Having studied around the UFO subject for the best part of my life and having been one of the very fortunate few to have actually been employed to work with the subject I have always considered it a privilege when individuals choose to approach me with their stories of UFO and alien encounters.
I have to say though that some of the contact has indeed been with strange people, I don’t know if they where aliens but some were seriously ‘off the planet’.
However the majority of individuals and families I have met over the years strike me as serious individuals whose lives have been touched in some way by this fascinating subject.
I will be honest here and tell you that during my time at UFO Magazine (10 years) and whilst editing UFOdata I have been sent many photographic and video images, the majority easily explained away, mostly mistaken identity but very few deliberate hoaxes.
A lot of the time I have found that new ownership of a camcorder or digital camera seems to convince the users of such equipment that they have taken an anomalous image or film, when in fact it is the camera and wrongly adjusted settings that tend to produce such images or effects.
Occasionally there is an image or film presented to me that does not tick the boxes like those mentioned above.
This article features one of two photographs taken in the summer of 2005 by UFO and Crop circle enthusiast and researcher Ellis C. Taylor.
Ellis sent the two images to me along with an explanation of how the photographs came about.
Ellis C.Taylor
The sky was a silvery grey as I steered my car down the twisting quick couple of long-distance hedge-bordered Toot Baldon Hill heading towards the latest crop circle in this enigmatic corner of the Oxfordshire countryside. It was just after 5am on the 12th June 2005. As I neared the Watlington Road I could see the formation a few hundred yards ahead of me, only the second known grass formation to have appeared in the county, the first having been found in the same pasture on the 27th May 2005. At the junction I parked up and walked across the road to take a quick couple of long-distance photographs.
As I got to the heading towards the latest crop grass verge on the other side of the road I noticed a very dark and unusual shaped and coloured portion of the sky and gave it no more thought. Apart from this there was nothing else in the sky but clouds and occasionally a small bird, but they were busying themselves in the lower levels gathering their breakfast in the hedges.
I took two photographs in quick succession - probably about 2 seconds in total at the most. I then got in my car turned right and drove about 100 yards down the road to where the Dragon formation lay last year.
I stood on the roof of the car and surveyed the area just in case there were any other circles nearby. I couldn't see anything. It was a beautiful morning the only sounds the whispering wind and chirping birds.
I got back in the car and drove to Garsington Church car park. I saw no aeroplanes, hang gliders, helicopters or any other aircraft at this time. So what is this object that has shown up in the first of the photographs mentioned above yet is absent from the next one taken a second or two later? It is a UFO to me - It's in the air, and I don't know what it is. Does anyone else?
UFO Data.
I have always been an objective type of person when analysing alleged UFO imagery be it video or photographic, you have to be or the debunking community will have you for lunch.
So when first seeing the images presented here I thought of Kites, Hang Gliders and the like. but the fact that Ellis is seasoned researcher encouraged me to dig a little deeper into this sighting.
Many of the beautiful Crop Formations seen along the southern fields of England are filmed and photographed by private pilots and a lot of these photographs are taken from Micro-light and other small aircraft.
Tony Hugh es owns Wiltshire Micro-lights and is also interested in the UFO phenomena. I approached Tony on the chance that flight logs might show a small aircraft in the area on the date in question.
Response from Tony Hughes:
I
have just studied the object in question and there appears to be a slight
lightening of the immediate area around the object.
I
can confirm that it is certainly NOT a fixed or flexwing micro light aircraft ,
nor do I think it is a small light aircraft, however without image enhancement
it is not easy to establish the exact shape and whether there is anything
suspended below.
Has the photo been doctored or enhanced in any way?
My opinion , for what it is worth is that the object is a paraglider canopy or possibly a large kite but I would need exact location coordinates to see if it coincides with any powered paragliding event taking place in the area. 5.00am does seem a little early though.
Can you tell me if any noise was heard and where was the observer in relation to the wind.
Feel free to contact me any time as this is a subject I am interested in.
Regards
Tony Hughes
www.wiltsmicrolights.com
I am grateful to Tony for taking the time out of his busy schedule and agree with him that the object does look like a foil of some description and the time of the sighting is very early for social or competition flying.
Ellis is sure there was nothing visible either under the shape or on the ground controlling another suspect such as a stunt Kite. Anyone who has ever flown or attempted to fly a stunt kite will tell you it is not uncommon for such a kite to be airborne 1 second and grounded the next.
So if all the information is correct and by that I refer to the witness statement. I have no doubt that Ellis recalls the times etc but these will be recorded on the digital photos anyway.
(So long as the time is set up on the camera)
Our aviation expert is pretty sure that this is no small powered craft. In answer to Tony’s question of sound Ellis does not report hearing anything and again remember Ellis is aware of the UFO and related Phenomena and would probably never taken the photographs anyway if he had heard the buzz of a high revving Microlite engine.
He took the photos because this object appeared out of the ordinary.
Having noted that Ellis took the photos on a Sony stills camera I questioned the resolution of the photos because I use a Sony 5 Mega pixel model and the resolution and focus is always impressive.
Ellis’s response
The camera is set to high quality but it's probable (but not definite) that I had the camera on digital zoom. I fully understand your method and I fully appreciate and welcome the Integrity of your analytical procedure.
I would bet my life that there were no aircraft of any kind, I certainly would have seen and heard it.
It is difficult to enhance any image to reveal more detail than in its original form and it is impossible to gain a higher resolution than the original image but you can lift contrast etc and isolate the pixels of the area of interest to give you more of an idea to what might be going on.
The image above is made up of the isolated pixels in the image. The photo resolution was 28ppi so there was not much to go on, to enable me to enlarge the image I increased the print resolution to 144ppi thus smoothing out the harsh edges to the original image.
What I see is the curved shape I would expect from a foil suspending a person or being flown on a line such as a kite. But I also see light spots above and below the curved surface and there is also a suggestion of light reflecting off something at 3 o clock and 9 o clock.
This could be mere reflection but the sun if any visible would have been low in the sky at 5am even at midsummer.
Could this suggest illumination from the object.
The answer has to be a precarious yes.
Leaving me with one final option, the object is unidentified for all intents and purpose a UFO.
Russel Callaghan UFO Data
|
www.ellisctaylor.com  Living in the Matrix By Ellis C. Taylor Numerologist, tarot reader, clairvoyant and psychic Ellis C Taylor has researched and written on esoteric subjects for many years. Read more on Ellis’s website |