Rod (cryptozoology and ufology)

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In cryptozoology, Ufology and outdoor photography, Rods (sometimes known as Sky Fish or Solar Entities^[1]) are elongated artifacts produced by cameras that inadvertently capture several of a flying insect's wingbeats. Videos of rod-shaped objects moving quickly through the air fueled speculation that the atmosphere was filled with a previously unknown species or small UFOs, but subsequent experiments showed that these rods appear in film because of an optical illusion.^[2][3]

Contents 1 Alleged Sightings 2 Optical Illusion 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Alleged Sightings

Jose Escamilla claims to have been the first to film rods on March 19, 1994, while attempting to film a UFO.^[1][4] Later, he captured more distinct images of rods, while filming BASE jumpers at the Cave of Swallows in Mexico.^[5] Since then, Escamilla has done much to popularize the interpretation of rods as an otherwise unknown life form, especially through appearances on television and through his website, Roswellrods.com. Jose Escamilla also claims that rods have been sighted underwater.^[6]

Paranormal magazines and websites have published articles with various levels of skepticism in which rods are claimed to have been spotted all over the world.^[7][8]

A famous sighting of a rod occurred in the U.K. and was capture on film on a BBC webcam. Viewers could see a white probe-like object flash past the camera when it appeared on the Look North morning show. It was described as "intriguing" and a "genuine mystery" by UFO expert Nick Pope.^[9]

[edit] Optical Illusion

Investigators have proposed that rods are mere tricks of light which result from how images (primarily video images) are recorded and played back. In particular, the fast passage before the camera of an insect flapping its wings has been shown to produce rodlike effects, due to motion blur, if the camera is shooting with relatively long exposure times.^[10] (In low-light conditions or even when pointed at blue sky, the automatic exposure programming of a video camera is likely to select the longest possible exposure time, which is 1/60th second per video field for NTSC format or 1/50th second for PAL format.)

This proposition suggests that such video is incapable of capturing a clean image of something which moves so fast relative to the camera. In particular, the "membrane" in a video frame of a rod is effectively a time-lapse of the wings of the flying animal in different positions over several wingbeats that occurred during the field exposure time, while the central "rod" is a time-lapse image of the body, showing the full distance traveled during the field exposure time. The effect is especially pronounced with large, long-bodied insects which have broad wings and fairly slow wingbeats, such as mantises, grasshoppers, and katydids, or completely opaque wings such as moths. On video equipment which resolves the two interlaced fields of a single video frame (which are captured successively and then displayed as alternating horizontal lines), the "rod" effect can be seen to alternate from one field to the other, producing the distinctive gaps between successive images.^[3] Similar results can be produced using standard film, if there is a long exposure and/or a stroboscopic lighting effect which lasts more than a single wingbeat. In other words, one can produce "rod" effects at will with the right equipment, lighting, and subject.

On August 8-9 2005, China Central Television (CCTV) aired a two-part documentary about flying rods in China. It reported the events from May to June of the same year at Tonghua Zhenguo Pharmaceutical Company in Tonghua City, Jilin Province, which debunked the flying rods.^[2] Surveillance cameras in the facility's compound captured video footage of flying rods identical to those shown in Jose Escamilla's video. Getting no satisfactory answer to the phenomenon, curious scientists at the facility decided that they would try to solve the mystery by attempting to catch these airborne creatures. Huge nets were set up and the same surveillance cameras then captured images of rods flying into the trap. When the nets were inspected, the "rods" were no more than regular moths and other ordinary flying insects. Subsequent investigations proved that the appearance of flying rods on video was an optical illusion created by the slower recording speed of the camera. This represents empirical evidence which shows that the "rods" themselves can be captured, and that they are indeed ordinary insects. This documentary also addressed claims that rods were capable of flying at speeds impossible for insects, showing that video cameras cannot be used to accurately measure speed if the distance from the lens to the moving object cannot be determined.^[2]

The insect hypothesis was further validated by an experiment on an episode of the History Channel series Monster Quest,^[11] which included footage where a "rod" is captured simultaneously by a traditional video camera and a high-speed camera. While the video recorded by the traditional camera showed a brightly illuminated "rod" with multiple undulating wings, the high-speed video clearly showed a common moth flying across its field of view.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Straight Dope report: What's up with "rods," the mysterious insects that can be seen only on video?
• Jose Escamilla's "Rods" Video Sequences
• Famous video of "rods" at the Cave of the Swallows
• Detailed video analysis
• 'UFO' on BBC Look North webcam