“They Weren’t Airplanes!” Curious New Information on Colorado UFO Case Surfaces
on July 22, 2012 at 1:49 pm
Last month, an incredible series of photographs were taken in the night sky above the town of Castle Rock, Colorado, by photographer Greg Archer, who managed to capture two clear sets of images of anomalous lights hovering in the sky. The objects, while as-yet-unidentified, have been reckoned by many to be some form of plasma phenomenon akin to ball lightning; others have said that the objects more closely resemble aircraft on approach for landing in the distance. However, new data gathered from flight records in the public domain, along with weather data from the nearby Thornton Weather Station just outside Denver, may bring cause for pause to those previously considering the “landing lights” theory.
As I noted over at the blog for Intrepid Magazine recently:
One of the more popular theories here among the staff here at Intrepid had been that the lights might be a representation of lights on incoming aircraft, approaching for landing at the Denver International Airport in accordance with the date and time in question. Another theory a handful of people have put forth involves the overtly conventional (and highly mundane) theory of Chinese Lanterns someone had the poor judgement to go and release during what Mr Archer himself describes as one of the worst lightning storms to hit Castle Rock in recent memory. However, as our investigation of the photographs has carried along, we’ve managed to gather a good amount of data which is inconsistent with either of these theories.
Chiefly, there are two aspects that flight data has revealed that seem to rule out conventional commercial aircraft; for one, there are nine objects seen in the two photographs, which Archer took within five minutes of each other just prior to 11 PM MT on the night of June 6, 2012. Ideally, if what we were seeing here turned out to be incoming commercial aircraft, there should be information available that would confirm not only their presence in the sky at this time, but also the general direction they would be following in preparation for landing. Flight data made available by the Denver International Airport, on the other hand, tells a very different story…
Indeed, the devil’s in the details, as they say… and in this instance, those details don’t seem to favor the likelihood that we’re seeing landing lights on incoming aircraft. This is evident for two primary reasons:
1) The landing approach for incoming aircraft to the airport during the time period in question was listed as being West to East, and due to wind direction, this is often the most common directional orientation for landing. This is confirmed by records of flights incoming for landing between 10:45 MDT and 11:26 MDT.
2) There were only two flights in the air between 10:54 and 10:58 on an “approach” (within 50 km) of the Denver International Airport at that time. One had been approaching from the East, the other from the West; flight data for these can be viewed here and here.
Over at the blog for Intrepid Magazine, we’ve given a full rundown of the data thus far, in addition to a few other ideas as to what, precisely, the lights could have been. The complete article can be viewed here… so are we dealing with some variety of unexplained natural phenomenon? And if this isn’t the case, then what else could this case represent?
UPDATE: It seems very likely that we’ve uncovered a solution to this mystery… again, we’ll direct your attention over to the Intrepid Mag Blog, where you’ll see our final analysis. What are your thoughts?
Image by Perhapstoopink via Flickr.
I think what we learn from this instructional experience, is that a better understanding of of photos allegedly showing an anomalous feature can be obtained by analyzing the complete uncropped material, instead of just a small section we want to focus on.
And also that both sides of the UFO spectrum —the total debunkers and the total believers— like to jump into hasty conclusions. It’s hard to keep a dispassionate neutral stance in such matters —I confess that I myself was trying to explore some pretty outre avenues myself, trying to find arcane correlations when there weren’t any.
When I started to analyze the picture — in my own analogue way — I immediately thought that the lights could be a time exposure and that it may have been an aerial object with a strobing light as it passed across the field of view. I was going to put in my two-cents worth; but then decided to reread Greg Archer’s comments as reported in the Gralien article.
I decided that my explanation would not hold water as Mr. Archer says, “The lights appeared when I wasn’t looking and slowly faded away 20 minutes later. So far a meteorologist is dumb-founded and the Air Force Can’t (won’t?) explain.”
Now as Archer is describing his actions as taking “pictures” and not “filming” the event. From the above statement I inferred that he hadn’t see them appear — but did witness them fade out 20-minutes later. Is he describing seeing them as a series of digital pictures taken automatically over 20 minutes from a tripod, or is he saying he saw then with his own eyes? If the later then what does “slowly faded away” actually mean? How many photos were shot over the described 20 minutes?
Mr. Archer is described, on the July 24th Gralien podcast, as an accomplished photographer who himself only thought of them as UFOs by definition and was trying to debunk them, yet he is already quite insistent that the Air Force is hiding something — not very open-minded.
Mr. Archer knew it wasn’t hot pixels but didn’t know of or offer-up the refraction explanation — I’m a little perplexed by that. I would not be surprised that the experienced Mr. Archer was already aware of the refraction issues. If you know what I mean?