Extraordinary claims. Ordinary investigations.

“This Dramatic Spiral Burst known to ‘insiders’ as The Ring of Fire Fault was observed on national radar over Melbourne Australia today – but then what?  Is this the HAARP smoking gun?” – Colin Andrews

Andrews, more known for his involvement with crop circles, tries very hard to work up some curious geometric patterns seen through weather stations in Australia over the last few days. They are indeed quite interesting, which gives him room to speculate about “strange weather effects, possible weather modification experiments or the secret agenda behind the global HAARP project”.

Amazingly, however, Andrews has already received and actually reproduced the quite prosaic explanations for these patterns… but he simply don’t seem to get it.

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“One of the most highly celebrated and controversial series of photos in the Blue Book files are those taken by an official photographer aboard the Brazilian Navy survey ship, Almirante Saldanha, off Trindade Island, some 600 miles east of Rio De Janeiro”.
[J. Allen Hynek, The Hynek UFO Report]

Hynek criticizes the mocking remarks by the reporting officer regarding Martians and the harsh criticism of the Brazilian government and military. I don’t know much about Martians and tend to agree the sarcasm was undue on an official report, but as an ongoing many years research on the Trindade Island case has shown to me, the Blue Book report is right on the target and fully justified in all of its other conclusions.

Regarding the photographer, for instance, the report mentions that:

“This gentleman has a long history of photographic trick shots and is well known for such items as false pictures of treasure on the ocean floor. Another time he prepared a purposely humorous article, published in a magazine, entitled "A Flying Saucer Hunted Me at Home," using trick photography.”

Amazingly, these hoaxes by the photographer have been downplayed by supporters of the case. For more than half a century, most people didn’t even see these hoaxes. In 2008, thanks to historian Rodolpho Gauthier, we finally publicized Barauna’s joke with flying saucers, and now, through the pages of Tim Printy’s SUNlite, and again thanks to the work of Gauthier, we reveal the details and images of his treasure chest hoax.

The article is embedded above and can also be downloaded.

Once presented with Barauna’s trickery of flying saucer photos, believers claim the joke was in fact a serious, responsible public service promoting critical thinking in which the photographer took part. Very well. It could be so. His treasure chest hoax, however, was part of a deliberate play to deceive, and we have Baraúna first lying, denying the hoax, and decades later, finally confessing “it was indeed a trick”.

That the man who captured one of the few authentic photos of real UFOs was a lying hoaxer of treasure chest tales and proud creator of flying saucer images cannot be downplayed. It’s a serious problem for the case that automatically leads to considerations of how he could have hoaxed the Trindade Island case.

Believers would then mention that the Trindade Island case is not supported solely by the photos or the photographer’s character and that he could not have hoaxed all of the other corroborating evidence.

About that, our still ongoing research may give a different perspective. It will be published soon, but meanwhile I recommend the readers to our already published analysis, and I repeat the statement that all of our research has led us to conclude that the Blue Book report is right on the target and fully justified in all of its conclusions.

Except for Martians, of course.

Or are they hoaxed fakes? Fact is, they are amazing works by “The Faking Hoaxer”. Keep reading for much more, including making ofs and ghosts.

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“Nuit Blanche, City of Paris
Mirror ball, 1000 mirrors, 7.5 meters in diameter.
The spectacular view of the starry sky has long been a source of delight and curiosity, but the abundance of artificial light in urban areas produces a glow that covers the stars in the firmament. The largest mirror ball ever made was suspended from a construction crane 50 meters above the ground to render the starry sky to the citizens of Paris for one night in the Jardin du Luxembourg during the Nuit Blanche event.”

It’s a work by artist Michel de Broin, and if you’re a hardcore UFO buff, you may have had an instant association with the “Battle of Los Angeles”:

There are more images on LifeLounge, including this one which is a photomontage with the classic UFO photo:

Why didn’t Broin mention the Battle of LA when there is this image clearly referencing it, I don’t know, but it’s definitely a fun piece of art.

As for the Battle of LA in itself, the famous photo does seem to show at first glance a classic flying saucer profile while the searchlights seem to be stopped by something we would assume was solid, but that may be misleading as the photo is certainly taken with a long exposure, as can be seen by the many shell explosions recorded on it.

Was there actually something solid there? Bruce Maccabee thinks so. But then, don’t you think it’s quite a coincidence that the object would have approximately the same width that all the searchlights combined seem to wrap around exactly?

I suspect the famous photo and the apparent solid object could actually be the result of the movement of the searchlights, explosions and smoke from the explosions captured in a relatively long exposure at night. Maccabee considers the idea, but discard it with quite reasonable arguments.

Then again, they are not that conclusive. It’s an unsolved, intriguing case, that could be smoke, could be an alien spaceship, could be… something else.

And now it’s art. [via MAKE]

“The mystery began when a blue light seemed to soar up from behind a mountain in the north of the country. It stopped mid-air, then began to move in circles. Within seconds a giant spiral had covered the entire sky. Then a green-blue beam of light shot out from its centre – lasting for ten to 12 minutes before disappearing completely.
Onlookers describing it as ‘like a big fireball that went around, with a great light around it’ and ‘a shooting star that spun around and around’.
The Norwegian Meteorological Institute was flooded with telephone calls after the light storm.
[Daily Mail: Anyone for some Arctic roll? Mystery as spiral blue light display hovers above Norway]

There are even several videos:

As it turns out, despite initial denials from the Russians, all suggests it was a failed missile test. Norwegian news outlets already air the explanation, as the Russians did issue a warning that they were launching a Bulava missile at the right time and place to produce such spectacle.

Missile launches creating light shows are not that uncommon, but spirals? Those are somewhat rare, and are usually associated with rocket failure. The animation below illustrates what’s happening:

The exhaust gases are luminous because they reflect the sunlight at those high altitudes. And we are not speculating: in 2006, the almost exact same display happened with another Russian launch.

It was the launch of a Kosmos-2423 satellite by a Soyuz-U rocket from Baikonur.

And two decades ago, even more spectacular spirals were seen in China:

James Oberg, who explained the recent Norwegian spiral on MSNBC, also wrote about the Chinese events.

If I saw that spiral in the sky, I would be baffled. Even after realizing it should be a malfunctioning rocket, because… it’s a giant light spiral in the sky!