• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Square Clouds, Purple Sky-Lights & Blue Moons—Allegedly

Ermintruder

The greatest risk is to risk nothing at all...
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
6,197
I find this sort of thing fascinating but frustrating.

Two decades ago, if there had been emulsion photographs, or analogue video/cine film of these sorts of alleged phenomena, then we'd all be utterly-amazed, and studying the evidence with magnifying glasses in the library (or the pub).

Now, I feel we are all visually-desensitised.

There are Youtube channels by the bucketload that make so many outlandish claims (courtesy of CGI and other photomanipulation techniques...far too many times).

What is real? Really real, ever, on the internet?

https://www.mrmbb333.com

Just like when it comes to online pornography, the depiction of visual imagery associated with unusual sightings has no absolute calibration points, baselines or scales.

We need to recapture the actualities of incidence: it cannot be beyond mortal wit, to create much-better fraud detection mechanisms (especially when falsity can be associated with apparent mundanity just as much as occasional extremity). How curious that such tools have not evolved in parallel with the woven fictions that beguile and bewitch us...and yet predictable, too.
 
What is real? Really real, ever, on the internet?
Everything. It's a physical event. Always.

Whether that experience of witnessing something online ever pertains to a designated external reality is kind of what you mean, right? How far back do you want to go re the concept of representation? The newspaper? The cave painting? The artifact? The art? The image?
All we observe on this cyberplane is mere memory having a relative connection to the present in the mind of the viewer according to their level of response. I see a 'photo' of a 'ghost' and click to the next website instantly. I see a video of a favourite band and linger over it. I read an account and take something from it, or not. I ascribe a level of credibility to the ABC news website (probably entirely naively) which I don't ascribe to The Sun or the Daily Mirror. It isn't really an event outside the interface. I come here for entertainment, mostly. Subsumed and addicted to rubbish.

I turn away from the screen, go outside and breathe the 5-sensual experience, yet my mind is filled with the resonances and impressions of visual and aural stuff recalled from the cyberzone. There is nothing real about any of it, except the immediacy of the reaction. The birds singing and smell of the fire smoke outside are immediate, whether I choose to acknowledge them as such mentally or not. The internet is merely a tool which allows me to focus my visual and aural senses on my choice of 'real'. That still feels a bit fucked up, tbqh.
 
I've just in the last few days been watching some of those videos, by the very same youtube channel actually, and I want them to really be showing some strange phenomenona, but there's always that lingering doubt of what if it's not. And then I begin to hate all the technology around us because it just makes it so easy to fake stuff.

I find this sort of thing fascinating but frustrating.

Exactly.
 
And then I begin to hate all the technology around us because it just makes it so easy to fake stuff.
Relatively-speaking, yes.

This is why I puzzle over the precise (non-metaphysical) meaning behind & within @skinny 's provisionally-profound pronouncement:
Everything (is real) It's a physical event. Always

Because...well..

Maya
Softimage
Zeno
RenderMan
Shake 2.0
Lidar
Cheetah
SphereSim
HoudinI
SOCK
Envelope
Blender Suite
Cinema4D
Softimage Creative Environment 2.0
AliasStudio PowerAnimator
XSI7
FBX
 
You know, I've never even heard of any of those programs! :oops: I still think in terms of "photoshop" and even that is a bit of a mystery to me, having never used it. I will confess to being quite unaware of what 'photo/video editing' software can do, nowadays. No doubt I'd be surprised not to mention shocked.

Obviously you have a much greater knowledge of such things than I do :) so - are you able to spot if some youtube videos are likely faked? (I mean, other than the ones which are quite obvious even to a layperson like me) - What I mean is, with all those programs you listed, are there tells, for want of a better word, which become obvious when certain techniques within those software have been employed?


Then again of course, in a way, nothing is real, at least not in the sense we like to think it is. This computer I'm typing on is supposedly just a bunch of atoms and electrons and what-have-you, spinning around so they create something which appears, and feels, solid. :atom:
 
I did once witness a square sunset. Amateurishly, I failed to record it on camera and post it online.

I thought the explanation could have been horizontal clouds diffusing the red light between tall buildings. Viewing the location on clearer days revealed no evidence of tall-enough buildings. :dunno:
 
I find this sort of thing fascinating but frustrating.

Two decades ago, if there had been emulsion photographs, or analogue video/cine film of these sorts of alleged phenomena, then we'd all be utterly-amazed, and studying the evidence with magnifying glasses in the library (or the pub).

Now, I feel we are all visually-desensitised.

There are Youtube channels by the bucketload that make so many outlandish claims (courtesy of CGI and other photomanipulation techniques...far too many times). ...

We need to recapture the actualities of incidence: it cannot be beyond mortal wit, to create much-better fraud detection mechanisms (especially when falsity can be associated with apparent mundanity just as much as occasional extremity). How curious that such tools have not evolved in parallel with the woven fictions that beguile and bewitch us...and yet predictable, too.

I agree with the 'desensitized' bit - i.e., that there's a psycho-social context within which ennui is proliferating. However, there's also influence within the technical context as well ...

The transition from analog to digital media actually aggravated the problem by expanding and deepening the range of possible mischief-making along the evidentiary chain of custody.

In the olde / analog-only days a truly original record could only be faked by manipulating the event / scenario it recorded. For example, you could fake (or misperceive) the scene recorded in the Cumberland Spaceman photo, but you couldn't fake the exposed film per se.

Any amount of manipulation could be performed on 2nd / nth generation copies of the original (e.g., in the darkroom), but it could prove tricky and proof of manipulation could often be obtained by simply examining the result.

In the digital era even the first / original record can be manipulated in almost any way one can imagine. Because the initial recording and the eventual product(s) are of the same exact type (a digital file; all bits 'n' bytes), there is no necessary transformation / transition stage affording the bases for comparative analyses demonstrating monkey business.

Unfortunately, it also means one can easily eliminate any traces of transitional record copies (analogous to faked-up negatives from a darkroom) and collapse the purported / apparent chain of evidentiary custody to as little as one step involving one original version.

Furthermore, in the digital motif it is possible to manipulate records at resolutions sufficiently high that the tell-tale 'seams' and 'stitches' cannot even be detected on most folks' equipment.

Finally ... The apparent lack of tools for detecting digital fraud isn't all that surprising. The tools that might reveal fakery are the same tools available to the fakers themselves. Two decades ago the best tool for critically examining a possibly PhotoShopped image was PhotoShop itself.

Now that image (etc.) metadata can be edited, the digital trickster can fake not only the content but also the only evidence for origin / provenance / etc.
 
I fear we're destined for the murky well of relative terminology here, but what is NOT real about that?

Perhaps Erms could set a few parameters for us. (Sorry, bud. I got a bit meta on the grog in that post.)

It was late and I was postulating on the fact that things aren't as solid as they appear. They are real of course :) Just, you know, thinking about what matter really is. Sorry. My mind often goes to odd places when it's left to wander...
 
The signs are only obvious when the creators are either genuinely-careless, or deliberately leaving clues.

These may be undetectablely-altered: or just superficially-seamless.
2018-05-04 19.47.57.png
2018-05-04 19.48.36.png

2018-05-04 19.49.24.png

2018-05-04 19.49.58.png

2018-05-04 19.50.33.png

https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/movies-before-after-green-screen-cgi/
(more comments to follow, I have offline complications at present)
 
Wow, thank you very much for that Ermintruder - I'm afraid I'm about to show my naivety when it comes to photo/video manipulation though... :sorry: ... because each of those 'finished' photos, as it were... I can't tell that they're not what they seem to be. The only exception being the gorilla/chimpanzee/monkey person of course.

The two that really blow me away are the lake one (venice?) with the people walking along the stone path - it amazes me that there was a really a building there and not the water?

And the one with the old cars - I mean, seeing the two different shots I can see it was done with a camera low-down etc to change the perspective - right? But still, it looks. so realistic.

Even the tiger one I wouldn't have known was actually a blue stuffed toy! I take it the blue is like a green-screen sort of idea, but in stuffed toy format?

See, the problem is, that I still think in terms of CGI that looks like CGI. It's a hard thing for my brain to accept, that the stuff you've shown there is faked. I thought that if something was CGI'd, as it were, then it would be obvious.


EDIT: cos I forgot to say - we really have no hope of ever discerning if something on TV or YouTube etc. is real, do we? It's like what the character said on a recent X-Files episode - people aren't going to know what's real or what's fake anymore.
 
... Even the tiger one I wouldn't have known was actually a blue stuffed toy! I take it the blue is like a green-screen sort of idea, but in stuffed toy format? ...

Yes. The widely-known 'green screen' technique simply places something within frame which provides a specific color. In subsequent processing the pixels exhibiting that particular color signature are replaced with other imagery.

In principle, this code-and-replace technique can cue on any color. In practice, it's been found that certain greens and blues are the most effective choices of a color that isn't likely to be exhibited by the object(s) you don't want replaced. In addition, you can key on pure blues or greens (two of the 3 common RGB color components). The third RGB component (red) is either present in or mixed into too many natural / 'warm' colors to serve as such a precise key / cue.
 
I thought that if something was CGI'd, as it were, then it would be obvious.
In my left hand, I'm holding something that's fake. It's actually quite realistic, but it is just slightly too bright and shiny to be really real. And usefully, it has a cardboard tag on it, with the word "FAKE" on it.

And in my right hand, I'm holding something mundane, dull, and unquestionably-solid. Slightly menacing to look at, and it looks quite dusty. Wait a minute, on the underside of it, there's a sticker on it, which states "REAL".

So thankfully, I know which object is real, and which is fake. But wait a minute, I imagine hearing you ask. 'Why would a real object be marked with a sticker, stating that it's real?'

Indeed. Because, just like sanity, if it's certified it's certainly uncertain.

It's all about playing with the baselines of belief. The relative potencies of presumption versus proof.

I will concede that I doubt too much, question far more that I see, than I should. But I'd prefer to be an over-zelous skeptic than a clueless consumer of artifice.

I almost always struggle to deduce intent, strategy or motivation: but I frequently detect falsity, regardless of reason.

EDIT please do never forget: manufactured mundanity is still not real. Only reality is
 
Yes. The widely-known 'green screen' technique simply places something within frame which provides a specific color. In subsequent processing the pixels exhibiting that particular color signature are replaced with other imagery.

In principle, this code-and-replace technique can cue on any color. In practice, it's been found that certain greens and blues are the most effective choices of a color that isn't likely to be exhibited by the object(s) you don't want replaced. In addition, you can key on pure blues or greens (two of the 3 common RGB color components). The third RGB component (red) is either present in or mixed into too many natural / 'warm' colors to serve as such a precise key / cue.

Aha yes. Which is why weather forecasters mustn't wear blue or green outfits :)

When you refer to 'key', I am taking that to mean the term 'chroma-key', is that correct? I am familiar with some basic principles (mainly analogue television as I find it far more appealing and interesting than digital), but only from a beginner's standpoint. But I digress.



But wait a minute, I imagine hearing you ask. 'Why would a real object be marked with a sticker, stating that it's real?'

Indeed. Because, just like sanity, if it's certified it's certainly uncertain.

Very true.

I will concede that I doubt too much, question far more that I see, than I should. But I'd prefer to be an over-zelous skeptic than a clueless consumer of artifice.

Well, can you question things too much? I think it's far healthier (and important nowadays) to question things rather than blindly believe everything that is force-fed to us via the media.
One thing I've started doing recently with 'strange videos on youtube' is - why are they filming the sky / the forest / whatever it in the first place? Which hopefully is a good starting point.

EDIT please do never forget: manufactured mundanity is still not real. Only reality is
EDIT: to respond to this: So, in other words, be careful assuming something mundane must be real because someone faking it would have made it more elaborate?



Can I just also say to both of you, Ermintruder and Enola Gaia - thank you for both taking the time to explain very technical concepts in ways that people like me can understand them. :) It is very much appreciated, not just by me but others I'm sure who are reading this thread.
 
I did once witness a square sunset. Amateurishly, I failed to record it on camera and post it online.

I thought the explanation could have been horizontal clouds diffusing the red light between tall buildings. Viewing the location on clearer days revealed no evidence of tall-enough buildings. :dunno:

Did it resemble the one seen on the video on this thread? I'm interested as I find it a curious phenomenon and one which I'd like to see for myself. :) Regardless of whether it is a natural thing or something else.
 
Another relevant factor in the psycho-social context is the merely apparent 'solidity' or 'mass' afforded by memetic dissemination and maintenance.

This purely socially-induced character opens up the door to assuming a current anomalous observation is most likely an instance of something the observer's heard or read about before. This also (if only illusorily ... ) alleviates the burdens of description and explanation from the observer, who can get away with claiming it's another example of something for which others have promoted precedents.

Anything anomalous spied in the skies 100 years ago would induce curiosity. Any such observation nowadays is apt to be shunted into a context of post-WW2 UFO lore - not because the observed anomaly is obviously an artificial flying craft exhibiting supra-human-tech capabilities, but rather because the observer is meme-ically 'pre-loaded' to associate the anomaly with longstanding UFO lore, allusions, etc.

See a shadowy figure in the woods - shunt to Sasquatch / Bigfoot ...
See a luminous figure in a cemetery or long-abandoned building - shunt to ghosts ...
See something anachronistic - shunt to time slips ...
Etc., etc., etc. ...

NOTE: This doesn't necessarily mean I categorically deny the existence of these (or other) Fortean things. My point has nothing to do with the viability of the mainstream (paranomalists') explanations for such phenomena, but rather with the naive ease with which folks seem to attribute any unusual experience or observation to the mainstream categories others have established, promoted, and even turned into profitable careers.
 
... When you refer to 'key', I am taking that to mean the term 'chroma-key', is that correct? I am familiar with some basic principles (mainly analogue television as I find it far more appealing and interesting than digital), but only from a beginner's standpoint. ...

Yes - sorta ... The 'Chroma-Key' technique was the earliest widely-known such method for doing such manipulations. There's still one retrospective step involved, though - the verb 'key' was used decades ago to denote coding data so that it could be automatically detected and leveraged. In other words, this usage of 'key' pre-dated 'Chroma-Key', which incorporates and reflects it.


Can I just also say to both of you, Ermintruder and Enola Gaia - thank you for both taking the time to explain very technical concepts in ways that people like me can understand them. :) It is very much appreciated, not just by me but others I'm sure who are reading this thread.

Thanks ... :hoff:
 
Regarding the 'top 10 special effects' video posted earlier, now that I've got around to watching it. :)

Now, call me old-fashioned, (because I know I don't fit in with others my age when it comes to modern technology), but I don't come away from that video feeling a sense of amazement.

I'm afraid it leaves me quite cold.

Because... seeing what I've now seen... movies nowadays are so fake that they might as well just forget about actors and just CGI the main characters, like they did with the background people in that city scene it showed. And why bother going to a beautiful, natural canyon to film, when you could just do it all in the studio because hey, the real canyons aren't good enough so we'll just create a better one. And who needs real sheep?

Heck, in ten years time all movies will be created inside one warehouse with a couple of green screens and several computers. No need to go outside at all.

Perhaps I'm being cynical. I appreciate there is a heck of a lot of technical knowledge involved in creating all these things, I'm not knocking people's expertise, but for me it's just too far removed from what I thought film-making was. :boh: It's like it's gone too far... you know?
 
... Because... seeing what I've now seen... movies nowadays are so fake that they might as well just forget about actors and just CGI the main characters, like they did with the background people in that city scene it showed. And why bother going to a beautiful, natural canyon to film, when you could just do it all in the studio because hey, the real canyons aren't good enough so we'll just create a better one. And who needs real sheep? ...

The primary motivation is cost containment within an industry with very high production costs. Movie making is, after all, a business.
 
It was late and I was postulating on the fact that things aren't as solid as they appear. They are real of course :) Just, you know, thinking about what matter really is. Sorry. My mind often goes to odd places when it's left to wander...
Ditto. See post #2 on this thread, for example. Thank Hitch we have several grounded EnolaGaias on the board to anchor the discussion to something less flaky. I learn, but forget.
 
To rephrase: Everything is real, but nothing is really real.

I like that. Concise, and to the point. :)

So, dragging the thread back to where Ermintruder started from (and apologies for drifting slightly off-topic with my wistful thoughts about film-making), what do we do about the fact that we can't know (with any certainty, at least) what is real or faked anymore?

I enjoy watching videos of purported phenomena, of many different kinds. But given what I've learned from this thread, how can I (or any of us) continue to watch "top 5 strangest videos ever" or "triangle ufo seen over texas" or what-have-you, and still enjoy them if we know that they could be faked?

Just because they can be faked doesn't mean they are, of course, but it's taking the enjoyment out, isn't it, because there's always going to be that nagging doubt.

A few years ago I would have watched videos like that and be delighted at the strange phenomena I was seeing, knowing it confirmed my beliefs that there are things beyond our understanding. Yes, I would have kept a healthy skepticism, I always do, but once I'd ruled out mundane explanations, I could feel reasonably certain that something odd had indeed been captured on film because there's no way that could be faked. But I can no longer say that, not anymore.

I don't want to lose that joy, that sense that wow, there really are things that we don't understand... but it feels like the naivety's gone. Like I'm now grown up and am more jaded and cynical. I want to believe that there are things beyond our understanding, I strongly think there are, and I don't want anything to change that.

So if the previous benchmark of "must be real because mundane is ruled out and it certainly can't be faked" has been demolished, what can our new benchmark be?
 
Hopefully these excellent GIF animated sequence pieces (of skilful multi-stage photo-manipulation) gives some additional insight into the supra-realistic images that can be created https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/before-after-photoshop-images-max-asabin/

because mundane is ruled out and it certainly can't be faked" has been demolished, what can our new benchmark be?
This is an infinitely-valid question, and it cuts to the heart of what Forteans are about. Truth-seekers. Researchers. Interrogators.

Not simply passive, trusting, child-like consumers, always following the easy paths and open doors (set and painted for us to follow).

There is masses of disinformation out there, rather than truths.

We've become universally echo-chambered into frequently becoming pointy-fingered name-callers at those who ask the most-searching of questions (nb I do mean within society in general: not specifically in this forum). There is an artificial liberality that strides the internetworks of our weird wired world, that ensures compliance and convention, wrapped in the colours of alternative independant thought. The very best prisoners are those that look after their own keys, as well as those of their fellows.

Stay in line, now. On-line. With your cups ready to be filled with your latest ration of rationality.

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
 
I did once witness a square sunset. Amateurishly, I failed to record it on camera and post it online.

I thought the explanation could have been horizontal clouds diffusing the red light between tall buildings. Viewing the location on clearer days revealed no evidence of tall-enough buildings. :dunno:

Rather than tall buildings, it may have been tall clouds. Some clouds, such as cumulonimbus and cumulus congestus are often very much taller than they are wide, and can have impressive vertical edges. Two or more clouds of this sort could easily have provided the vertical edges of your square, and horizontal later clouds could form the top and bottom.

Les Cowley has some interesting shadow images on his site Atmospheric Optics; this shadow sunset is vaguely sqarish, but it is caused by a mountain, not a cloud.

https://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz1051.htm
 
Ermintruder, EnolaGaia - your help and expertise would be greatly appreciated here. :)

Mr Zebra and I were looking through unexplained stuff on YouTube (as we do :) ) and came across one titled "100 Percent proof we can't orbit earth. Debunk this."

Well, we find it quite amusing to watch one of these from time to time, just for a bit of hilarity, you know. With this one, I looked at Mr Zebra and said "let's see how long it takes to debunk it." "I give it 30 seconds," he replied.

So... we sat and watched. Usual stuff... the video-maker clearly doesn't understand what the word proof means, yada-yada-yada, I was doing my best Dana Scully "If there's a point, please feel free to come to it" impression...

... until we got to the 5min 40sec mark. When the video showed what indeed did appear to be a human moving about outside what was supposed to be some NASA spacecraft/module or other - as if it were a model of the craft and therefore the whole thing was a big fake.

Bear with me... I'm getting to why I'm posting this:
First of all, Mr Zebra and I looked at each other, somewhat shocked. It did indeed appear to be a person moving about. We were, as you would imagine, quite shocked - was this really showing that NASA had been faking stuff?

But then... it occurred to us... what if this video we're watching is the one that's faking? Aka, they've made up the fake video to try and make it look like NASA are faking... follow my drift?

So... that's where I immediately thought of you two, and this thread. Because I'm hoping you might be able to use your expertises to shed some light on where the fakery lies... if possible?

Here's the video. If you don't want to lose too many IQ points :D skip to about 5min 40 or just before, and then see what you think. I'd really like to know.

 
Here's an initial impression that took all of 2 seconds ...

The phantom image is a reflection of a crewperson inside the Shuttle - quite probably one operating the equipment to perform the launch. The video explanation for why it isn't a reflection is BS.
 
Here's an initial impression that took all of 2 seconds ...

The phantom image is a reflection of a crewperson inside the Shuttle - quite probably one operating the equipment to perform the launch. The video explanation for why it isn't a reflection is BS.

Aww heck, that makes it sound like I should've spotted that! I didn't think it was the case because the person seems to be behind the craft; I thought a reflection would look in front, although the video quality isn't great. I'll watch it again and see.
 
Back
Top