Denver UFO Catfight - Citizens Say `It's Bugs', TV Station Says `Tis not'

Good morning Clockers - got a firm grip on your hot cocoa or coffee today? Get ready to take some long sips while you consider my packaged update of the November Denver UFO (kinda has a ring to it, don't you think?). And, as we left you last......... the citizens were planning their own stake out of the TV video location to see for themselves whether the Denver UFO had legs (or wings) to stand upon.

For those late to the Denver UFO party scene - a Denver TV station earlier this month ran a Story on November 8th about an UFO that was brought to their attention by a man who was not identified in the report. The man claimed that for several months he had been going to a particular location in Denver between noon and 1 PM and simply setting up his camera and running the video tape. Within the captures of the tape, the man claimed that on many days a week that from a particular intersection in Denver an UFO would come out of the ground and fly around Denver's skies - so fast - that it could only be seen if you slowed down the tape. WAY slooooowwwww dowwwnnnnn. And that then, you could also see the UFO go back into the ground near the same location that it emerged from prior to it's air flight.

Yeah, quite a claim.

So, the TV station sends it's own crew to the same spot at the time the man suggested and guess what - yeah, you guessed it - UFO seen doing exactly as the man suggested. TV station brings on multiple experts to assure us all that this is not normal crafts and isn't birds or a bug. Then, simply declares the video finding a UFO. (Picking great photo stills from the video that even look like the classic saucer UFO.)
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Enough for the background - on to the real controversy - the counter report by `citizens' - ............ indeed, at least TWO groups of `citizens'. You see, not only did the citizen sleuth show up - the `professional' citizen sleuth - in the form of a professional `paranormal' research society investigative team showed up. Everyone armed with their video cameras and preconceived ideas and possible agendas. 

Indeed, on the face of it - as an outside observer - it appeared to UDCC that each group was simply determined to show how inadequate of a job the MSM TV station had done; suspecting them to be doing it simply for ratings during the ratings sweeps. And, with that - let's turn to the counter view of the `follow up' proving event.

So, on the following Saturday and even other times - folks from the social/news site Reddit show up at the location with cameras running. Here is the thread on Reddit talking about the findings - Reddit Denver UFO Comments - if you read this link - you will find some of the following among the 167 comments. 

1. As opposed to what the TV station said - the place had tons of bugs that could have entered the video panorama. (the original reporter had made some quip about the station not turning bugs into a UFO story). Oh, pictures of the bugs was offered as proof. Denver BUG UFO `Moneyshot'. As was this video of the area of the shooting - where you can hear the citizen sleuths meet up with other citizen sleuths. Video Of Field - With UFO Videographers Talking in background - seen by all of 267 folks and offering no proof of anything - the only comment says - `I was promised flies'.
2. One of the other groups was the paranormal investigators - Rocky Mountain Paranormal. Who was going to issue their own report - Paranormal Denver Report on Denver UFO. (We'll get to this in a moment.)
3. That some folks see a `thruster' in the original video when the craft turns - which others call a reflection - and that their was confusion that CNN sent a crew to cover this when it was CNN who simply ran the original Denver TV UFO report. Yes, stuff as basic as this can be misunderstood. It's also of interest that CNN ran the story about the FOX TV station that did the story first - was that to make Fox look stupid?
4. This comment about sums up the general Reddit view:

dontblamethehorse 14 points 7 days ago*

There was good evidence in the original video that it was flies. Then you have a bunch of people go out there and film, reporting that there are tons of flies in the area. Then you get a guy who catches those flies on camera, showing them flying across the frame... Similar to the original video, where an insect flies right near the lens. Then an insect actually lands on the lens.

What is more plausible?

There is some type of craft that has been taking off and landing from a residential area on a daily/weekly basis at the same time for months, but only one man filming from a field has seen it. Despite confirming it wasn't bugs or birds or anything else identifiable, the investigative reporter didn't see fit to look into further by changing locations, trying to get closer, or visiting the place it appeared to be taking off from to find out what it was. Instead, they drop it and say they will follow up in the future when they have time. UFOs can wait.

A bunch of people go out to debunk it, and in fact find the field in question has flies everywhere. They setup cameras, and see flies while viewing the footage. One even lands directly on someone's camera, and look nearly identical to the original video. Nothing else weird is spotted. This is all a coincidence though, because the craft does in fact exist. It just didn't come out today.

Or...

It was a guy filming flies. The reason they didn't attempt to find the landing site or do any follow up investigation - something you'd imagine they'd be quite eager to do - is because they knew it was flies, and that there was no actual story.

The people who went out to debunk the story saw flies that looked almost identical to the original video because the original video was in fact flies.

5. More YouTube video from on-site - Citizen Sleuth Denver UFO Video - he didn't see anything but perhaps you will. Oh, the entire gig was `watched over' by a local cop the entire time.

6. Now, Reddit did offer up compelling folks saying the general consensus was full of crap:

[–]YouMirinBrah 0 points 7 days ago*

You're ignorant of the facts and it is impacting your ability to make an accurate assessment.

The man said the "object" appears two or three days out of a week. You go out for ONE day, and somehow, you're able to conclusively say without any doubt in your mind that it was "unlikely" anything but a fly in the original film.

If you're done playing scientist you might want to read up on what it takes to scientifically come to a conclusion that has at least a moderate degree of certainty and then come back to us.

For the record I think it could very easily be misidentification.

EDIT 1 - Also, I hope that smoking gun "money shot" is some kind of joke. That in NO WAY at ANY point looks like the "object" in the two original videos. You're have to be seriously deluded to think that it in any way says anything other than an insect landed on his camera lens.

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The thread died this death 5 days ago - despite the TV station responding itself to the claim that it was bugs as you can see in the video below:

Oh, this was the conclusion of the Paranormal group - in addition to lots of bugs gathered:

After close examination of the videos of the reported “UFO’s” from the FOX News broadcast it appears that the objects in question are a combination of native insects and birds. 

We guided to this conclusion by using the principle or Occams Razor which states that given multiple answers (all things being equal) the simpler explanation is usually the correct one. The explanation being a native bird/insect or an Extraterrestrial visitor in their spaceship that was not noticed by anyone but a person who was trying to find a UFO seems to have an obvious answer. 

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And, believe it or not - the Paranormal Group made such a fuss about the TV station not using a bug expert in their original TV newscast that - you guessed it - the TV station brought in a (very lame) bug expert who declared the object in the original video to NOT BE BUGS; - but it might be a `military drone, a remote controlled toy or even bugs' - as they repeated what they had heard from the public and then tried to disprove. It's a bit hard to get thru the laughter at the end of the follow up report.
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And, finally, perhaps the most interesting aspect of the whole story - if true - was tackled by - again, a citizen sleuth who tried to figure out in print for everyone just `how fast' something would have to be going to be `faster than sight' as an Unidentified Flying Object. I provide his analysis - he is called Cubbybearblu in his comment name at this link - he uses all kinds of ways in his considerations including how our brains work when it comes to perceptions - are you ready for how fast he says this object may be going? 10,000 MPH to 75,000 MPH.
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Yet, despite all this above analysis - I didn't hear or read even ONE person - other than myself at UDCC - bridge the gap about this object being less than a `material object' in our ordinary way of thinking about phenomena. That is IF this is an anomalous phenomena.

Which, if you followed all the data above to it's logical conclusion - hasn't been proven in any manner. It also hasn't been proven to be bugs - as we avoid the elephant in the room - what comes out of the ground at 10K+ MPH that isn't fully a material object?

A subject much too far down the slippery slope for any real discussion. Next thing you know, some TV producer will want to call it a Fairy. 
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There’s no single, simple answer, of course. The “invisibility speed” would depend on the ambient light level, the relative size of the object in one’s visual field, the relative direction of motion, the presence of other sensory cues such as whooshes or flashes, the direction of your visual attention, and a host of other factors. You can’t see a speeding rifle bullet, for example, but you can see a much larger military jet moving at the same speed. This treatment here, in the bulletin of a medical research institute, gives a good overview of the problem. 

It isn’t hard to come up with a seat-of-the-pants estimate, though. The binocular field of view of a person with normal vision is about 120 degrees. Let’s imagine an airplane-sized object that speeds straight across this binocular field of view, with a closest approach of one mile. How quickly must it get across to be effectively invisible? 
There’s no single, simple answer, of course. The “invisibility speed” would depend on the ambient light level, the relative size of the object in one’s visual field, the relative direction of motion, the presence of other sensory cues such as whooshes or flashes, the direction of your visual attention, and a host of other factors. You can’t see a speeding rifle bullet, for example, but you can see a much larger military jet moving at the same speed. This treatment here, in the bulletin of a medical research institute, gives a good overview of the problem. 

It isn’t hard to come up with a seat-of-the-pants estimate, though. The binocular field of view of a person with normal vision is about 120 degrees. Let’s imagine an airplane-sized object that speeds straight across this binocular field of view, with a closest approach of one mile. How quickly must it get across to be effectively invisible? 

The human visual system starts to lose its ability to distinguish stimuli — even under optimal conditions — when they are separated by less than about 1/50th of a second. That isn’t strictly relevant to this problem; the question here is whether you can detect a single novel stimulus moving against an ordinary background. But the 1/50 sec figure gives us a rough idea of the effective “refresh rate” of the human visual system, and I think we can all agree that just about anything crossing our visual field in 1/50 sec. would be invisible, unless it is highly luminous against a dark background. In bright daylight even a much slower object — even at airplane scale, at an easy, one-mile viewing distance — could still be unnoticeable to most or all viewers if it is not luminous. Human eyes frequently dart around (saccade) for about 1/5 sec at a time, during which the visual feed is interrupted; also our eyes blink a lot, for intervals that can be even longer. These interruptions are effectively random, so they wouldn’t blind everyone at once. Also, like other mammals we have a visual system that is highly sensitive to moving objects, even if we can’t perceive them with sharp resolution. But surely the effective FOV-crossing limit is higher than 1/50 sec. 

What’s the upper limit on this transit time? I think that if I were staring out onto a clear, sunlit expanse of ground or water, an airplane-sized object speeding across my binocular visual field a mile away would have to cross in well under a second, to go unnoticed. Let’s say 1/2 second. (Count ‘one-mississippi’ but stop halfway — it’s a longer interval than it might seem.) I’m pretty sure that an object of that size, moving that fast, at that distance, would still be perceptible to a significant fraction of onlookers. I’d bet that even a 1/4 sec transit would be noticed by some people, especially if they’re expecting to see something. But let’s stick with 1/2 sec to be (I think) conservative. What speed does that represent? 

If you work out the simple trigonometry of it, you come up with a figure just shy of 25,000 mph — which is faster than low-earth-orbit satellites move. It’s also faster than a simple, earth-technology aircraft could move through the lower atmosphere without quickly burning up. And again, I believe that’s conservative. The real speed for effective invisibility of a large object before a multitude of onlookers could be double or triple that figure. 

At closer ranges, the same object would be larger and in that sense more perceptible, but also would spend less time crossing people’s fields of view, so it could well have a lower invisibility-speed. Clearly invisibility-speed is neither static nor simply linearly varying with distance. But even if you were to halve the distance and assume a halved invisibility-speed, you’d be talking about something that has to move at more than 10,000 mph. 

These calculations are relevant and It s no toy!
The human visual system starts to lose its ability to distinguish stimuli — even under optimal conditions — when they are separated by less than about 1/50th of a second. That isn’t strictly relevant to this problem; the question here is whether you can detect a single novel stimulus moving against an ordinary background. But the 1/50 sec figure gives us a rough idea of the effective “refresh rate” of the human visual system, and I think we can all agree that just about anything crossing our visual field in 1/50 sec. would be invisible, unless it is highly luminous against a dark background. In bright daylight even a much slower object — even at airplane scale, at an easy, one-mile viewing distance — could still be unnoticeable to most or all viewers if it is not luminous. Human eyes frequently dart around (saccade) for about 1/5 sec at a time, during which the visual feed is interrupted; also our eyes blink a lot, for intervals that can be even longer. These interruptions are effectively random, so they wouldn’t blind everyone at once. Also, like other mammals we have a visual system that is highly sensitive to moving objects, even if we can’t perceive them with sharp resolution. But surely the effective FOV-crossing limit is higher than 1/50 sec. 

What’s the upper limit on this transit time? I think that if I were staring out onto a clear, sunlit expanse of ground or water, an airplane-sized object speeding across my binocular visual field a mile away would have to cross in well under a second, to go unnoticed. Let’s say 1/2 second. (Count ‘one-mississippi’ but stop halfway — it’s a longer interval than it might seem.) I’m pretty sure that an object of that size, moving that fast, at that distance, would still be perceptible to a significant fraction of onlookers. I’d bet that even a 1/4 sec transit would be noticed by some people, especially if they’re expecting to see something. But let’s stick with 1/2 sec to be (I think) conservative. What speed does that represent? 

If you work out the simple trigonometry of it, you come up with a figure just shy of 25,000 mph — which is faster than low-earth-orbit satellites move. It’s also faster than a simple, earth-technology aircraft could move through the lower atmosphere without quickly burning up. And again, I believe that’s conservative. The real speed for effective invisibility of a large object before a multitude of onlookers could be double or triple that figure. 

At closer ranges, the same object would be larger and in that sense more perceptible, but also would spend less time crossing people’s fields of view, so it could well have a lower invisibility-speed. Clearly invisibility-speed is neither static nor simply linearly varying with distance. But even if you were to halve the distance and assume a halved invisibility-speed, you’d be talking about something that has to move at more than 10,000 mph. 

These calculations are relevant and It s no toy!