Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena-From Sensationalism to Science

Minutes

On April 4, 2025, Members of the Society and guests joined the speaker for a reception and dinner at 5:45 PM in the Members’ Dining Room at the Cosmos Club. Thereafter they joined other attendees in the Powell Auditorium for the lecture proceedings.

In the Powell Auditorium of the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. President Larry Millstein called the lecture portion of the 2,513th meeting of the Society to order at 8:03 p.m. ET. He began by welcoming attendees, thanking sponsors for their support, announcing new members, and inviting guests to join the society. Scott Mathews then read the minutes of the previous meeting which included the lecture by David Bennett, titled “Detecting Exoplanets by Gravitational Microlensing: Survey Gaps & Rogues”. The minutes were approved, pending two minor corrections.

President Millstein then introduced the speaker for the evening, Joshua Semeter, of Boston University. His lecture was titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena- From Sensationalism to Science”.

The speaker began by saying “When you point sensors of ever greater resolution at the world, you see new physics, and it is not incremental.” He went on to say “It is absolutely perilous to translate your biases and experiences from the visible into the infrared”. Semeter showed several examples of digital images, both visible and infrared, that appear to be something very different from what they actually are: what appears as a lampshade, is actually a rolling disk, what appears as two pieces of silverware, is actually three pieces of silverware at different temperatures.

The speaker discussed the 2022 NASA panel to investigate UAP’s. He described the make-up of the 16-member panel, which included data scientists, physicists, representatives from the FAA and the DoD, a science writer, and an astronaut. Semeter discussed the change in terminology, from UFO to UAP, describing the stigma and the provenance associated with the UFO acronym. He described the mission and the major findings of the panel. These findings included: the need for better data, the need for a disciplined scientific approach, the need to remove stigma around reporting, and the need for transparency between government agencies. The speaker presented the idea of “technical surprise”; the idea that clandestine technologies being developed by our adversaries may appear to be “anomalous”.

Semeter then presented what he called “Rules for the world in the infrared”. These included: an aura is an artifact of standard contrast enhancement, an IR image does not represent the size or shape of the actual object, objects can appear or disappear in IR images depending on their temperature compared to the background, and finally, the apparent motion of an object is affected by the motion of the observer due to parallax. The speaker showed a number of videos demonstrating each of these effects.

Semeter then showed several videos of popular examples of UAP events, many of which have been interpreted as evidence for extraterrestrials, anti-gravity technology, “trans-medium” vehicles, and exhaust-less propulsion. He began with the so-called Puerto Rico UAP event, which he concluded was “Two birds. Definitely two birds”. He then showed the “Go Fast” event, recorded by pilots from the USS Theodore Roosevelt. By analyzing the range and elevation data recorded in the video, he was able to estimate the actual air speed of the object. He concluded that the object was actually moving between 0 and 120 mph, depending on the bank-radius of the observing aircraft, and that the most probable velocity was 35-40 mph.

Switching from the infrared to night vision, the speaker showed videos of flashing, green, triangles; also purported to be extraterrestrial in origin. He showed how the Bokeh Effect causes the image of a point source to reproduce the shape of the camera aperture when slightly out of focus. Semeter showed that the mechanical aperture of the night vision camera used to record the video was triangular, and was in fact the exact same shape as the flashing triangle.

Returning to the infrared, Semeter showed video of the so-called “Gimbal Event”, which some people claim shows a vehicle with a distinct shape or structure, an exhaust-less propulsion system, an aura surrounding the vehicle, and the vehicle abruptly rotating in a way that is aerodynamically impossible. He then showed demonstration videos of the way in which glare, recorded by a digital camera, rotates with the camera, not with the object being recorded. He then presented a plausible and quite convincing argument that the apparent shape of the object was due to IR-glare, and that the object never actually rotated; the imaging system rotated.

The speaker ended his talk by listing some of the recommendations of the NASA UAP Panel. These included: creating a dedicated NASA point of contact, establishing baseline data for sensors used to record such events, and enlisting “citizen scientist” or crowd sourcing. Finally, he said “There is so much wonder in the universe that stems from real physics…we don’t need to make up explanations to keep things exciting.”

The lecture was followed by a Question and Answer session.

A member asked if there are other events or anomalies that still appear to defy explanation. Semeter responded, “Yeah. There definitely are.” He described a number of these events, noting that the lack of explanation may be related to incomplete data.

A member asked whether the pervasive use of digital cameras could result in imaging anomalies or artifacts, not associated with analog or film-based imaging techniques. Semeter responded that for the most part, digital cameras do behave like “wet-film”, however, things like pixel-blooming and hot-pixels are unique to digital cameras, and these artifacts need to be recognized and understood. He said that the advantages of digital imaging far outweigh the disadvantages.

A guest on the live stream asked if UAP events might provide useful information about unusual or elusive phenomena, even if they do not provide information about extraterrestrials. Semeter responded, “Absolutely. That is why we call this stuff anomalous phenomena…because we’ll take anything.”

After the question and answer period, President Millstein thanked the speaker and presented him with a PSW rosette, a signed copy of the announcement of his talk, and a signed copy of Volume 17 of the PSW Bulletin. He then announced speakers of up-coming lectures and made a number of housekeeping announcements. He adjourned the 2,513th meeting of the society at 9:33 pm ET.

Temperature in Washington, DC: 20.0° Celsius
Weather: Cloudy
Audience in the Powell auditorium: 96
Viewers on the live stream: 38
For a total of 134 viewers
Views of the video in the first two weeks: 606

Respectfully submitted, Scott Mathews: Recording Secretary