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Rods

zenith-nadir

Illuminator
Z
Joined
Feb 3, 2004
Messages
4,482
First off let me preface with I have a hard time believing in aliens visiting earth abducting people, sticking stuff in their butts and stealing cow entrails on the side. There must be life in the universe but I feel the universe must be more interesting to aliens than making circles in wheat and wacking cows.

That being said, I was watching the tube on the weekend and there was a documentary about the phenomenon of Rods and Jose Escamilla. For those who may not know Rods are flying objects which have a super-thin ribbon-like appearance and move very quickly.
(see link...
seqa1.jpg
)

I found the documentary very interesting, it was neither for or against the existence of Rods just a chonology of their discovery and the investigation led by Jose Escamilla. They showed footage and stills from around the world, I'd say 2/3rds of the sources they quoted came from ordinary people who had never even heard of Rods... they had just noticed they had photographed something unusual.

They interviewed a few entomologists and a one said it was an insect but others were not so sure. Therefore I was wondering if anyone else has an opinion on this subject.
 
Insects are the most probable explanation.

People tend to be unable to judge depths and distances accurately on video tapes, especially in some lighting, which leads to a misperception about the size and speed of things passing in front of the camera lens.

I seem to recall several experiments showing a probable cause for the illusion of the "ribbon-like" appearance of the rods. As you might expect, it was very mundane and very ordinary. In fact, Randi might have mentioned them in one of his commentaries.

Have you searched the archives?
 
Phil said:
Insects are the most probable explanation.
Click to expand...
Generally people take the path of least resistance so insects is the easiest explanation to swallow. I prefer to look a little deeper and I am interested if anyone has run accross another explanation than insects. UFOs do not count...
 
Hmmm...let's think about this. Applying Occum's Razor, the simpler explanation with fewer novelties is more than likely the the correct one.

So, what's more likely? That digital cameras are capturing insects in flight passing by, or that unexplained creatures, apparently never seen by the naked eye, are flying around. Why don't more people see them? Why have they never been seen before? Personally I'll put them in the same category as "orbs."

Speaking of such things, what about chemtrails? Anyone know much about them?
 
That being said, I was watching the tube on the weekend and there was a documentary about the phenomenon of Rods and Jose Escamilla. For those who may not know Rods are flying objects which have a super-thin ribbon-like appearance and move very quickly.
(see link...http://opendb.com/sol/seqa1.jpg )
Click to expand...

I'm pretty new to the JREF so please bear with me.

Rod and orbs seem to be related, at least in my opinion. Rods appear to be an artifact created by the unique way video movie cameras interlaces images. I’ve never seen a rod on chemical movie film, just on video and I think that’s’ a pretty good clue regarding what they are. They look like distorted insects, moths and dragonflies for the most part. This summer I’m planning to make a short video reproducing some of the Escamilla videos by pointing cameras at swarms of dragonflies and observing if they resemble rod videos. I did something similar with orbs a couple of years ago.

I’ve also had long conversations with someone claming to be Jose Escamilla’s sister. Talk about a bunch of promoters!
 
Bingo. It seems like it would be so obvious that "orbs" are just bits of dust or water droplets that any half-sane person would realize it. That Occum's Razor thing again. Maybe someone out there who knows more about the optics and imaging can tell me why digital cameras seem more prone to pick them up. I don't think I've ever seen them on traditional film images.

Same with "rods." Any thoughts? I'd like to know just what about digital imaging causes this.
 
FramerDave said:
Bingo. It seems like it would be so obvious that "orbs" are just bits of dust or water droplets that any half-sane person would realize it. That Occum's Razor thing again. Maybe someone out there who knows more about the optics and imaging can tell me why digital cameras seem more prone to pick them up. I don't think I've ever seen them on traditional film images.

Same with "rods." Any thoughts? I'd like to know just what about digital imaging causes this.
Click to expand...


Well I’m not a photography expert but I’ve worked with many kinds of equipment. Digital cameras tend to be slower than chemical film cameras. Those that can shoot in low light are always take fairly long exposures. Flash units seem to be much stronger than an equivalent conventional camera and when a flash is being used the exposure time is *very* fast. This makes them ideal for capturing dust particles, snow or any other junk suspended in the air.

Orb photos are easy to make, just use a digital camera with a good flash. Fluff a pillow in a dark room and you got orbs. I suspect that this issue will go away when (or if) digital cameras start performing more like chemical film cameras.
 
I came across these things (Rods) years ago and even went to a webpage and dialoged with several believers. No matter how logical or straightforward you try to argue any other possibility with these guys they remain convinced that they are some form of yet undiscovered life form. That aside, upon examining one their best moving images of a Rod in flight (being chased by a bird), to me it clearly looked like the bird was after a flying bug. They even had a still photo sequence of a skydiver being paralleled by one of these things prior to his shute opening -- I estimated that the Rod was flying through the air at over 70 mph and that such a feat would be impossible (OK, very unlikely) for any such small critter. No matter, those photographic imperfections (to them) were real Rods.
 
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