[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

Boy Mick West sure does rub you guys the wrong way by simply suggesting a reasonable explanation for UAP, doesn’t he?

Naww, Mick West doesn't rub me the wrong way. Hell, I don't even know who or what Mick West is. To be quite honest, I don't care who or what Mick West is. The only thing that rubs me the wrong was is stupidity and not applying the same rigor to the explanation being used to explain the phenomena, leaving as many or more holes in the discussion as exist on the more fantastic.

I would think the aperture of the camera is stopped down because of the lighting conditions so the lights appear larger because of bokeh effect. That would mean they’re further away than they seem. Far enough away to obscure the plane(s) that dropped them and their smoke trail maybe? Who knows.

See, here's where my pet peeve comes into play. Let's just dismantle this one statement to show how ridiculous it is.

"I would think the aperture of the camera is stopped down because of the lighting conditions so the lights appear larger because of bokeh effect."

First of all, stopping down a lens means you are engaging the aperture blades to allow less light into the sensor. Stopping down actually creates greater depth of field, not less, all but eliminating the bokeh effect.

For those who don't know what the bokeh effect is, it is the intentional/unintentional result of the foreground and background not sharing the same hyperfocal plane, and one being in focus while the other is out of focus. This is amplified greatly by the length of the lens as the compression factor of longer lenses make for tighter hyperfocal ranges, some times down to fractions of an inch. To create bokeh you need to shoot your subject at a range where there is a clear break in hyperfocal distance, which then causes the foreground/background distortion.

The video in question would not have the bokeh effect as an explanation, even with zooming in. You can look at the cloud bank and see there are miles of clarity and sharpness in frame. The lights appear before one of the ridges in the cloud bank, which is clearly in focus, and the foreground clouds are equally sharp. Only once you get well beyond the ridge the lights appear do you start to see the diffusion of the image causing the bokeh effect. The lights are clearly in the hyperfocal range of range as there is no distortion effect in lights associated with the bokeh effect.

Anyway, don’t let me stop you from playing out your irrational fantasies.

Don't stop us from picking apart your contradictory use of terms and complete lack of understanding of the mechanics of these devices in making your smarmy comment.

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

No but the crappy video was of the flares, auto focus on a cell phone would focus on the flares and blur everything else, standing on the moon the stars of the milky way would be incredible but yet the pictures from the apollo missions show no stars, there's also a possibility the aircraft could be long gone.

So much wrong in one sentence. Again, we'll take this apart piece by piece.

"No but the crappy video was of the flares, auto focus on a cell phone would focus on the flares and blur everything else,"

Well, there goes the bokeh effect explanation. If the lens was focused on the "flares" then the depth of field is going to maximized around that distance eliminating bokeh. As we can see from the detail in the clouds in front of and behind the lights, the hyperfocal distance is in the miles range. Anything that was close enough to the flares would be clearly visible.

"standing on the moon the stars of the milky way would be incredible but yet the pictures from the apollo missions show no stars"

This has nothing to do with the star field in the background, the bokeh effect, or anything. It has everything to do with the light sensitivity of the film and the ability of the film to capture light from weaker light sources. The light reflected from the primary target of the photo is very powerful, while the lights from the stars would be very weak. Considering that the images captured from the Apollo missions were shot using Hasselblad 500EL cameras coupled with an 80mm and 250MM lens, using predominantly ISO 80 superfine grain film stock, the resulting lack of star field is expected. That does not mean they do not exist, just that they are very faint and when the primary subject is printed for clarity and proper exposure the star fields disappear. If a print was made focusing on the star field the primary image would blow out and be nothing but an over-exposed mess, but the star fields would then come into the visible range.

You can see examples of this here. https://www.randombio.com/moonlanding.html

"there's also a possibility the aircraft could be long gone"

There actually isn't. As the video evidence from all those planes ejecting flares shows, the second the flare hits the air the magnesium or phosphorus ignites and begins its burn. This is instantaneous and there is no possible way from the plane to be "long gone". Again, there is also no clear smoke trail from the igniting chemical flare. This would be defying all we know about how flares react with the atmosphere and evidence of their use. If the "flares" are in frame and within the hyperfocal range, the planes would clearly be visible.

Why all these conspiracy theorists think aliens are flashing lights or dropping flairs is hilarious.

What is hilarious is you bending over backwards to accept the explanation that clearly defies logic. When trying to explain away some phenomena that defies our understanding it is best not to rely on explanations that clearly defy what we do understand. Flares, weather balloons, and swamp gas behave in very specific ways, and can be easily recreated to determine if the explanation makes sense. The explanations are just as outlandish, and you have to suspend what we know about the world around us to accept what some of these skeptics are trying to sell. We don't know what these things are, but we can very quickly determine what they are not because of our understanding of the behaviors of the objects in the explanations.