California Drones - Fact or Hoax?

[calikid]

May 2007, photographs of unmanned aerial objects that appeared to defy gravity surfaced, and resulted in much controversy.

Photos were supplied by Chad, Rajman, Stephen, and Ty. People that never were identified.

A short time later, documents supplied by "Isaac" reported that he had worked on similar technology. He referenced CARET and PACL. The document, Linguistic Analysis Primer (LAP) was also very controversial.


What are YOUR thoughts on the California Drones?

[calikid]

Fun drone video.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctsuw0o3jTY

[newyorklily]

That is a cool video. Thanks, calikid!

[murmur]

Hoax

I think that's pretty clear for anyone who studied this case

[calikid]

Hoax

I think that's pretty clear for anyone who studied this case

OK, one (more) vote for Drones are Hoax.
But you have to admit, Saladfingers did a nice job on the video. :)

What about Issac and CARET and PACL.
Issac never claimed to work on the Drones, just an indirectly relate TS project.
Think he was for real?
Part of the overall hoax?
Someone unrelated trying to get in on the fanfare?

[murmur]

The drone investigation left OM but it continued else where.

I'm not sure what the motivation were for the hoax or what value I place in understanding why.

But there can't be any truth learned from a case built on lies.

This is the best website on the subject by far
http://www.dronehoax.com/

It's all there and one can make up there own minds

[Zaggan]

Early on there was a report of someone making a report to a park ranger of a drone, and close by was what was described as a "telephone truck". I think what had been stumbled onto was Project Oracles, which was the classified version of Project Forester. Both projects are aeriel surveilance of battlefields, and can detect individual enemy soldiers in heavy underbrush (i.e., a national park). I don't think the scope dealt with enemy soldiers, but could be used in a state of marial law to track down individuals on the run. Forgive my paranoia on this, but from all the digging I was doing on this back then seemed to show that Oracles was indeed going to be used that way. Someone on the original thread dropped a hint about Old Crows (siginit), and I was able to track down the program through an association around Baltimore I think. None of the links I had back then work now.

Bottom line is I think someone stumbled onto a classified project, and the drones were used as cover to debunk it.

[Doc]

Zaggan: Please tell me what "Old Crows" is or means? Thanks.

[Garuda]

Zaggan: Please tell me what "Old Crows" is or means? Thanks.


See: http://www.ewsigint.net/

"The Association of Old Crows (AOC) is a not-for-profit international professional association with over 13,500 members and 180+ organizations engaged in the science and practice of Electronic Warfare (EW), Information Operations (IO), and related disciplines."


But, by all means, Zaggan, tell us more!

[Doc]

Thanks, Manuel. Yes, Zaggan, tell us more! What was the context of Old Crows, if you recall?

[Zaggan]

The quote (whoever made it) came when the question was asked as to what the purpose of the drones could be, and someone posted check out the Old Crows. I think I had to go back to World War II to get the beginnings of it, but it was SIGINT. I started searching UAVs (the platform) until I came across a SIGINT program using UAVs, and it was detailed in a conference. I was surprised that the entire presentation was on their website, because you had to have security clearance to attend the conference. It went into great detail what Project Forester and Project Oracles were. It can definitely track humans in heavy underbrush.

The reason this really caught my eye was back in the early 90's (back to the thrilling days of yesteryear - the Lone Ranger), there were a set of circumstances surrounding a planned red flag event: a staged ET landing in New Mexico. UN military was seen and photographed on rail cars coming out of Canada heading south to California. One of the soldiers stationed at 29 Palms (near Palm Springs) was a member of the BBS I belonged to back then (before the Internet), and I met him and talked to him. He informed us that at this time he and his unit had been given a questionaire, and one of the questions was "if you were given a direct order to go house to house and disarm the American public, would you do so". He said an overwhelming majority said no. I think that pretty much derailed this planned event, because it seemed the intent was to declare martial law and control the masses for whatever reason. Those type of things don't go away, they just get re-thought out and a different angle is used.

California seems to be the place they want to control the most, for whatever reason, or maybe it's just that that is all that I have seen, or heard.

[noot]

Never explained to my satisfaction were several published photographs of similar objects from different locales and time periods. But I suppose we'll never know the truth for sure until Chad shows up on CNN. If it were a hoax it was a real hum dinger.

[Zaggan]

I'll totally agree there. UFOlogy has been used to cover a lot of clandestine projects, and the sophistication of this particular one, imo, means that the base project must be a real hum dinger.

[Chris]

I'll totally agree there. UFOlogy has been used to cover a lot of clandestine projects, and the sophistication of this particular one, imo, means that the base project must be a real hum dinger.

It then gets lost in the ultra-critical back and forth commentary that various members of the community become engaged in and allows those who are trying to conceal a particular program or project an easy out by pointing out that some "authority" has dismissed it as a hoax.

All too often people overlook the "why" of a particular story or to see if even some of it may be true - which is real camouflage if you think about it. Camouflaging does not involve a complete coverup but instead a clever combination of the actual person/item/target with some material to make it blend in and appear to be something other than what it really is.

Dismissing that possibility with out all due consideration is not true critical thinking but instead becomes an easy out for those who wish to be seen as critics but are only parroting the skin-deep observation of seeing only the camouflage.

[Lee]

I think it's clear that the pictures were fake, and the whole case developed like a 'house of cards' in that each development was built on the one before. Most significantly, the symbols were used on several picture before they appeared on the Isaac material. We now know that the original photo submitters were not real personalities, we also know that the locations given were not genuine and we know that most, if not all, of the pictures were faked. So, for me, the 'house of drones' has collapsed, yes.

The question of who was responsible still intrigues me though. Could it have been students? A sociological experiment? An Intelligence operation? Or just a group of mischievous friends? What about those that came forward and claimed to have witnessed drones? Seeking attention? Delusional? Mistaken? Part of the project/operation/hoax? Those questions still remain unanswered in my mind?

[noot]

I've never been satisfied that the original pictures were fakes.

[Chris]

The set of pictures first posted up by Linda Mouton Howe showed some incredible albeit grainy detail. I believe that they were taken over the central valley of California.

Unfortunately this was when some people decided that they were more interested in seeing their names in print and did their best (quite successfully) to disrupt the research and investigations. What followed were several obviously fake pictures and reports and the ufology field quickly threw out the baby with bath water.

[guerande]

"I've never been satisfied that the original pictures were fakes " : I quiet agree !
Following these drone affair since the very beginning, silently because I'm not capable of technical analysing, I never find
really one argument prooving fake pics, nor one prooving hoax.
Don't say it's all real, but questions are still on the table ... Hope one day Raj will come there and say " Hello , I'm now ready to explain " ! :)

[Lee]

As I understand it, the DRT were able to determine that the Exif data had been replaced on both Capitola/Raj and Stephen/BB digital images. This was acomplished by comparing the field of view in those images with other images taken by the same type of Cameras.

According to what 11A told me this is pretty much conclusive evidence that the images had been manipulated, original exif stripped away and relaced with Exif from a different image and camera.

Chad, Raj, Stephen, Ty and Isaac, all used the same symbol language in their images, therfore if any one of these is shown to be fake the whole house of drones must fall. At least, that's the way I see it.

[calikid]

Though I'd post up a few pics for old times sake.

the raj pole, found!
Research by Drone Research Team (DRT)

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/zllz_most_wanted_zllz/ThePoleFound001_close_up.jpg

[calikid]

Issac CARET document diagram
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/zllz_most_wanted_zllz/HighRes_Crop_Script2b-1.jpg

Close up of characters displayed on Big Basin Drone, match to Issac CARET documentation
.---------------------------------
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/zllz_most_wanted_zllz/HighRes_Crop_Script2b.jpg
.---------------------------------
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/zllz_most_wanted_zllz/LowRes_Crop_Script1.jpg

[calikid]

Details of Issac's Caret diagrams, artwork by OTF.
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/zllz_most_wanted_zllz/4zwr62d.jpg
.
Comparison of Kanji to drone markings
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/zllz_most_wanted_zllz/katakana1_check.jpg

[calikid]

Close ups of drone "tail" for analysis of scripts
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/zllz_most_wanted_zllz/1Raj_pic16_TIP_CROP3.jpg
Comparison of a Star Wars logo to drone markings
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/zllz_most_wanted_zllz/NewHopeVsChadVsHalo.jpg
.
Comparison of various SciFi emblems to drone markings
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/zllz_most_wanted_zllz/droneVsHalo3.jpg

[calikid]

One of the "Raj/Capitola" photos
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/zllz_most_wanted_zllz/1Raj_pic16_1600_506533532_8e8eca47b.jpg
.
Big Basin photo
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/zllz_most_wanted_zllz/DroneBigBasinTy060507kk.jpg

[Doc]

Wow! It has been a long time since I saw those. They are still impressive after all this time.

[Dragonfire]

It still would be interesting to know who the artist is

[calikid]

Yes, seems alot of work went into this little project.

If it was a hoax, they arraigned multiple false sightings, multiple witnesses, and a follow up second act with the Issac revelations.
All in all rather elaborate without an obvious pay off other than to see the UFO subculture become embroiled.

Yes, surprising that nobody stepped forward to take a bow...

[Dragonfire]

I guess whoever did it, didn't realize just how big it would become.

[calikid]

I'm trying to remember who it was that made the connection between the big basin sightings and Issac's diagrams.

At first I dismissed the big basin drone as being overly complex.
The fervor died down, but after a few days, I recall a user at the old forum brought the fact that the characters on the Issac diagram were a match to the characters on the plates mounted to the side of the big basin drone.
They were a match, but they were also very tiny and difficult to distinguish in the photos.

Does anyone remember who that was? Either very observant or ????

[Doc]

All of the drones seemed needlessly complex to me which made me suspicious from the beginning. The pictures were so well done, though, and the level of detail was amazing. when the Isaac material came out, I didn't know what to think. The photo analysis work was amazing, maybe the best work at that forum ever. Today, I don't know what to make of it. The usual earmarks of an internet hoax aren't there for me. Undecided.

[Chris]

An excellent inside source I have placed a great deal of emphasis on the drones - in particular the Isaac Caret material and it's relationship to the Big Basin drone.

Now whether that was done so as to power up a meme or to place the importance on the reality of the situation - I just don't know.

But as as been expressed in here already, the complexity of the BB drone detail is indeed exquisite.

[Doc]

The cases that certain sources show up to comment on are interesting for that reason alone. If something is fake, why would an insider 'come around' at all? for example: A story starts up. Several bigshots in intel get involved. Story dies. Bigshots disappear again.

[U.N.C.L.E.]

Someone had some spare time:
http://advanced-knowhow.blogspot.com/2011/04/pacl-image-analysis-from.html

[Dragonfire]

Is the drone team still around?

Tomi?

[Elevenaugust]

Is the drone team still around?

Tomi?
Hi DF! I'm still there... :)

Let's not forget the amazing work done by HPO to rebuilt the drone using a stereolithography machine:

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/3561/hpostep2small.jpg

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/20/job02b.jpg

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/2820/firstjobpreparation.jpg

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/4871/job02dsmall.jpg

[Elevenaugust]

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/3594/draining1.jpg

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/7808/hpoimg2332small.jpg

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/214/castingtree01small.jpg

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/1120/firsttest01bsmall.jpg

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/8613/firsttest01small.jpg

[Elevenaugust]

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/2959/suspend05small.jpg

Some reminders of the old good days....

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/3485/45letters20070903curved.jpg

http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/2540/otf20070617saturationsu.jpg

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/5384/1001714f.jpg

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7146/lasvegasnov2008smaller.jpg

[Elevenaugust]

http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/5069/arkhangels20080417cloud.jpg

http://img814.imageshack.us/img814/1898/jtp20070722fouriertrans.gif

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/2523/otf20070612sunpositione.jpg

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/7783/spf3320070616sizeestima.jpg

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/945/tahoecompo.png

[Elevenaugust]

I have something like 3.6GB of studies, photos, files, various documents only about the drones on my hard drive.

If you want to take again (for study or whatever) a special doc, just ask... :)

[Dragonfire]

Thanks 11A, It has been a while. Love the model. :ufo: