The picture of the triangle UFO has been analysed to death already, btw. Here's something to sink your teeth in:
The famous slide of Petit-Rechain was analysed in the 1990’s by several experts in scientific imagery, particularly by Marc Acheroy (Royal Military School, Brussels), François Louange (Fleximage company, Paris) and Richard F. Haines (Los Altos California); on Oct. 15th 2001, Patrick Ferryn of the SOBEPS gave us this slide, he wanted us to analyse it in our turn using the latest techniques of image numerical analysis, used in the Theoretical and Applied Optics Institute in Orsay. The purpose of this was to compare our results to the previous results, and to outline extra information and if possible draw conclusions about the authenticity of the document and about the nature of the object photographed
General obversation of the slide
In a first step, we have conducted a visual observation of the film after taking it out of its frame, then a digitisation by transparency using a flatbed scanner Agfa Duoscan T1200. Our observations match those previously made:
- The frame of the picture is perfectly neat and with no split even if it is seen with a very increased contrast; this excludes a double or multiple exposure during the photography.
- It is very difficult to consider faking with a model or any other similar process. This will be confirmed by numerical treatment (see below).
- Video processing or CGI can’t be imagined either: such pictures characteristics are not found on the slide, even by increasing enormously the contrasts.
Even if nothing can be excluded, it seems very likely that the picture is one of a solid object seen on a sky background, object of an unidentified origin to this day.
Digitisation of the picture
The second step was to precisely digitise the slide using a 35mm Canon film scanner with an optical resolution of 2720ppp, which brings a pixel size of under 10µm. That resolution is much bigger than that of the film (around 1µm) but greatly better than the smallest significant details in the picture, which are never under 20µm.
Other than the four very luminous stains, the picture is nearly black and had nearly no contrast. It was thus necessary to have, as early as the digitisation, a noise/signal ratio as good as possible, in order to catch the smallest differences, even in the darkest areas of the picture. For that purpose, we have used a technique consisting in averaging multiple consecutive digitisations: by digitising n times the slide in the same conditions, one reduces the noise part of the image due to the electronic equipment by a factor of 1/sqrt(n).
By digitising the slide in a normal position, then rotated by 90°, 180° and 270°, it is possible to average the fixed noise due to the structure of the equipment (non uniform answers from the bar photosites). To do that, you then need to reprocess the pictures up to the pixel, with an appropriate software, in order to superimpose them perfectly.
It is also possible to reduce the quantification noise influence (i.e. the pixels are coded by 8 bits per colour, that is 256 levels) by averaging the digitisation of the film in ‘positive film’ mode and ‘negative film’ mode, because the answer curves of the scanner are not the same in both modes.
Having then obtained a final average picture in its three components red, green and blue, we kept only a roughly 2 centimetres square, composed of 2430 by 2430 pixels. Finally, given the size of the smallest visible details (about 20µm as said above), we resized that zone to 1024 by 1024 by interpolation of pixels (fig 1.), in order to limit the size of the pictures and the calculation times.
Numerical treatments results
1. A contrasts increase brings out the object shape (fig. 2), particularly on the blue component (fig. 3). That outline is in the shape of an isosceles triangle ABC nearly squared angled on A, completed on its base by a quadrilateral BCED very similar to a rectangle. Taking into account the viewing angle, it is probable that angles A, D and E are square angles, and that the object is horizontal. On the object, very dark, are four very bright stains, that we will call lights to simplify. Three of those lights are close to A, D and E on the object, while the fourth one is situated roughly on the altitude AH of the triangle, from vertex A down to the DE base (fig. 4). It is not possible to estimate the size of or distance to the object, because there is no landmark.
Some areas of the outline are nearly neat while others are blurred, indicating a relative movement of the object and the film. The most believable explanation is that the object has executed a movement during the exposure time, the camera being fixed, but we can’t exclude a small movement of the camera. The two extreme positions are shown on figure 5.
The shape of the observed blurring can be explained by a rotation of the object in space, around an axis going through a point O nearly on the line BC and such that BO = O.25 BC (fig. 5). The rotation angle is close to 5°. We could simulate that blur effect by simulation (fig. 6).
The same rotation also allows to find the whole set movement the four lights underwent, supposed circular on the simulation. However, the three external lights show complex coloured structures and distortions that this global rotation do not explain: the obtained pictures necessarily imply independent movements for all of those lights in comparison with the object.
2. Various colour treatments allow to bring out a luminous halo around the object as well as light trails between the lights, particularly between the central light and the edge ones (fig 7.). However these treatments, in real as well as false colours, do not allow to draw a conclusion about the nature of that halo, nor to be able to precise what are those lights: lighting systems, signal lights or hovering/propulsion systems from the object.
3. Decomposition of the picture in brightness, hue and saturation provides rich information, particularly on the saturation component. This information is substantially improved through frequency filters and colour compositions. Processes have allowed to show privileged directions, especially in the halo that surrounds the object (fig. 8, 9, 10, 11). These directions correspond to the orientations of small luminous grains which, on the picture, compose a sort of rotation around the object, to be compared to snow flakes being flown around in a wind vortex. We can also compare it to iron filings that would be oriented in the lines of a magnetic field. Would that be electromagnetic perturbations, an air ionisation process? Without any available elements, the nature of that phenomenon is difficult to precise, even more because it is practically unspottable on the red, green or blue components of the image. These new observations are even more interesting because they seem to reinforce some theories, like those of the ionic plasma waves, theory used by Auguste Meessen, Professor Emeritus at Louvain University, about the object propulsion (magnetoplasmadynamic propulsion).
Anyway, the existence of those “force lines” is a heavy argument against a faking, which would then be particularly elaborated. Moreover one doesn’t see well a reason why a hoaxer would have undergone the effort to imagine and realise such a complex phenomenon, particularly since it is only perceivable with a sophisticated image processing.
Conclusion
The numerical processing that we executed in Orsay on the Petit-Rechain slide have confirment the major observations already made. They also brought new surprising results about the luminous halo surrounding the object, showing a process in the appearance of a whirl. The nature of the physical phenomenon corresponding could, according to some authors, be linked to the particular propulsion system of the object. That question ought to be investigated further. (
source)
Oh, and yet another slightly larger version of the picture, showing STARS in the background where the rest of the helicopter should have been if that's what it was.
