Ron James UFO crashed UFO pictures

[Mendel]

Closed? What do they mean by close a case?

https://www.oregonmufon.com/PDFs/OMInvestigatorsGuide.pdf

 

[FatPhil]

While contemplating attending the McMinnville UFO festival this year I looked at the speakers from the last few events. I noted some of them where MUFON people:

Another MUFON hit:

https://twitter.com/onwinges?lang=en

jennifer w stein
@onwinges

Jennifer W Stein, Is a graduate of the University of Arizona in Textiles. She is a state section director MUFON. Jennifer is a documentary film maker.

Content from External Source

According to IMDb, she's known for producing that terrible /Accidental Truth/ "documentary" mentioned upthread. And a movie about her co-speaker at your event. Such a tight-knit community they've got there.

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

Is there anyone in MUFON that isn't a film maker?

 

[jarlrmai]

Surely someone needs to do a Louis Theroux type documentary on this whole scene.

 

[jdog]

Agree. Unless it's a quirk of ET technology that they can only land on giant mah-jong tiles/ white plastic dominoes.

There are loads of examples of UFO-related dioramas online, posted by modellers showing their skills or just for their own/ their friend's entertainment, just like other hobbyists document their pastimes. (Click to enlarge).




Can't help but feel that for a couple of these, if someone took a narrow focus photo from the right angle and then suitably reduced the picture quality, they'd have "possible evidence" of the most momentous event in recent history for Ron James and MUFON to be willingly taken in by study in an impartial and scientific investigation.

We were lucky that the figures used in James' (OP) photo appear to have been largely "built from the box"; many modelmakers are well-practiced at converting shop-bought figures into original poses.

Plastic limbs can be straightened or bent with careful heating and cooling, or substituted with a corresponding part from another figure; careful filing and use of Green Stuff-type modelling putty allows joins to be imperceptible. Heads/ headgear are often easy to transplant. Unwanted webbing straps, pockets and buttons etc. can be filed down, and new ones added as required using plasticard or Green Stuff. Backpacks, webbing pouches, weapons can be cannibalised from other kits, or scratch-built, or sometimes bought as separate sets (particularly WW2 German, WW2 to modern US, British and Soviet/ Russian gear).
Green Stuff can add scrim/ foliage to helmets, hiding their origins, likewise facial features can be changed, beards added etc.

It's alarming to think that had the diorama-maker of James' photo been a bit more original/ experienced in model-making,
the source of the "soldiers" would have been unidentifiable.
Something maybe made in a fourteen year-old's bedroom on a pocket money budget would still be touted as possible evidence of US government agencies (including AARO) lying, and of ETI visits to Earth.
(As others here have noted, digital image manipulation will allow far more sophisticated fakes).
Maybe James/ MUFON will develop a protocol to take into account the possibility of this type of hoax, but I doubt it.

They are serial type-1 error makers; "evidence" which conforms to their prejudices is seen as confirmatory (or at least potentially so) regardless of source, likelihood or indeed in-evidence contradictions (e.g. the US troops with perhaps WW2 German boots and helmets). Evidence against their hypotheses is resisted, unless it is overwhelming and they realise they're courting ridicule.
This isn't how science works (well, not testable non-pathological science anyway), but maybe MUFON's people wouldn't get on TV so often / get so many viewing hits if they were took a more prosaic view of claimed evidence.
The truth they claim to pursue might not be as exciting as they (and some viewers/ surfers) would want it to be.

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Like on other threads with unidentified but probably hoax UFOs, there must be lots of possible candidates for James' saucer.

It appears misshapen (unless it was always an irregular shape). It's probably about 1 foot/ 30.48 cm diameter.
I've wondered about the two small circular bumps/ marks on the centre "disc". Maybe rivets, or injection-mould marks?



If the central disc/ dome was a separate object, it has some resemblance to a wall-bell, though most of those have a single, central point of attachment (which seems sensible).

There's the usual suspects- an old wheel-trim or battered lid from some cooking vessel etc.
We don't know it's metal; maybe a spray-painted frisbee? Well, a slightly warped frisbee?
For some reason it made me think of the underside of an old-style plastic bedpan/ commode insert, but I don't think it is.

Tried an image search, got this lid from a Kazakh website
but of course similar items might be found in the USA!


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UFO, with Gabrielle Drake as Lieutenant Gay Ellis (sigh). Set partly on the Moonbase, in the future year of... 1980!



In real life, Gabrielle's brother was musician Nick Drake, who is much more widely appreciated now than during his life.
And I never had the courage to ask the gf to wear a metallic purple wig.

In the modern era, you don't even need found objects or kit-bashing. A free STL file and a few hours with your sub-$400 3D printer will get you a model of anything. I see hundreds of UFO designs on thangs.com (one of the indexing sites for 3D files). And you can design almost anything with a little CAD knowledge. A resin printer will give you a fairly smooth look out of the box; an FDM print will show layer lines, but a bit of sanding and filling and painting will take care of that.

 

[Skalman]

Apparently, Ron James has responded to the "debunking" of the photo.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm71rg9GzoY


I haven't watched the whole video, and skimming through it the second part just seems more like casual rambling. The part where he does directly address the idea of it being a diorama/having toy soldiers is this bit at 3:20


I think they also address the fact that there's a book with a drawing of the picture, if anyone's interested in that.

Now, this had long been proved to be a hoax before I got here, but his explanation of the "gigantic tree trunks" being "consistent with trees in that part of the country" is a horrible, horrible argument.

First of all, the tree trunks are not gigantic. Large, yes, but nothing out of the ordinary for most temperate or tropic biomes. It's only deserts, really high mountainous areas and tundra that I would say are excluded, size-wise.

Second, with that picture quality, what is his rationale for saying they are consistent with trees in that part of the country? The trunks are almost uniform in colour, there's no texture to give even a hint of what the bark looks like. The only clues are what looks like wound wood scar formations from branch "shedding" (cladoptosis) on the stem to the left and a possible large polypore on the one to the right. Here in Sweden, my guess would be Populus tremula, but it could be more or less anything, and since it's supposedly taken in Oregon, which has 67 native tree species according to The Oregon Forest Resources Institute, which is about three times what we have here, that does absolutely nothing to narrow it down. The other clues we have are that there is what looks like conifers in the background (most prominently in the upper right corner) but as to what kind, I have no clue. It could be basically any of them except for the white larch since there are what looks like two deciduous trees in the upper left part of the picture, and they are naked and the larch needles would've been either a lot lighter in colour or fallen from the branches at the same times of the year as other deciduous species.

So, saying that the trees are "consistent" with that part of the country is an extremely weak argument. It is consistent with most forests on the entire planet, though the scene as a whole points towards a temperate biome rather than a tropic one (not that it matters, since the photo is a fake, either a diorama or composite). There is simply not enough information in the picture to make any conclusion regarding the trees other than ruling out the most obvious places (deserts, Iceland, urban areas, anywhere above the tree line) and species (Olea, Malus, Pyrus, birches, willows...). Using that claim in an attempt to legitimize the photo is dishonest, incompetent or both.

 

[JMartJr]

[Timestamp 45:47] Some thumbnails with curious names.

Didn't pay any attention to that before, but what's happening here is a picture is being released, we and others debunk it, and another is released, with "Well, can you debunk THIS one?" And there's a whole folder of others waiting in line!

It's potentially the rough equivalent of a Gish Gallop, with a bunch of pics that can be dribbled out until one comes along that does not use identifiable bits form a plastic model kit, or be otherwise definitively debunked. And THAT one is suddenly the "proof that UFOs are real!!!!!"

 

[FatPhil]

Didn't pay any attention to that before, but what's happening here is a picture is being released, we and others debunk it, and another is released, with "Well, can you debunk THIS one?" And there's a whole folder of others waiting in line!

It's potentially the rough equivalent of a Gish Gallop, with a bunch of pics that can be dribbled out until one comes along that does not use identifiable bits form a plastic model kit, or be otherwise definitively debunked. And THAT one is suddenly the "proof that UFOs are real!!!!!"

Our protection from this line of attack is to request the best evidence first, the evidence that they are most convinced is real. That way, they can never claim that they've come up with a better one, they're always scraping lower and lower down the barrel. Of course, they are under no obligation to play by our rules, and the release of processed photos with no original metadata in recent times, shows that they have little interest in finding the shortest quickest route to the actual truth.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Presumably, the MUFON manual would say more. Instead, have some data:

Source: https://de.slideshare.net/slideshow/2001-2009-report-summary-of-the-mufon-cms-historical-year-end-closed-case-statistics-by-geography-26435238/26435238

This report analyzes closed case data from the Mutual UFO Network's (MUFON) Case Management System (CMS) from 2001-2009. It shows that the number of closed cases grew substantially from 2001 to 2009, with unknown cases making up nearly 45% of the total. The data was reviewed prior to preparing the report to ensure format accuracy. The report contains global and state-by-state breakdowns of closed case classifications such as blank, hoax, identified flying object, insufficient data, and unknown.

Content from External Source

A bit off topic, but interesting that the numbers really shoot up right around the time BAASS using $350K from AAWSAP (taxpayers) got a hold of MUFON's database and tuned it up for them:

As a result of substantial funding from AAWSAP BAASS to MUFON, MUFON’s Case Management System (CMS) database was upgraded to support project operations and a considerable effort was made at the MUFON archives to catalog archive holdings.

Ultimately MUFON elected to continue the contract under their existing structure, justifying the income as financing their core mission. The MUFON Federal tax filing from 2008 and 2009 reflects the money from Bigelow shows a total of $344,667 as “contributions” from BAASS rather than contracted work, services rendered, or goods purchased.

Content from External Source

pg. 110-111, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon by Dr. James Lacatski, Colum Kelleher and George Knapp.


https://www.blueblurrylines.com/2020/04/the-pentagon-ufo-money-trail.html

 

[John J.]

A bit off topic, but interesting that the numbers really shoot up right around the time BAASS using $350K from AAWSAP (taxpayers) got a hold of MUFON's database and tuned it up for them

Wow. Could BAASS write that $334,667 off against tax?

All that (originally) taxpayer's money given to a "UFO research" organisation whose senior figures wonder if a scene containing 1/35-scale WW2 German soldier models is evidence of a saucer crash in 1950's Oregon.

Not that AAWSAP/ BAASS had much to show for the remaining $21,665,333.

 

[Mendel]

Now, this had long been proved to be a hoax before I got here, but his explanation of the "gigantic tree trunks" being "consistent with trees in that part of the country" is a horrible, horrible argument.

It just means, "if I say they're from Oregon, nobody can prove me wrong". They're not doing science, they're doing belief confirmation.