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William Bryant`s "Speed of bols" analysis
I am somewhat of a novice at this and, since I don't have access to the Oliver's castle video, I am operating at somewhat of a disadvantage. I am an aeronautical engineer with a background in military intelligence and imagery analysis. I do not consider myself an 'expert' in photogrammetry, imagery analysis, or video and digital graphics. But, I have some observations relative to the various analyses that have been done which I would like to contribute, for whatever value you might find. I would appreciate any comments you might have in response to my contributions.
To wit:
01. First, it is claimed that the #2 video does not exhibit any motion 'blurring' of the 'balls of light' as would be expected in the video taping of any object moving at these speeds. Much is made of this aspect by the debunkers and it is a valid point with which I would tend to agree. But, this issue, in itself, is not an absolute or conclusive argument.
02. The video images, as I understand, are taken at speeds of 25 to 30 frames per second, depending on whether it is European or US standard, and each frame consists of 2 interlaced fields - one an up scan and one a downscan. Hence, the term interlaced images as with your video monitor. With 2 fields per frame and 25 to 30 frames per second, you get 50 to 60 fields, or scans, per second. The motion 'blurring' should be evident if the moving object moves a significant distance in 1/50 or 1/60 of a second.
03. At 60 miles per hour, an object travels approximately 90 ft per second, or about 1.5 to 1.8 ft per video scan (depending on the 25 or 30 frame per second speed). At 600 miles per hour, the object would travel approximately 900 ft in one second, or about 15 to 18 ft per video scan. Since the crop circle is reportedly 380 ft across, and the UFO's make about 1 circumnavigation of the crop circle, the approximate distance travelled would be about 1200 ft. This occurs in a time period of about 7 to 8 seconds which gives us 150 to 170 ft per second as a 'rough order of magnitude' estimate of the speed of the UFO's, or about 100 to 120 miles per hour - which is about 2.5 to 3.4 ft of linear motion per video scan and 5.0 to 6.8 ft of linear motion per video frame.
04. Your website suggests the speed is only about 80 to 90 miles per hour - an estimate which I could also accept - but I tend to believe the speed is some 20% higher. Your estimate is approximately 120 to 130 ft per second. This would equate to 2.0 to 2.6 ft of linear motion per video scan or 4.0 to 5.2 ft of linear motion per frame.
05. Since you estimate the balls of light to be 3.0 to 4.0 ft in diameter, the motion 'blurring' to be expected due to 2.0 to 3.4 ft of linear motion (based on paragraphs 03 and 04 above) only amounts to about 1 light diameter per video scan. For example, if the ball of light is 3.0 ft in diameter and it moves 2.0 ft in one video scan, one might expect an image length of 5.0 ft, maximum. If the ball of light is 4.0 ft in diameter and it moves 3.4 ft in one video scan, one might expect an image length of 7.4 ft, again at a maximum. In other words, the expected image 'blurring' - based on these rough calculations - remains roughly consistent with the photogrammetric measurement error.
06. Taken another way: If the image is measured photogrammetrically to be 3.0 ft high and 4.0 ft long to arrive at an estimated diameter of 3.0 to 4.0 ft, then the 3 ft height could actually be representative of the diameter of the 'ball of light' - if it is spherical in shape as one might expect from a 'ball of light' - and the 4.0 ft length could be the 3.0 ft diameter of the 'ball of light' along with 1.0 ft of motion 'blurring' - which is not terribly inconsistent with our rough estimates of speed in paragraph 03 and 04, above.
07. Further, if video 'blooming' is occurring due to the nature of the active light source, the actual diameter of the UFO might be less than the minimum 3.0 ft measurement quoted in the analyses. I don't know if the dimensional estimates have already compensated for video blooming, or not.
08. At any rate, at the speeds estimated for the 'balls of light', very little motion 'blurring' should be evident. It would seem that the motion 'tail' would be on the order of 1 diameter and definitely less than 2 diameters. This might be exactly what we are seeing if the objects appear to be elongated in the direction of flight - as they seem. One would definitely NOT expect a motion tail of 5 to 10 diameters at these speeds.
09. Admittedly this is a rough analysis. I don't have the video tape to work with in disputing the claims made by others, many of whom are working directly from copies of the video. From this rough analysis, however, I would suggest that the motion 'blurring' argument is inconclusive, at best. Furthermore, motion 'blurring' of the appropriate amount MAY, in fact, be present in the video imagery and MAY simply be misinterpreted as a non-spherical object shape. This effect may be observed in the Patrick Wilson analysis of object shape based on image enlargement.
10. Reversing the above argument, and assuming the 'ball of light is 3.0 ft high and 9.0 ft long (3 diameters), the 'ball of light' would have moved 6.0 ft in 1/50 or 1/60 of a second which equates to a speed of 300 to 360 ft per second, or 200 to 240 miles per hour. In 7 to 8 seconds of motion, the BOLs would have travelled 2100 to 2900 ft. Even in the case of a short tail of only 2 diameters, the speed of the object has doubled and the distance travelled has doubled to 2 complete circumnavigations of the crop circle. I don't think that anyone would claim that the BOLs travelled that far in the 7 to 8 second period. Hence, the motion 'tail' should be bounded between 1.0 to 2.0 diameters, and not very obvious.
11. Another factor to be considered - which I have not heard discussed - is whether or not the BOLs may be flashing, as in the case of a 'strobe' light. Typical US fluorescent lights appear to be a continuous light source - even in video footage. These lights actually flash, or stobe, at 60 hertz. While this effect is generally unnoticed, it could actually alter the motion 'blurring' tail of a moving, and flashing, light source. The flashing of the light source could only serve to shorten the motion 'tail' - not lengthen it.
Could you please comment on these observations. Has anyone
addressed these issues to counter the motion 'blurring' arguments???? Thanks.
CAIO..............................................................wbryant
