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this short clip from episode 4 of season

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4 of the secrets of Skinwalker Ranch was

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described by Utah's attorney general as

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this might be the most convincing ever

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I've seen

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convincing evidence is ever seen of

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something strange at Skinwalker Ranch

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it does not look like much at first just

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an oddly shiny helicopter but then we

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see a tiny dot that looks a little like

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a shiny sphere this gets the team very

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excited

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various team members then make some

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claims about the object is there

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something following the most significant

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thing I've seen flying next to the

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helicopter we captured a clear as day

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UAP right next to the helicopter this is

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a physical UFO with the reflection off

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of one side glinting off of it captured

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all off like it's metallic or something

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yeah that is a solid object with the

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same reflective quality that the

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helicopter exhibits Right Above It the

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problem here is that this is all wrong

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in fact this might be the most wrong of

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all the wrong segments on Skinwalker

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wrench in terms of the number of things

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it gets wrong

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but is largely based on three

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misconceptions

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firstly there's no evidence it's close

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to the helicopter

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secondly it's clearly not following it

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and thirdly this isn't the actual shape

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of the object it's an artifact of the

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filter Eric Bard used as you notice it

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said embossed effect so I'm applying a

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filter the first issue is common in UFO

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analysis something be next to something

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else in a 2D image does not mean it's

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next to it in the real 3D World it could

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be something way behind it or more

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likely something small is actually much

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closer to the camera than the helicopter

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the skinwalker team should know this as

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they have previously done things like

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claim this dark spec was a high speed

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advanced technology craft when it

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actually looked exactly like a fly a few

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feet from the camera

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but it's a common and understandable

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mistake the second one is less

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understandable and it's following you in

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a it's like there's something following

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even if it's the same distance as the

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helicopter it's very clearly not

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following it it's moving in a different

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direction much slower than the

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helicopter you can see this better if we

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stabilize it and do a real contrast

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adjustment it's just something that

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happens to be briefly in the same field

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of view for a few seconds not following

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at all in fact it kind of looks like it

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gets a little bigger suggesting it's

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coming towards the camera

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I mentioned contrast adjustment which

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brings us to the biggest issue the shape

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of the object Brandon and his brother

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Cameron discussed this

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the reflection off of one side glinting

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off of it captured all like it's

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metallic or something yeah but that's

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wrong

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the only reason it looks shiny and the

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only reason the helicopter is similarly

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shiny is that the video has had a filter

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applied to it an emboss filter normally

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when you change contrasts or adjust

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levels all you are doing is changing the

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colors of individual pixels

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the emboss filter does much more it

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actually adds new pixels changing the

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shape of the object

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it does this because it uses what's

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called a convolution where each filtered

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pixel is a function of multiple

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surrounding original pixels

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so one pixel can affect many other

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pixels

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the emboss filter also has a direction

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and the end result of this is to spread

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the embossing comes in because the

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filter spreads dark pixels one way and

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light pixels the other I'm simplifying

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here but this ultimately creates the

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illusion that the object is being lit

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from a particular direction it makes the

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object look shiny

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so if you take a scene like this with a

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helicopter and a random out of focus

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gray blob you get a shiny looking

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helicopter and a shiny looking sphere

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not a perfect sphere as it's spread

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along the filter Direction separating

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into light and dark this makes it kind

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of look like two hemispheres

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Dr Taylor makes much of this not

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realizing he's looking at a filter

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artifact if you look at it you can kind

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of see a hemisphere here and maybe a

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hemisphere that this could be

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so there's nothing amazing here just a

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random out of focus spec that happens to

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float by and the thing is they should

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have known this Eric Bard applied the

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filter he should know that it creates

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the illusion of shininess he should have

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known that Taylor's speculations about

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the shape were wrong heck Dr Taylor

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should have been able to figure it out

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he's got two phds

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Brandon's mistaken assessment is

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understandable he's just working with

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what the experts tell him but the

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scientists on the team really should

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have known better they should have

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explained the uncertainty regarding the

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distance made it clear that it wasn't

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really following the helicopter and they

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should have shown the original video

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which would have shown a featureless

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fuzzy blob

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filtering is okay you can add contrast

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you can adjust levels but if you're

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actually analyzing what something looks

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like then don't use a filter that adds

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pixels and don't use a filter that lets

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you pick a light direction to make the

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I never thought it was anything amazing

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at Skinwalker wrench but I held out hope

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that at least the team or some of them

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were trying to do good science

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this embossing of the truth has been

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very disappointing

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maybe it's just the editing but the

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science seems to be largely absent

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should I continue following the episodes

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and pointing out things like this