UAPx Statement On Three Ambiguous Events Featured in the film, "A Tear in the Sky"

December 12, 2022

UAPx Inc. (www.uapx.space) is a 501(c)(3) Federal non-profit scientific research organization based in Florida, which uses an advanced sensor suite to study UAP, filling the specific gap identified by the UAP Task Force report delivered to Congress in the summer of 2021. During our first expedition, we recorded scientific and actionable data from multiple visual sensors (such as visual imagery, infrared imagery, and radiological measurements,) and other sensor modalities of a previously unknown atmospheric event. Our data/methods fill a gap in the scientific knowledge of this phenomenon caused by the lack of high-quality, unclassified data. No other known civilian scientific research organization maintains the amount and quality of data regarding potential UAPs as UAPx.

Read the below statement based on the analysis of the information captured during the 2021 Catalina Expedition.

Albany, NY, US, Monday December 12, 2022 10:21am EST

Likely Explanations Uncovered for Two Ambiguities: Laguna Beach / Catalina Expedition

Prof. Matthew Szydagis, UAlbany SUNY – Probable explanations have been found for two ambiguous events featured in the documentary film A Tear in the Sky, produced by Omnium Media and directed by Caroline Cory. The first is the non-blinking, quiet spheroid shape observed over the city of Avalon on Catalina Island on Wednesday night, July 14, 2021 using night vision goggles. Our research suggests that the object was most likely the ISS (International Space Station) and unrelated to both the object observed in the OSIRIS vehicle later the same night, as well as the collection of cold temperature pixels in the FLIR observed at approximately the same time.

An initial check of whether this “orb” was the ISS concluded it was not a valid

explanation for two reasons: (1) A simple time conversion error due to Daylight Savings time and (2) While it is very simple to find present and future data on the ISS’ exact location online, historical data are much more difficult to come by. The website for that is in development (beta test) mode in fact. Moreover, it uses an approximation of a 50-mile horizon radius when, depending on the altitude of the observer and weather conditions, a much larger radius is possible.

If this hypothesis is correct, however, it would mean that the sphere should

have appeared low over the horizon, because of how close the ISS was to the nominal border of observability, and it would have come in from the NW (293 +/- 4°), but not have been visible from Laguna Beach. This is what occurred in the relevant film scene (~300°). For a further corroboration we note the qualitative similarity between the object captured by two pairs of night vision binoculars as well as a film camera (visible light) when compared with an online video of the ISS taken using night vision (gray instead green-

scale) which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2GIKDO1Bww Lastly, our best estimate of the time frame of visibility is 2-5 minutes between approximately 9:20 and 9:30 pm local (Pacific) time, which is precisely when the spherical object was observed during filming. The length of time and thus the speed of its crossing the sky, as well as the time when it first appeared, all match with the ISS. Claims of the object turning could have been due to the difficulty in holding a pair of binoculars steady. The above hypothesis is, in UAPx's determination, the best current explanation of the object witnessed and reported, fitting most facts. But: as more analysis is performed and should new evidence appear, this hypothesis may be refined, modified, or otherwise changed to reflect that new information.

Our second explanation involves the white (false color, meaning hot) streaks called “tic tac rain,” which appeared to be small objects falling out of the sky into the water of the Catalina Channel at high velocity. This interpretation is unlikely to be correct, due to extensive discussions with two, independently consulted, Teledyne FLIR camera experts who have reviewed the relevant videos taken during the expedition, involving events occurring at 6:26 and 9:21 am Pacific the morning of Thursday, July 15, 2021. The streaks represent known camera glitches for the model of FLIR used, namely column-correlated temporal noise or simply columnar noise for short. The reason they were not solid offsets for the entire column (looking more like dashes) was due to interactions with other filters.

There were at least three reasons why this was not originally suspected. The first was that some of these streaks appeared to be partly diagonal, crossing more than one column. Having one column affect its nearest neighbors is not uncommon. The second was that they appeared to terminate in the ocean and temporarily heat it up; however, wave motion and slight changes in weather conditions can cause resets of the absolute temperature scale. There was also signal roll-off at the edges of the images due to the nature of bolometers within the FLIR. Third, the streaks appeared to fade in and out, taking up multiple frames of video. The sudden appearance and gradual fade were due to how the FLIR implements column noise filters. The camera makers had to be careful not to design a device that would remove real vertical structures in the scene. So, presumed high-level noise is “chipped away” very slowly/carefully. Most conclusive is the fact that the streaks were observed in only one camera, despite other cameras overlapping in the field of view.

These incidents underscore the need to maintain constant vigilance, even for events where prosaic explanations seemed to fall short initially. UAPx Inc maintains its high standards of quality of analysis and its overarching ethos, as summarized below, quoting from the conclusion of our SCU talk - July 2022:

- “We may discover that none of our ambiguities were ultimately anomalous, and that’s OK! We would be our own worst critics and the first to admit that (e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVcaFg8Bo-A)”

- “Science is not about never making mistakes (to claim otherwise is disingenuous) but about owning up to them when they happen.”

We conclude by emphasizing that the event recorded in our UFODAP system at approximately 4 am on Friday, July 16, 2021 remains ambiguous. It is still the most interesting of the remaining ambiguities without explanations. Thus far, all mundane explanations for it have failed, and as we attempt to find corroborating data, everything uncovered thus far supports the hypothesis this event, the namesake of the film A Tear in the Sky, remains truly anomalous. However, this does not mean that a prosaic or at least non-ET explanation will not eventually be found, as the process of finding out what something is NOT can be never-ending when applying the scientific method.