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UFOlogist Joe Capp has his own UFO hotline in NY city. As a result, he seems to get many of the UFO reports and videos from the big apple. A recent blog entry of his included a lengthy videothat peaked my interest as I wondered what it might be.
The video
The video was taken on September 26, 2010 by Cesar Guerrero. It begins, according to the camera’s clock, at approximately 8:31:54 PM. The witness states he saw the UFO while walking his dog and noticed its lighting was different than a helicopter. He estimated its location was between the Bronx and Manhattan but we have no idea where he was located or how he made this determination.
One can only assume that he was looking in the direction of those two locations and determined it as the object being between the two. He also states that his niece should have seen it in Manhattan and her location indicates a southwest viewing angle. Mr. Guerrero then concludes with the statement that a light came out from underneath the object and illuminated the clouds as it went towards New Jersey.
One thing about the video bothered me. In parts 1-3, we see the date/time stamp as September 26, 2010 until 9:22 PM. There is then some static/data loss and the video then starts up with the date/time stamp as November 20, 2010 10:11 PM. Either the date was changed or this was an entirely different event.
Capp’s “investigation”
The first we hear about Joe Capp’s investigation is a blog posting he made in April, where he proclaimed:
The person videoed a hovering Triangle (all 42 minutes of it) from his 26th floor balcony in the Bronx and his daughter of about 7 years was with him...I could give it to MUFON like the last video and never get it back or any returned email. But then I realized I have read so many debunkers statements and books that I knew what they would use to smear these people beforehand.
I decided on the ways I would approach the situation to validate this video. I decided to send it off to a scientist I know who has done a great deal of optics work for the government. Meanwhile I would interview the witnesses with a hispanic translations and asked them all the right questions and the debunkers would ask. 1
When he presented the video he made the following statement, which is quoted in the part 1 of the video:
I sent this video to a scientist and he concluded it was “not a blimp, helicopter, plane, or hoax by Cesar.” He also estimated the craft to be “larger than a helicopter”.
This is a true UFO.2
In his blog entry he stated this scientist commented that the lights surprised him. Apparently, the changing shape was something he could not explain.
Capp made the following final statement on his blog:
Maybe this time we can rise above the worst in us and deal with the facts of not only what the video shows but even how it came to light freely and with no other motives
than the question, “could you tell me what this is?”3
Missing data in his blog entry
Capp stated he would ask the pertinent details but he refused to give them on his blog. Missing were some basics. Perhaps a more precise location than “The Bronx”, would be appropriate. Additionally, what direction were they looking? He states his niece in Manhattan should have seen it and she was located in the vicinity of 104th street and Columbus. Guerrero also felt the object was located between Manhattan and the Bronx. Based on this, one can only assume he was looking towards the south or southwest depending on where he was located. As a result, I created the general sighting lines for various locations in the Bronx looking towards the location of Guerrero’s niece. It does not precisely point towards the UFO’s location but it does give us an area to start working with (image created usingGoogle earth).
The object
The video shows the object move about in a lazy pattern. What was an immediate red flag for me was the anti-collision strobe flashing away. Another red flag were the red and green lights that were visible. The green was on the left and the red was on the right when the object appeared to be pointed towards or away from the observer. If it were pointed towards the observer, then this is what one would expect for navigation lights. The green is on the starboard side and the red on the port. This indicates to me the object was man-made. Some of these lights were intermittently visible, indicating the shape of the object obscured these lights (especially the anti-collision strobe) as it moved about. There also was a dimmer light that seemed to be at the middle/front of the object. It is curious behavior for an object that seems to be hovering over a fixed location and moving about in back and forth motion. If this were a man-made object, what could maneuver like that and what was its purpose?
A hint
Probably the most important thing to look at is the date and time. What was happening in the Bronx/Manhattan area on September 26, 2010 between 8 and 10 PM?
Any fan will tell you that the Yankees vs. Red Sox is one of the biggest rivalries in baseball. They will also tell you that, like clockwork, they always seem to play on the weekend and on Sunday night at 8 PM with ESPN broadcasting the game. If the game is played in New York, it is at Yankee stadium in the Bronx, which is near three of the four general site lines I previously drew (See image on next page)! Of course, September 26th was aSunday night and there WAS a Yankees-Red Sox battle that night in New York (the image above comes from that game via the ESPN web site).
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So, what does a Yankees-Red Sox game have to do with this UFO? Well, ESPN loves aerial shots of the area/stadium and they tend to use blimps. It was hard to determine if a blimp was present until Reality Uncovered member “Luck” found this December 7, 2010 news item describing a Goodyear blimp’s latest adventure:
After floating over Red Sox and Yankees games in late September, Tropical Storm Nicole forced the big balloon into a three-day bypass down the Appalachians.4
However, when I e-mailed Goodyear, they responded they had no blimps over Yankee stadium on the 26th. The representative of Goodyear stated that the blimp was present at a Yankees-Rays game earlier in the week. As a result, one has to consider that it is possible the Goodyear blimp was not present.
I checked on several other blimps. Metlife and Direct TV never responded to my queries. Direct TV is used often with Yankees games according to one New York writer. It seems identifying the offending blimp may not be possible without a video of that ESPN game. I knew I should have recorded all those Red Sox-Yankees games last year!
Even more interesting is that the November 20, 2010 section appears to have been recorded on another night, which means the date was not in error and was on November 20th. When one looks at sporting events at Yankee stadium on November 20th, we have a nationally televised (NBC) football game between Notre Dame and Army! There probably was a blimp at that game as well for the aerial shots.
All of these coincidences have to be considered when investigating this video. Could this “triangular UFO” have been nothing more than a blimp?
The “triangle” lights explained
There are several videos one can find on line showing the Goodyear blimp at night, which is probably very similar to other blimp lighting configurations. (One can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhtKjNHqsEQ) There are two anti-collision strobes. One is underneath and is weaker than the one on top. The front and rear of the blimp also have a solid light. There are standard navigation lights on the gondola and the tail fins.
The Direct TV blimp’s lighting, which is also used in Sunday night baseball games, appears a bit different than what I saw on the Goodyear blimp. They apparently do not have an anti-collision strobe on the bottom or turn it off when over sporting events. In this image I took from the June 19, 2011 Yankees-Cubs game, no anti-collision strobe was visible on the bottom of the blimp. However, the other lighting was visible.
Once one sees the lighting, one can look at the UFO and see how it could be a blimp/airship. As it turns directly towards the camera, one is going to see the bright strobe on top, two navigation lights and a nose light (see the time stamp 8:46:17 in part 1 of the Cesar video on Capp’s web site). When the blimp moves nose upward,
the top strobe is obscured by the blimp and one only sees the nose light with the navigation lights (see 8:46:57). If it turns to port (see 8:46:21) or starboard (8:46:04), only one navigation light appears and the strobe is also visible on top. The nose light can also be seen. It is also possible that the blimp can be seen at an angle where both navigation lights and nose light can be seen without a strobe(8:46:57).
Weather underground states the winds were blowing from the NE at 10-14 mph. This means the blimp probably could just point towards the Northeast and station keep over the stadium moving back and forth from left to right. This explains why we always see the green light on the left and the red on the right. The blimp had no reason to turn around until it left.
Lastly, we are told that the witness noticed that, as the UFO left, it had a bright light come out of its bottom and illuminate the clouds. Could a blimp do that?
Frame grab of the Goodyear blimp at night. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhtKjNHqsEQ
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Contrary to the claims of the scientist, who seemed confused by the lights, they can be explained once the identity of the object is determined. Stating it could not be a blimp was premature and ignored the obvious clues of the navigation lights and the anti-collision strobe. Was the UFO trying to pretend to be a blimp? Maybe in addition to “fake airplanes”, UFOs want to appear as “fake blimps”.
It is not a blimp!
Joe Capp seems to feel any explanation other than an exotic craft is stating the witness is lying. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am only stating that the witness was simply mistaken and was not being dishonest. He obviously was not a baseball or football fan since the games were not on the television while he was recording the UFO. He may not even have known that Yankee stadium was in the direction he was recording. One can not find fault for an honest mistake by the witness.
That being said, I have less sympathy for those who chose to promote the video for something it wasn’t. The “scientist” (we have no name or credentials presented
so we have to question about his qualifications) deserves scorn simply because he did not really look at all the possibilities and chose to proclaim it could not be a blimp (assuming Capp did not exaggerate what the “scientist” told him). Capp also deserves criticism because he has dismissed any possibility of it being explained as demonstrated by his comments in a single post in the Reality Uncovered forum.
In his only statement about in the discussion, Mr. Capp attempted to downplay the blimp hypothesis. We were told that the witness could not see Yankee stadium from his window but that makes no sense. As one can see from the map on the previous page, the direction he described seems to point towards Yankee stadium. Either the witness does not have a good sense of direction or he should be able to see in the direction of Yankee stadium. Perhaps they are stating they can’t physically see Yankee stadium from their window, which is very probable if they are over a mile away. When requests for location and direction of the video were requested, Capp chose not to respond and left the forum.
Capp promised that he would have his witness record a blimp and show it as a reference. He thinks such an endeavor will eliminate the blimp explanation. In my opinion, that may not be adequate because there are variables involved. Unless, he records the same kind of blimp at night under similar conditions (wind from NE, hovering over Yankee stadium, etc.), it will not look the same and may give a misleading result.
Or is it?
Last issue, I made it a point to mention that UFOs as “exotic craft” are never seen at major sporting events. Both of these events were nationally televised with dozens of high definition cameras positioned to record action inside and outside the stadium (including aerial shots!). Not once did anybody mention seeing any “exotic/unknown craft” hovering
in the area of Yankee stadium or any place else in the Bronx. This means the UFO was something that was easily identifiable by the cameras, everybody driving on the highway, in the stadium, or out that night walking about in one of the world’s most densely populated cities. The blimp (or some other conventional man-made aerial device) is a reasonable solution in this light.
I think this case can be considered mostly solved. The only thing missing is the culprit blimp/aircraft. However, if one can demonstrate that the witness was not shooting in the general direction of Yankee stadium (i.e to the north or east of the Bronx), I will reconsider this conclusion. I am sure Joe Capp will disagree but the video (which he states should be considered) and the facts surrounding it seem to indicate it was a blimp or otherman-made aircraft.
The will to believe
The problem with UFO proponents like Joe Capp is there appears to be no middle ground. Once he has established in his mind that the UFO is something truly exotic, any potential explanation is an attack on the integrity of the witness. This is followed by using the epithet of “debunker” to convince his readers the explanation if invalid. I guess Mr. Capp is practicing what Stanton Friedman accuses “debunkers” of doing. That being, “Don’t bother me with the facts, my mind is made up”.
Quelle: SUNlite 4/2011
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