Closing McMinnville to present a NEW case!
Stray Cat draws diagrams and makes assertions but provides NO calculations (even when asked to DO so) to show how he might have arrived at the scale and dimensions in his diagrams and thus how he supports his conclusions.
Stray Cat claims Dr Maccabee is incorrect in his analysis, yet ignores Dr Maccebee’s own analysis and descriptions of that analysis which explains the error margins involved and how they came about.
Stray Cat claims to be an “experienced” photographer, yet demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of parallax and of how to calculate the camera positions from the photos.
Finally Stray Cat posts a Hartmann photo claiming it to show the relationship between the house and garage when THIS analysis not only demonstrates a
serious misunderstanding of the effects of perspective, but also directly contradicts the aerial survey photo of the Trent farm.
In summary, Stray cat has conducted NO calculations (NONE), has ignored the analytical evidence, and has
seriously misunderstood parallax and perspective in photographs.
Then we have Astrophotographer, whose specialty is attacking the character of the witnesses (“stupid hicks” was his most memorable claim). But of course this just ignores the character assessments we DO have of the Trents that they were honest, down-to-earth, hard-working folk, whose characters were not of the type that might suggest that they could possibly have carried off a such hoax.
We also have the “Klass” suggestion of “inconsistencies” within the story… but what do these amount to. A minor contradiction in
newspaper (!) accounts about who saw the UFO first? Mr or Mrs Trent? That’s Klass’ knockout punch? Oh…but then there is “Mrs Worth”. Did she or did she not see UFOs? Mrs Trent thought that Mrs Worth told her she had, but that Mrs Worth had since moved and she did not know her forwarding address so this could not be confirmed. THIS is Klass’ knockout punch? What else does Klass have… what…nothing else? Oh dear…
Other people have jumped in with “explanations” – a car/truck mirror is one such. Yet this again ignores the photo analysis AND ignores the fact that while there might be
similarities, no-one has EVER come up with a mirror that actually
matches the UFO…
The UFO hanging from the overhead wires has been thoroughly refuted (either it must be swinging wildly which would leave photographic evidence AND have made capturing the UFO as shown in the photos merely with two consecutive photos extremely unlikely, or it is stationary, which does not account for size differentials, the “distance” haze surrounding the second UFO, etc)
Another “explanation” that the UFO debunkers have finally, in desperation, resorted to is the “God must have done it” argument. LOL. This demonstrates precisely how far they have fallen and to what lengths they will go. Oh how the mighty have fallen! Can anyone take seriously in future any JREF member who has put forward this argument?
Then there are the photos themselves. With ALL substantial UFO photographic cases, UFO debunkers AND researchers set out to “reproduce” the photos with models etc to demonstrate that it is possible to DO so. Yet even with all the technology available to us today, NO-ONE has EVER been able to reproduce anything that even comes close to the Trent photos (especially considering Trent took just the two photos, in sequence, in the middle of a roll of film).
All in all does this “prove” that the photos are genuine? Of course not. However it DOES strongly
suggest that a hoax is extremely unlikely in this case. Yet while ever the slight possibility remains, the UFO debunkers will jump in to rehash all the old arguments – even after they have been refuted - time and time again.
It would therefore seem pointless continuing the argument from here (indeed, given the amount of nonsense and insincere posting that has been going on lately – and the fact that even Astrophotographer has begun to struggle with his “memory” about the minutia of the case - I gather that others would also like a change of pace) so unless anyone has any strong objections, I would like to leave the Trent/McMinnville case at this point and present another case which “ramps up” the evidence substantially.
The case I want to present involves the conjunction of irrefutable eyewitness, video and radar evidence. It is a case that has also been discussed in peer reviewed scientific journals (Applied Optics for one). Pundits have called this case “one of the world’s best documented UFO cases". It is this:
The Kaikoura UFO sightings (30 Dec 1978)
First we have a TV news analysis:
The Kaikoura UFO sighting continues to baffle, 30 years on. Monday, 20 October 2008, 8:46pm (Source: TV3)
(
http://www.scoop.co.nz/multimedia/tv/technology/14461.html)
Then we have the original footage
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q3iq4R8MgM)
Then we have the analytical articles. The following articles can be seen on Dr Maccabee’s website (
http://brumac.8k.com/index.html - scroll down the page until you come to the following headings):
(1) New Zealand Sightings of December 31 1978
(2) New Zealand Radar Sighting
(NOTE: These are presented as direct download Word documents from the links provided in the text under the above titles)
Continue scrolling down and you will find the heading “Flashing Light Film from New Zealand!” under which the following links are available:
(3) Flashing Light
(
http://brumac.8k.com/NEW_ZEALAND/NZFlashingLight/NZFlashingLight.html)
94) Squid Boat
(
http://brumac.8k.com/NEW_ZEALAND/NZSB.html)
On the same page (located above the links just mentioned) the sighting is also mentioned in:
(5) Challenging the Paradigm!
(
http://brumac.8k.com/ChallengeParadigm/Challenging the Paradigm.htm)
Of course various other websites mention the sighting (for example (
http://www.ufocasebook.com/newzealand1978.html) and (
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread410406/pg1) but interested parties will have no trouble finding more information, so I will not list further links to the subject unless discussion requires it.
