtml
And a detailed analysis:
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.552.6587&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Bruce Maccabee also analyzed the photos some time ago, iirc.
All that said, the possibility remains that it is a hoax as a number of you have suggested.
I think they are real and the diffusion of the light around the saucer makes me believe they are objects of size at distance --the same kind of atmospheric diffusion seen in the Woonsocket photos.

You can see the car's window frame here. If you even take saucer at it's apparent size and move it onto the frame of the car, you will see it would have to be a ginormous model train to have a wheel that size.
heflin.jpg


See here. So the apparent size of the saucer diameter is in orange. I made the same size lines on the window frame for comparison, so the saucer appears to be about three inches across at the distance it is seen. That would mean that at a minimum the "train wheel" would be around three inches across, and if it was hung outside of the car it would have to be even larger to appear at that size at that distance. Not a model train wheel. Tada!

heflinsample.jpg
 
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Here is my understanding of the size of the object. All I've done here is draw a vanishing point for the saucer on the horizon line and drawn and filled in the space between the two orthogonals (the orange triangular area). Next, I've drawn a line across the image at the plane of the nearest power line pole. Where those intersect, the diameter of the saucer at that point is determined (the width of the top of the green bar). So, it appears that the saucer's diameter is about five feet --if the top of the power pole cross beam is about 12' or so completely across the top. I copied and pasted a smaller version of the saucer above the pole for size comparison! that's not a second saucer :thought:
Probably same or very close to diameter of the Yorba Linda object / module. The Cocoyoc Object / module is a bit bigger --maybe 8' across --the same size as the objects seen from the Omaha.


heflindone.jpg
 
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Sorry - though I appreciate the attempt at estimating the object's size, the result is utter nonsense in terms of basic optics principles.

No estimate of the object's size can be reasonably determined without basing it upon the linear distance of the object from the camera. Apparent size of an image varies with distance from the point of observation, and cannot be determined by reference to any other point(s) in the image.

Furthermore ... Without knowing the elevation of the object above ground level there's no reason to accept the vanishing point (and hence the perspectival 'wedge') as realistic. This is turn means the notional width of the copied image cannot be realistically estimated by reference to arbitrary perspective lines.
 
Sorry - though I appreciate the attempt at estimating the object's size, the result is utter nonsense in terms of basic optics principles.

No estimate of the object's size can be reasonably determined without basing it upon the linear distance of the object from the camera. Apparent size of an image varies with distance from the point of observation, and cannot be determined by reference to any other point(s) in the image.

Furthermore ... Without knowing the elevation of the object above ground level there's no reason to accept the vanishing point (and hence the perspectival 'wedge') as realistic. This is turn means the notional width of the copied image cannot be realistically estimated by reference to arbitrary perspective lines.
It is just my estimation, however the apparent size of the object when compared to the closer window frame still dispels the idea of a small wheel hung outside. I just discovered:
"Heflin judged its approximate size by comparing it to the traffic lanes over which it flew. These lanes, he knew, were 20 feet wide, and the craft was about the same apparent size (Heflin, 1965)."
Actually, according to my estimate it would indeed be just about exactly the width of one of the lanes at the distance of the pole. If each lane is indeed 20' across then my estimate is very similar. Those power poles must have very wide tops.
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.552.6587&rep=rep1&type=pdf
 
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I just discovered:
"Heflin judged its approximate size by comparing it to the traffic lanes over which it flew. These lanes, he knew, were 20 feet wide, and the craft was about the same apparent size (Heflin, 1965)."
That entire two-lane highway may be circa 20 feet wide, but neither of its constituent lanes is.

The typical / median width of a lane on a major US state or federal has been 12 feet since the 1950s. Interstate lanes are 12 feet wide. Non-expressway and rural / county roads were even narrower in the mid 20th century - in some cases as narrow as 9 feet wide.
 
That entire two-lane highway may be circa 20 feet wide, but neither of its constituent lanes is.

The typical / median width of a lane on a major US state or federal has been 12 feet since the 1950s. Interstate lanes are 12 feet wide. Non-expressway and rural / county roads were even narrower in the mid 20th century - in some cases as narrow as 9 feet wide.
I think Heflin must have been off in his estimation of the size, or I am.
The photos are clearly hokey.
How so? Should the object look more like this? Read the old accounts.
Repeat to yourself how they are described by witnesses. See that they do indeed like to hang out by roads.

1623932455894.jpeg
 
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