From: Bruce Maccabee <brumac@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 00:59:09 -0400
Fwd Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 09:33:29 -0400
Subject: Re: Bruce Maccabee and Gulf Breeze Photos


 >Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 11:55:52 -0500
 >From: Terry Evans <tevans@tranquility.net>
 >To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
 >Subject: Re: Bruce Maccabee and Gulf Breeze Photos


 >>Subject: Re: Bruce Maccabee and Gulf Breeze Photos

 >>>From: Jerry Black <blackhole60@hotmail.com>
 >>>Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 22:13:35 PDT

 >>>>Bruce Maccabee, you continue to be an embarrassment to the
 >>>field of ufology.

<snip>

 >>>Dr. Maccabee came up with another "why it is" story. i.e "Its
 >>>that bricks... no, its the dent, no its the mud...." A good
 >>>investigator would have already been aware of this and figured
 >>>it into the investigation at the time, not upon criticism.>>

 >>I have a Ph.D. in physics.

 >Physics is a broad category. What in your background, (briefly)
 >educationally or professionally qualifies you to analyze the
 >Walters photos? I understand the Hyzers are photogrammetrists.
 >How does your education and experience compare to theirs? (That
i>s they do photo analysis as a sole profession.)

Optics. I started analyzing photos, beginning with the Trent
photos, in the early 1970s. Then did numerous others including
the famous (20 year ago) New Zealand movie film. I have analyzed
the photo by Roger Childerhose (RCAF pilot, 1955) which appears
on the front of Klass' first book (as a possible plasma,
according to Klass).

I have also analyzed numerous videos and photos since the Gulf
Breeze sightings of 1987-1988 (the subject of Blacks
"discourse").

Over the years Ihave seen many photos of lights at night, lens
flares, developer drops (essentially flaws in the developing)
and "UFOs" that appear in photos after they are developed, but
not seen by the photographers at the time.

Since I don't do photos as a full time profession I guess I
should go back into a corner and hide. Jeff Sainio, on the other
hand, does photo analysis and processing as part of the work his
company does.

 >>The bent hood and blocks in the back end of th truck.and the
 >>lack of a reflection in th hood were all thoroughly researched
 >>in the summer of 1988, two years before Mr. Black came onto the
 >>scene with Hyzer.

 >Can you tell me where and when this information was first
 >published, I would like to read more about it.

The first mention of this is on page 12 of the April 1989 MUFON
Journal. It mentions experiments done in the summer of 1988 that
determined that below a certain height a light in front of the
truck would not reflect from the hood. This was a result of the
hood being bent. This was an experiment done without blocks in
the truck, although Ed told me there were blocks in the rear of
the truck at the time of the sighting and photo.

 >As an observation. You say that the bricks etc., make the hood
 >rise, however in looking at photo 19 in the book, it looks like
 >the camera angle is downward and the hood is horizontal.

 >I also know in carrying large loads in my truck, that regardless
 >where I place the weight, the whole vehicle tends to lower
 >proportionately. I have never had an instance where the front
 >end was riding appreciably higher than the back.>

 >Since Mr. Walters was/is in construction it would seem the he
 >would know how to load a truck with the weight over the axles.

Yes, yes. Well, Ed said he was transporting 40 lb cinder blocks
from one site to another and he just placed them in the rear of
the bed of the truck for convenience. He said he could feel the
effect of the loading while he was driving.

Experiments were done to estimate the amount of tilt of the
truck since Ed recalled about how many blocks he had at the
time. The dense discussions of this were 5 or more years ago
and I don't recall where the results of the block experiment
were published.


 >My work and the independent work of Mr. Sainio (who didn't write
 >any book chapter and was not paid one cent by anyone) has shown
 >the Hyzer's analysis was incomplete and at least in one case
 >just plain wrong (Hyzer's explanation of photo 1).

 >>>William G. Hyzer, with all of his sophisticated equipment, has
 >>>proven that there was no luminosity coming down the road,
 >>>contradicting Jeff Sainio's contention with 12-years of
 >>>experience in the field of photographic analysis.

 >>Note here that Black refer's to Sainio's detection of luminance
 >>along the road. Sainio worked with the original negative, Hyzer
 >>with a copy. Sainio's analysis was completely independent of
 >>mine. He has shot down a number of UFO photos an videos (as have
 >>I), but he was not able to punch holes in Ed's photos.

 >Why did Mr. Sanio have the original negatives and Mr. Hyzer only
 >a copy? Seems like you stacked the deck against anything that
 >Hyzer would find that was contrary to your findings. You simply
 >say, he didn't have the original. Subsequently his analysis is
 >flawed. Easy out.

You should read "Photo analysis: a Pictorial Primer" by Jeff
Sainio published in the 1992 MUFON Symposium Proceedings. That
contains Sainio's analysis of photo 19 and other photos.

Seems like I stacked the deck, eh? Or is it that you don't know
what happened?

I was not even aware of Hyzer's agreement with Walt Andrus to
study Ed's photos. I heard through the grapevine that an
independent study was going on, but I didn't know by whom until
the study was basically done. Point: Hyzer agreed with Andrus to
study 8 x 10 copies which Andrus had made from the original
Polaroids. I had nothing to do with it.

Sainio got the originals because I asked Ed to send him the
originals.

As for "Easy out" I should point out that the analysis stands on
its own. Look in computer analyzed picture of photo 19 in
Sainio's paper (Figure 27, page 150).

You can see what he's talking about when he says there must have
been some illumination of the lines along the side of the road
from the UFO. Alternatively, had the photo been a double
exposure you would expect the brightness contours would be
random everywhere, not just at locations far from the UFO image.

 >If you wanted a level playing field, you would have insisted
 >that Hyzer have exactly what you and Mr. Sanio had to work with.

As I said above, Hyzer did his analysis before I even knew there
was a playing field.

Hyzer, of course, had the option to say that he wouldn't proceed
without the originals. Instead, according to Andrus, Hyzer
implied that he could do just as good an analysis with the
copies.

Perhap if he had approached Ed directly when he first became
interested Ed would have let him borrow some or all of the
originals.

 >BTW: Why didn't you all just work together? Even if you
 >disagreed, the debate would have been terrific, as colleagues
 >not adversaries.

I talked to Hyzer after his paper was done.

Tried to get a discussion going. Hyzer's paper was published by
the MUFON Journal, as you are (probably) aware. Hyzer got
totally disgusted with some of the people who contacted him,
however, and decided to "leave the field." He had no idea of the
types and intensities of arguments that go on. He wasn't
prepared to tackle all the other aspects of UFO investigation
that go along with photo analysis.

 >>Sainio told me he was particularly impressed with the fact that
 >>Ed, the notorious hoaxer he was supposed to be, would allow the
 >>originals ou of his (Ed's) control where all sorts of tests
 >>could be done to test for fakery. With all due respect to Mr.
 >>Hyzer and experience, the fact is that photo analysis
 >>experience>is not all it takes in UFO investigation.

 >Who made the first generation negs?

Ed's photos were color Polaoid pictures. There were no "first
generation negs" unless you mean negs from which other prints
were made. (Andrus made the negs from which the prints were
made that Hyzer worked with.)

<snip>

 >>More of the disinformation or lack of information spread by Mr.
 >>Black and others. This has been explained numerous times in the
 >>past 9 years. Oechsler hired another photo expert and together
 >>they carefully cleaned the original Polaroid photos of Ed, then
 >>they proveeded to make literally hundreds of prints and slides
 >>from the originals, taking care to eliminate glare and obtain
 >>perfect focus. It took weeks and the materials and lab time cost
 >>$$$.

 >It seems to me that by eliminating glare and obtaining perfect
 >focus any data that those imperfections might have held is gone.
 >Can't that be considered as tampering with evidence? I can
 >understand getting specks off the pictures and negs but not
 >changing anything.

I guess this shows what you know!

The attempt here is to make the most faithful copy possible of
the original. To do this you have to illuminate the original
photo with a lot of light and then photograph it. When you
illuminate a photo with light some of the light reflects from
the top surface that acts somewhat like a mirror. This is like
glare or reflection from plate glass. Hold a glossy print under
a light and twist it around or bend it. You will see reflections
of the light.

Anyway, Oechsler had to set up lights corectly to minimize or
eliminate this glare or else the copy would have light images on
it that were _not_ on the original.

The same goes for focus. You can't change the focus of the
original. But you don't want the copies to be in worse focus
(fuzzier) than the original.

Again I say, the attempt is to get the most faithful
reproduction and to add nothing (or as little as possible). This
is not easy. Just ask your local photo expert.

<snip>

 >>This a crock. People in the ufo community criticize each other
 >>all the time. Unfortunately it is hard to find anything abou Mr.
 >>Black to criticize because, so far as I know, he has only
 >>commented on Gulf Breeze and the Travis Walton case (where he
 >>used "lie detection" to prove it actually happened..... although
 >>there are ufologists who don't accept lie detection as a valid
 >>means of determining truth.)

 >Id like to believe you here... but I don't. The people in the
 >inner circle do not criticize each other. You will go after
 >(criticze) the next circle out, but you will never go after each
 >other.

Whom do you consider the "inner circle" and whom do you think I
should criticize? Perhaps you think I should disagree with the
"inner circle" members? If so, who?

<snip>

 >>There were very credible "other people": who said thy saw the
 >>same thing. Dr. Fenner McConnell and wife, Ray Pollack and two
 >>others, etc. I know this sticks in Jerry's craw, but the fact
 >>is that Ed was not alone in reporting the strange UFO. He was
 >>the only one who took numerous pictures, however.

 >That alone makes him suspect. And if as everyone says, the
 >sightings are still going on in Gulf Breeze... hey, where's the
 >pictures? Mr. Walters and you want us all to believe that "they"
 >only had eyes for Ed. Take my picture Mr. Walters... I'm ready
 >for my close-up.

Your logic is semi-logical. If no one else were seeing things
then for Ed to take lots of pictures would be "way out."
However, other people were seeing ":things." And you seem to
have ignored my claim that many claimed to have seen the same
thing as what Ed photographed.

 ><snip>

 >>>Interestingly, in all the pictures that Ed Walters took at his
 >>>home, not one neighbor ever reported seeing any objects that Ed
 >>>Walters photographed. Not one. There again, that does not mean
 >>>that Ed Walters photographs are not real, but it is interesting
 >>>to note that not one neighbor saw any object that Ed Walters
 >>>photographed.>

 >>Wrong. the people across the street had a sighting in early
 >>April.

 >There you go. Throwing in unsubstantiated claim. Which
 >neighbors? And where is the written, dated report?>

There you go. Throwing out another unsubstantiated allegation.

This was first mentioned in "Gulf Breeze Without Ed" published
in the 1991 MUFON Proceedings, page 199. In the article I have
written that the witnesses lived "close to Ed" to prevent their
identity from being discovered since they had reported to MUFON
and wanted to remain anonymous. But when I wrote close, I meant
close.