While Ben, Austin, and Chi-Lan are in Alton investigating the mist, Bill, Jael, and Larry head to Fremont, Ca to investigate footage of a Delta UFO (I thought they flew mostly Boeing craft, but okay)

The UFO in question is a triangle of 5 lights that “zooms” across a green (night vision) sky of stars. The first flag that goes up comes when Larry says that Pablo Mejia (the filmer) is really into UFOs and that he’s been trying to catch one for a while…sounds like the Arizona case. This is certainly not evidence that it was staged, but it’s something to keep in the back of your mind.

Bill says they have an eyewitness that really believes in the footage that he’s captured. How he knows this is anyone’s guess, but I supposed it’s like all their “very credible” witnesses.

They first meet with Pablo who shows them where he was standing, although I don’t see where that comes into play since all of the recreations take place quite a ways away. Pablo explains that he had been out for about 10 minutes when he saw a commercial plane fly over and immediately afterward sees the craft flying above it (height is gauged?) The UFO was also silent. We only have his word for this since from what I can tell, the footage is silent…but with the music, who can tell.

Pablo describes the camera as a regular consumer grade camcorder with a Gen III night vision monocular attached to it. The FoFers borrow the camera so they can perform their tests with the same equipment.

The trio heads to the Testing Ground which is just a big open expanse and begin operations.

First up is the Kite Test which is a kite with diodes attached. The diodes are attached and Jael brings up a meaningless point: She says they aren’t going to have any reference point to employ for perspective. So, can we take something this small and make it look like something really large that’s high up in the sky the way Pablo’s video did. Well, what do we really know about height and size in Pablo’s video. Anyone? Nothing? Non-issue.

Fortunately Larry steps in as the voice of reason and says who’s to say it’s not something really small and close. Wow, his future on this show just got pretty limited!

They get the lights going and launch the kite. The kite goes up about 5 meters and Bill exclaims “Oh my gosh!” and we are left hanging throughout the duration of the commercial. “Oh my gosh!” Well, what happened, did you smack a seagull?

Fortunately we come back from the commercial after a mere 4 minutes or so and are treated to a replay. The suspense is killing me. Worse, we don’t get the “Oh my gosh!” moment so we are all left wondering.

Jael says it looks good, which it does, sort of, except that you can see the kite as well. Is that really an issue? We all know that various fabrics and colors show up differently in IR, maybe if a different colored kite had been used…. No matter, there are other issues such as the kit just floating there rather than “zooming” across the sky. Also interesting is the number and detail of stars in the experimental footage vs the original.

To remedy the floating problem, Larry runs with the kite and proves that he is not a kiter as the device soon crashes. He blames wind gusts…maybe during a calmer night this would have looked more like the original?

Dismissing the kite, Larry brings out something that looks like a very large scale remote-control model of a EF-2000 Eurofighter that can fly at 80mph with a range of about 5 miles.

They launch and film and the footage looks pretty good. Jael has problem keeping it in frame. A little bit of practice and a little higher altitude and I don’t think that would be a problem. Larry then brings up the sound issue and I say “so what” If this is a hoax, then the sound could have been removed from the footage either as it was filmed or “in post” They take the craft up higher and it’s kept better in frame, but the footage is different and I don’t mean of the aircraft so much as the background. The experimental footage is VERY noisy “static wise”

They claim it’s very good but Jael says there is a problem when the craft was dipping left and right they lost the triangle form of the lights. Easy solution…just don’t dip it left and right!

They keep harping on noise and, since they have a few minutes left, they treat us to one more experiment. This one being a Hang Glider Test. They put some LEDs on the edges and Jael beams about how hang gliders fly smoothly and silently. I point out again that silence is not necessary, but let’s let them entertain us.

Dave the Pilot and Larry go off into the distance and go through a dramatic countdown and launch. Bill points out the craft on the viewscreen…apparently to Jael who is filming, since the rest of us can’t really see anything. Commercial break, a big recap of everything they tried so far and back to the Situation Room to debrief.

Bill continues to harp on the silence of the craft aspect and I again say “so what?”

After a bit more we finally get to see the hang glider. There IS a brief shot that appears to be in IR, but for the most part they show the Original Video (in IR) next to the Experiment Camera which appears to be shot in a natural light mode because the background is completely dark and there are no stars evident. I wonder why they did this?

Bill states that this likely was what Pablo filmed and that there ARE night time hang gliders and the LEDs are on the glider for safety reasons. Have to give Bill a bit of credit for coming up with a debunk on a subject very dear to him. I will point out though, that just because something CAN be replicated, does not necessarily mean that the footage is faked…but that would be a flaw that runs throughout this entire series at, at this point, I’m not sure they can take any more flaws!

Discussion can be found here.