Extraordinary claims. Ordinary investigations.

They are being promoted as “the most significant UFO videos of all time”, including “two extraterrestrials [that] were caught on tape in Istanbul”. And perhaps the most amazing thing, or the dead giveaway, is that those videos have been captured not once, but several times since 2007.

Summer and springtime in Turkey, 2007, 2008 and 2009, and there comes a man named Yalcin Yalman with more of these “most significant UFO videos of all time”.

Now, Chilean researcher Andrés Duarte publishes an excellent analysis of the Kumburgaz videos and comes to the conclusion that they must be mainly of yacht side windows reflecting light at night: Los ovnis de Kumburgaz son ventanas de lanchas.

Stay with us for a summary in English of Duarte’s analysis.

Greater Reflections

First, Duarte illustrates a compilation of screen captures from the videos, and notes that “several images may be the result of the same object in different lighting conditions, but the diversity of appearances suggests there’s more than a simple change in lighting or orientation, by which we can assume there are several ‘models’”.

Then, and this is the most important and yet difficult to grasp argument: it’s quite obvious, even more so by watching the moving images, the objects appear to be specular surfaces reflecting light.

“Nevertheless, there’s something important regarding the first impression given by these reflections: one could think they reflect light in this way because they are significantly curved, but things do not work this way when the images are captured in non-trivial circumstances.”

“In the videos, there’s an extreme zoom and the angular size of the objects is of about 0.5 degrees, which equals a distance/size ratio of over 100. In these conditions a specular, convex surface would appear as a luminous point, as the reflected light would be scattered.”

“The conclusion is that the objects must be straight or just slightly bent specular reflectors, in a situation where they reflect light directly to the observer. Any other surface would not be seen, which suggests the possibility that these objects are part of a bigger object with other surfaces that are nor seen, either because they are curved, diffuse their reflections, or even straight but with different orientations”.

“Another consequence is that these deformities in the surfaces are greatly amplified in the appearance of the reflection. To clarify these ideas we conducted a very simples experiment illustrated above. Small plastic covers reflecting a horizontal, straight light source. To the left of the image the covers were photographed a few inches from the camera, and the reflection has little distortion. To the right the covers are a couple of feet from the camera, and the reflection appears more distorted.”

“In more extreme conditions such as those of the Kumburgaz footage, the effect must be even greater.”

“Another interesting effect that can be seen in most of the videos is color decomposition. It’s almost unnoticeable, but here are some of the most clear images:

“This effect sometimes occurs due to the chromatic aberration of the lens, but in the videos we can see other images, such as those of the Moon, that do not exhibit this problem. (…) Therefore the effect must be caused by the objects themselves, but a simple specular surface doesn’t decompose colors, the most probable thing is that this occurs in sheets of a transparent material that decompose light by two mechanisms: the interference between the reflections between the different sheets (iridescence) and refraction and reflection between the surfaces, an effect which gets more noticeable with the distance. In the experiment with the plastic covers, they are also transparent and there’s a slight color decomposition in some parts”.

 

Location, distance, size

From the videos and some reference points, Duarte suggests they were shot pointing southeast or east-southeast, in the direction of the Güzelce marina. You can see where this is going.

Duarte was also able to suggest some calibration points, at which point he notes in the May 17 2009 video, the Moon would be at a 114 degree azimuth and the object, at 118 degrees and at the horizon. “That is, according the scale [below], if this video was also shot in the beach then the Moon appears in a direction almost parallel to the coastline and the object was seen in the same direction as some of the boats”.

You can see where this is going.

“Another video that has the Moon as reference is of May 27, 2008, where the object is at about 130 degrees in azimuth; according to the scale [above] that points to the sea.”

As for the size of the object itself, it’s only possible to give an angular size, and the object has around the same angular size as the Moon, which is, around 0.5 degrees.

 

Identification

“Now we can summarize the probable characteristics of these alleged UFOs to suggest a specific hypothesis: the objects are straight or just slightly bent specular surfaces, there are different designs for them, they could be part of a bigger object that can’t be seen given the circumstances, they are possibly sheets of transparent material, they are probably in the sea.”

“All of this takes us to the following hypothesis: the objects are lateral ‘shark’ or ‘moth’ style windows in some boats or small yachts.”

There are many boats of the kind in Turkey, especially near the footage location.

Now, the first objection one could raise is that the “UFOs” are over the horizon. In fact, that is almost certainly not the case. Duarte points that in the May 17 2009 video, 23:32UT, the Moon would be at an azimuth of 113.8 degrees and just 6.8 degrees of elevation.

And you can see that the object is to the right of the Moon (in the direction of the sea), and several degrees below it.

Duarte also notices that the cameraman seems to deliberately play with a nearby tree to obstruct the lights of buildings that should be visible to the left, as well as with the camera exposure to have only the object and the Moon appear in the footage.

As for some of the other “UFOs”, Duarte identifies one of them with the passage of the International Space Station, and another with mast lights – again of boats – seen at a distance.

One final objection: this author was somewhat skeptical of the boat window hypothesis given the sharpness of the “UFO” images, but this can be explained because one, the object is half a degree in size (there are some quite clear shots of the moon in the videos), and two, as Duarte explained at the beginning what was recorded was not a simple defined reflection, but a heavily distorted one.

It’s in a way the same “sharpness” that one can get in the “inside” of out of focus images such as orbs.

Even if you don’t agree with the hypothesis of boat windows, fact is that the “UFO” shows color aberration, and is always shot in the direction of the marine, never to be seen above the Moon.

And given the place where the videos were shot, it’s quite obvious what they must be.

A couple of years ago we suggested the videos were produced by capturing something reflective, and tried a reproduction with a dinner tray. The results were terrible, as it turns out it was something reflective, but transparent and bigger, floating in the sea.

Yacht window reflections. Watch the video again, starting from 6 minutes on, to see the Moon low on the sky and the “UFO” below it, and things may finally make sense.

Don’t miss Andrés Duarte’s full analysis, in Spanish: Los ovnis de Kumburgaz son ventanas de lanchas

And his main website: Análisis crítico de la evidencia ufológica y otras anomalías

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