Michael Shermer's gonna post my ufo pics on eskeptic, YIKES?

[drastikmeazures]

Hey everyone, ok I'll try to make a long story short and then answer questions as best I can.


On Oct. 9th 2009, in downtown Detroit where I both work and live, I was painting an apartment when I noticed something in the sky.
It was approaching from the east and appeared to move like a helocopter (kind of slow, very smooth flight). As it got closer it didn't look like any helo I've seen before, luckily I was working with my brother in law who was a tanker in the military.
So I called him over and asked "that look like a helocopter to you?" I believe his exact response was "That ain't no helocopter". We watched it fly around a set of smoke stacks and then south towards the river a good 6 or eight city blocks and then change direction and come back to the stacks.
I had him keep an eye on it while I ran down to grab my camera and as soon as I got back I took 8 digital photo's of the object as it flew around, in between, and directly over the set of smoke stacks. My camera's batteries died so I went down for more and by the time I got back it had left. My brother in law said it went back towards the river (south) until he lost it behind the buildings.

So that's the story behind my photo's, I should say that I'm not some kind of ufo investigator, but this is my second experience. The first one being much more profound than this one, I'm also a painfully slow typer so I'll save that story for another day.

So I had these photo's and no idea who or where to send them to, came across UFO's Northwest, sent them off, they still have these photo's on they're site. I figured from there these pics would spread like wildfire all over the internet, sparking up new debate's. My phone would start ringing off the hook, everyone would want to talk to guy who finally got such great evidence!
No such luck, mostly I get "meh, balloon" or "meh, box kite". That's why I drew up a little sketch of the object's flight path as I remember it, from my perspective.
Now everyone's gonna say,.. well that was going on three years ago, your memory fails you, or...yeah "from your perspective" you don't REALLY know it was in that 3D space it could have been an optical illusion.

All I can say is first of all I new this was a very strange object from the moment it got close enough to make out it's shape. So I was on high alert, super observation mode right away. I don't think I blinked once, I'll never forget it.

And secondly, and this will seem odd unless you've done this job. I used to operate CNC Mills at a tool and die shop, my job was to take a program written by someone else and use it to cut huge blocks of steel. I became very good a watching the tip of a cutting tool, spinning at 30,000 rpm's and being able to tell if that cutter is in the correct 3D space to make the proper cut. If I was wrong in my judgement I just made a $150,000 paper weight, I was the best CNC operator they had.
My eye sight is 20/20, I've never used corrective lenses, can you tell I've been talking to Dr, Shermer?!

He's actually been very nice over email. When a few month's ago I finally realized the world wasn't going to come beat down my door I started sending the photo's around to more sites. One of those was Skeptic Magazine, I thought hey great a skeptical point of view, I try to approach everything skeptically myself, perfect!

Dr. Shermer got right back to me, faster than any of the other sites as a matter of fact. We went back and forth a bit and he agreed to post the pics on his eskeptic weekly thing on that site. So of course I start looking up stuff about this Skeptic Magazine and Dr. Shermer, and now I'm a bit worried I'm gonna get torn to shreds over there. Phew did it really take me that long to get to the point? Sorry... So I think they post the new eskeptic every Wednesday, which means tomorrow.

I'm not really worried about losing any credibility as I'm not a ufo investigator or anything, just a regular joe, just want to get these pics out to anyone who want's to see them really.

Link to photo's http://s29.photobucket.com/albums/c269/ ... 1QQtppZZ16

[drastikmeazures]

Just realized photobucket has compressed my photo's, they look a lot better than that. I'd be glad to send them to anyone interested.

[NinjaPuppy]

Welcome! Nice pics. I was able to click on the individual thumbnail and they come up fine.

[drastikmeazures]

Hey thanks NinjaPuppy, nice to be here. I am a pretty rational person so if people have ideas as to what this might be I'd love to here them. So far Balloon and box kite don't do it for me because of the flight path, but I'm not saying this has to be aliens.

[really?]

I'd say you have photos of a radio controlled balloon. Like a blimp.

[drastikmeazures]

That's a good answer, I do live right next to Comerica Park and Ford Field. The Good Year blimp is a regular in my neighborhood, it would have to be remote controlled because of it's size, I usually compare it to the size of one of those little smart cars, not sure how accurate that is but seems pretty close.

My problem with that would be when it flew directly over one of the stacks, and through the smoke coming out. None of my pics show that exact moment, but I remember pointing out to my brother in law that the warm air leaving the stacks should drag a balloon or kite upward at least a little bit.

This thing could pass straight through the smoke without so much as bump. Now I've looked up the weather for Detroit on Oct. 9 2009 and while I wasn't able to get wind speeds (part of their premium service) I know that the temp that day went from a low of 46, to a high of 53. Maybe not a huge difference in temp from ambient air to whatever the temp of the smoke is but should be some difference. This was pretty late in the day as well, so probably closer to the lower number?

If anyone can find wind speeds for that day in Detroit, that could be a big help as well.
Also it was silent from my distance, which was about 2,281.67 feet according to google earth. I fly small rc helo's sometimes and I could see an electric powered prop being silent from that distance. Gas powered no way, you'd see the smoke and the sound would bounce off the buildings.

[drastikmeazures]

Well I just went to eskeptic to see if the pics where up there and they're not. Looks like I got bumped for Lance Armstrong, I hope you all don't think I was lying. I'm a bit disappointed but a bit relieved at the same time, hopefully they will be posted up there one day on a slow news cycle. I'll be sure to let everyone here know, I'll just wait till they're actually up next time!

Either way I think these pics are very interesting, hope you all feel the same. At first I thought Dr. Shermer was someone who believes or wants to believe, and he just wanted tangible evidence to scientifically evaluate.
I'm not so sure about that anymore, in fact I'm wondering if these pics where a little to unexplainable for his liking?

[NinjaPuppy]

[ProfWag]

Great pics! Hopefully they won't tear you to shreds there. If you're honest with your pictures, there will be a lot of controversy and discussion about what it is, but hopefully they won't point fingers at you personally.
I'll see what I can dig up as to what it might be, but hey, it could be from another world! Ya' never know...

[drastikmeazures]

Yeah that's my report, just checked my email and Dr. Shermer did send me a link. It's not on eskeptic but they do have a very interesting theory, check it out. http://zetetique.fr/index.php/blog/449- ... -challenge

I've got to get to work, but I'll be back later today to look at this some more.

[drastikmeazures]

Just took some quick video from the roof, and the kite man is still out there! Now the question becomes what's that crazy bastard up to! All kidding aside it looks like ventilation of some sort, my video camera records to mini dvd's which I've had a hell of a time converting into something post-able on the net, but I'll spend tonight trying to figure that one out.

I would use the same camera I used for the originals but I broke that one a while ago, if you knew me you'd have no trouble believing that. Mom always said I was the reason we can't have nice things.

[drastikmeazures]

Ok, so I've got a little video on you tube that I hope will show the lay of the land a little and of course the kite flyer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEj6ZzYX ... e=youtu.be

Hey thanks everyone for the support, and the good ideas, I like this place already.

[NinjaPuppy]

Yay, perspective! That's some great footage (good, steady camera) and yes, you can see what is being called the "kite flyer" which is obviously some sort of permanent fixture on that building's roof. I'm gonna see if I can check it out on Google Maps, comparing it to the Mufon.com information.

[drastikmeazures]

Sounds good NinjaPuppy, I'm curious what everyone see's shape wise. I see a very complex diamond cut doughnut is the best way I can describe it. Other people have said it looks like it changes shape, I think it's a constant shape, but not a sphere in the conventional form. Sure it's spherical but it's got a more complex geometry going on there in my opinion. What do you guy's see?

[drastikmeazures]

Ok folks, I just found the original skepticblog page, I think Mr. Shermer sent me the wrong link accidentally.

http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/08/28/m ... ufo-photo/

Now I was looking at the comments and found this link http://www.youtube.com/v/TxWH_l4270o

That looks so much like my object I'm not sure I can argue with it, it doesn't explain it's flight path to me personally. I still stand by my observation that it went all the way around the stacks, in between the two, and far enough towards the river that I lost sight of it, before returning to the stacks. But that video matches my object to a tee, mystery solved?