Debunking the debunkers
“Author’s
note: This was written as a rebuttal to Mr. DuHamels website, I have tried
several times to send this to him and to reach him by e-mail without any luck.
To further advance the rod debate this letter is being posted in the hope
that Mr. DuHamel will respond.”
Dear Bob DuHamel,
I have examined your paper titled “The Rod Hoax”, you start off by discussing
lens flare and I paraphrase you here but if I understand you correctly you
believe inexperienced or gullible people mistake lens flares for UFO’s or
angels.
I am unclear if you mean to say that people that believe in rods also
believe in angels/ufos or do you mean to say that some people believe lens
flares are ufos/angels so because those people (who ever they are) are unable
to identify a lens flare that other people must also be impaired to the point
that they mistake insects for rods.
Even though you bring up the point of lens flare, which I will grant you is
mistaken for a lot of things including at times orbs, ufos, auras, ghosts
or any one of a number of so called paranormal events you do not seem to support
your suggested proposal that lens flares are mistaken for rods in your
paper.
You do however present a good argument concerning shutter speeds, linear velocity
versus angular velocity and the fact that insects if filmed correctly can
be made to look almost exactly like Rainbow rods. I will not stoop so low
as to call you names, we rose above that behavior I would like to think when
we left kinder-garden, and as it seems to me you are an intelligent
man, with a knack for putting into words your ideas so I would instead like
to present this side to the story.
You also seem to be an individual who values the pursuit of science. As you
state you have been an amateur astronomer since 1969, I would assume you are
quite knowledgeable about Galileo Galilei, and Nicholas Copernicus. Round
about 1543 Copernicus theorized that the earth was not the center of the universe
but in fact orbited around the sun. Not only was this “correct” theory not
accepted by the scholars of that age, (legitimate scientific community) that
you seem to place so much faith in, but the church also forcibly resisted
it.
66 years later Galileo discovered the four moons of Jupiter and was imprisoned
by the church for that brilliant discovery, I believe Copernicus was burned
at the stake for his insightful contributions to your hobby. I will not waste
time here discussing what Roemer went though trying to get people to believe
that light traveled at 132,000 mps (he was only off by 54,000 mps). What I
am trying to say here is, all scientific discoveries have been and continue
to be met with skepticism, ridicule, or outright hostilities.
You seem to have a grasp on “the scientific method” (All ideas must be tested
by experiment or by observation). Your conclusions although correct for the
experiments you conducted are I believe in error. There are many examples
in scientific history of “scientists” supporting a preconceived hypothsis
with experiments only to have someone take the experiments a few steps father
and disprove the initial belief. Before I present my data to you I would very
much like to know if you have tried your experiments in the winter when insects
would not be a factor or have you tried filming at high shutter speeds?
You went so far as to make insects look like rods, you could of made birds
look like rods. I could easily photograph a garden hose and make it look like
a snake, but it doesn’t mean the hose is a snake. Insects, bats and birds
all have a similar morphology, in fact in Aristotle’s day they believed bats,
insects and birds were related because they all had wings. We know of course
today that bats are mammals, birds are birds, and insects are insects. Even
though their outward appearances are similar because they have wings, we are
closer to bats then birds are, as we are both mammals.
Rainbow rods have wings, so of course you should be able to make blurred insect
images resemble rod photographs. The photos you have on your site are quite
good in that they indeed do resemble some rod photos, however in each
one you can tell that you are filming a small creature.
It would be difficult to convince a person that one of your photos is over
3 or 4 inches in length. I would hope you would agree with me on this one
point. Many photographs of rods are probably insects; I would not argue that
point with you. However some rod photos cannot be explained by your assertion
that all rod photos are of insects. For example this following photo of a
Rainbow rod was taken at approximately 10x magnification with a CCD camera
that you may know is sensitive to the infrared spectrum.
The creature in the photo was traveling from the upper left to the bottom
left of the FOV (field of view). As you can see in this photo the creature
passes in front of and very close to the maple leaves in the lower center
of the photograph. The dark line visible at the bottom of the photo was the
edge of the roof. Having measured the distance from the top of the roof to
the tree branch of which the rod passed in front of I can tell you that the
rod and the branch are 14 feet from the surface of the roof. This object
(rainbow rod) does not cross into the dark area at the bottom of the screen
giving us a good idea how far away from the camera this object was. My conservative
estimate is that this creature is about 10 inches in length. If you would
like a more complete analysis of this photo please accept my invitation to
view it at www.flyingrods.com under
the article hyperlink.
To further muddy the waters of your conclusions I wish to present this
next photo for your scrutiny. In this next photo take note of the metal roofing,
and the log end to the far left of the screen. The roofing is standard metal
roofing and the distance between the “humps” is about 6 inches, the log end,
which is only partly visible to the far left, is about 3 inches across the
face of it.
The rod is traveling from the right side of the frame towards the left side.
Take note that the object is headed downwards in this shot, the roof
in this photo sweeps upwards away from the viewer, and is a simple shed roof
design. The rod must be beyond the roof edge or else it would of crashed into
the roof. In fact it must be several feet beyond the roof edge in order to
avoid hitting the roof. So by measuring the edge of the roof here in this
photo we know for certain that the Rainbow rod here is at LEAST 12 inches
in length and most likely is closer to 1½ ft long or longer.
As you can see here, this photo looks distinctly different from the “insect”
photos on your site. There can be no disputing the size of this creature as
we can see on the video that the creature plainly disappears beyond the roof
edge, giving us an absolute minimum size for this object. The details here
are distinct and clear; there is very little blurring. The anterior end of
the creature (lower left side) is distinctly different as compared to the
posterior end of the creature. Even if one was to argue that this image was
elongated on its longitudinal axis that would still not explain an estimated
fin width of about 4 inches.
Correct me if I am mistaken here but how is it possible to blur an image on
two different axis at the same time? You can’t have it both ways, this image
either elongated on it’s longitudinal axis and not it’s horizontal axis meaning
the fin width is accurate or it elongated on it’s longitudinal axis and is
over 12 inches in length. No matter which side you take you still cannot explain
this photo by saying it is an insect misrepresented by camera mechanics or
due to slow shutter speeds.
To cite another example, examine this next photo where the creature exhibits
a pronounced bilateral symmetry to the fin structure. Your argument that all
rod photos are blurred bugs does not explain how in this photo we see four
internal struts visible at the anterior end of this creature (top of photo).
The struts form a sort of double-stacked V’s with the wide end of the V’s
pointing upward. According to your theory we should expect that the two protuberances
visible at the posterior end, (bottom of the frame) should also have the wide
end of the V pointing upward.
Instead we see that the bottom protuberances have the wide part of the V pointing
downwards. Please explain to me how a repeating blurred insect frame, can
reverse its image. Once again I paraphrase a segment from your paper where
you state that the rod images are because successive frames appear to line
up end to end. You state in your paper that the images will
line up end to end.
Correct me Mr. DuHamel but if the images are connected shouldn’t we
expect the V shaped structure to remain with its wide end always facing upwards?
Once again I ask you to explain to me how the image managed to reverse itself
after apparently repeating itself twice according to your theory?
This next photo was taken 4-4-02 here in Central Maine; the temp that day
never rose above 34 degrees. When the photo was taken the tripod was placed
in an inch of snow, the branches were bare, there were no flying insects,
in fact the only insects one might have been able to find would have been
snow fleas, or certain night flying moths that manufacture their own brand
of antifreeze. In short there were no visible insects in the air, even so
this image appeared on the video film.
Would you be so kind as to speculate, as to what this object is, if it was
not an insect? Or if you believe it was an insect, please enlighten me as
to what species of flying insect is active at 34 degrees?
Dear Sir, please let me say that I fully understand your reluctance to believe
in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. I also do not fault you for having a mind
that needs to be shown proof. I too at first thought rods were insects and
that there must be an explanation for the anomalous images caught on film.
I set out as you did to disprove those “wacko’s” that believed in such nonsense.
Imagine my surprise when I could not prove they were insects. Each day that
I uncover more evidence I am again confounded as to what these objects could
be. But I know insects are not that active at 34 degrees, I know insects in
Maine anyhow do not reach 12 inches in length nor are they 4 inches in width.
If you need more proof I could include more photos, but there are already
several articles explaining my position at www.flyingrods.com
if you are indeed a honorable man, and I have no reason to think otherwise,
if you take the challenge you issued on your web site seriously which I have
pasted in below then do me several favors.
“I
challenge anyone to demonstrate that the majority of the legitimate scientific
community* believes that "rods" are anything other than photographic
artifacts.”
“I
also challenge anyone to prove that "rods" are not artifacts of
the photographic process (this proof must be capable of withstanding peer
review in the legitimate scientific community).” Challenge issued by Mr.
DuHammel on his site http://www.amsky.com/ufos/rods/
First Mr. DuHammel, go to www.flyingrods.com and read all the articles,
look over the photographs. Then take your equipment or borrow some, go out
using the methods that are described at flying rods, then send me some photos
that match up to the ones I have included in this letter, explain to me after
you have photographed some real rods why these images are insects and I will
retract all that I have written.
Your experiment proves one thing and one thing only; it proves that insects
filmed at slow shutter speeds can be made to look like some rod photographs.
Your experiment does not answer how rods appear on cameras filming at high
shutter speeds, it does not answer the question of 12-18 inch long rods, or
rods filmed in cold conditions when no insects were out. It does not answer
how film footage of a BASE jumper leaping into the cave of swallows in Mexico,
taken by Mark Lichtle has a clear image of a man falling at close to terminal
velocity and yet in the same frame, some distance from the camera we see a
rod. Other footage from the cave that Mark Lichtle has taken showcases birds,
men and rods all in the same frame, I do not think bugs can explain that footage.
Dr. Bruce Maccabee analyzed some of Mark’s video footage, and the rod in that
segment was determined to be traveling in the neighborhood of 90 plus mph!
If you would like to read his report yourself which I would encourage everyone
to do; it is at this link on Jose’s Escamilla rod site. http://brumac.8k.com/BaseJumperRods/BaseJumperRods.html
As far as proving this to the so called “legitimate scientific community”
the very same community I might add that imprisoned Galileo, burnt Copernicus
at the stake all because Galileo and Copernicus DARED to challenge the accepted
beliefs of the time and were CORRECT in their assumptions.
I am sorry Mr. DuHamel I do not have the same confidence in this community
that you apparently do. I do have confidence that because you put forth the
challenge that you will as a man of honor explore this yourself. I do not
care to impress the starched shirts with their lab coats and their lofty altitudes
of the validity of these wondrous creatures.
They did not believe that Mountain Gorillas or Coelacanths existed nor did
they believe the earth was round, or that the earth was NOT the center of
the universe. They taught you would fall off the earth if you went to far.
They thought lodestones were magic, they believed so called witches were in
partner ship with the Devil so they tortured them and killed them in a variety
of innovative ways.
Though out history this “legitimate scientific community” has shown over and
over again that they refuse to examine any new discovery, instead it is much
easier to claim that the person who dares challenged their belief structure
is wrong. Remember the story “The Emperor wears no Clothes”, it took a child
to speak the truth.
This community will not examine the evidence long enough to draw an informed
decision; no I am afraid their minds are already made up Mr. DuHamel. It would
be a huge waste of time to even attempt to pursue them to look this over,
trust me I have tried and continue to try to get legitimate scientists to
look over this data.
If you can get them to look this over then I take my hat off to you good sir,
as you will have done what it seems. I have so far failed at. No Mr. DuHamel
I wish for you to investigate this more fully as you are the one making
the challenge. Then bring me photos that you have taken that look like these
photos. Photograph some insects when the temp is 34 degrees and then you will
convince me that I have made a grave mistake. Or convince this “community”
to fully investigate this and produce photos like the ones I have included
here and on the discussed web sites, with complete explanations and I will
retract my current beliefs.
I will accept the errors of my judgment if proven wrong and will issue forth
a written retraction of what ever mistakes I may have made in establishing
this phenomenon as a legitimate undiscovered creature; I hope you are able
to do the same.
Cordially,
Michael Merchant
P.S.
You Mr. DuHamel have my permission to post this letter on your site for others
to view. You also have my permission to send this paper to others to examine
in the sake of science.
All my photos are copywritten as is this paper and any use other then for
scientific debate in the sake of uncovering the truth, is forbidden without
the express written consent provide by myself. If someone wishes to use this
or any of my other materials other then for the reasons outlined here they
need to contact me first.
In fact Mr. DuHamel I would very much like to see this letter in its entirety
posted at your site to provide a Devil’s advocate viewpoint. People should
be allowed to view all the evidence and make an informed decision on their
own.
