- I was first exposed to Rods when Jose
Escamilla had come up from New Mexico to give the Colorado Mutual UFO Network
( CO MUFON ) a lecture on the Midway, NM UFO sightings. As almost an aside
to his main presentation, Jose mentioned these other weird things they
were finding on their video tapes. Jose had some tapes available and a
fellow CO MUFON member showed me the tape a few weeks later. He thought
the Midway UFO footage was good, but he asked me what I thought of these
Rods. I initially thought what most people think when they see Rods for
the first time; "Can't insects look like that?" A few months
later, Jose and Karen Escamilla, attended one of our state CO MUFON meetings,
and I found out that they were now residing in Lakewood, CO, my hometown.
At that meeting Jose presented the latest Rod tapes. The material he presented
was even more intriguing than before. As an investigator, I knew I needed
to contact Jose and see for myself what he was working on first hand. After
calling Jose, he immediately invited me over. We made a date and I went
over to his home. He took me downstairs to the basement and there were
a couple of Macintosh computers and a keyboard on a set-up of desks and
platforms made out of 2x4s, plywood and doors. Shelves around the immediate
area were filled with video tapes and books. In-between the computers were
a television set and a little black and white video editing monitor. His
expertise as an editor became immediately apparent as he slapped this or
that tape into the VCR and we either viewed it on the TV or captured an
image and pulled it into the computer for analysis. I had warning flags
going off. If this guy was this technically adept, what was he capable
of producing on tape?
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- I kept that to myself, as I basically
told Jose, "show me what you got." He then led me through a short
history of what led to their first Rod shots. This meant going through
the Midway UFO footage and the details behind those sightings. Those images
were amazing, but I have to admit, to me, they were just more distant UFO
shots. They were too far away to determine what they really were. Then
Jose shows me the first "Rods." Through these early tapes, Jose
showed me what it was that first caught his attention to these objects.
I had to consider his profession as a film editor since he had looked at
thousands of hours of film and video. Here was something that didn't seem
quite right. He'd seen birds and bugs before, right? Okay, fine. Then I
see the first "Rods" on tape. ( "Hmmm" ) He's already
shown me UFOs, birds and bugs...but there was something different about
these "Rods." I was not convinced of anything but intrigued enough
to keep looking. We spent the next weeks meeting two or three times a week.
About three or four hours at a time were spent looking at what he and Karen
were taping. We literally went through the Rods videos frame by frame.
Most of the tape, at this point, was inconclusive. Yet, there is still
some tape that stood on its own as being very unique. Then Jose receives
tape from Mexico and Arizona. I start seeing similarities in these images
from different sources. Jose is no longer the source of the images; other
people are capable of taping very similar objects. I then see a video tape
sequence of a bird and then a Rod. ("Hmmm") Then I see video
tape with a Rod behind a telephone pole. ("Hmmm") None of these
tapes were taken by Jose or Karen.
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- Here is when I become convinced that
here is something that needs to be investigated even more deeply. I can
see that the investigation of UFOs will be influenced by what we've been
observing. What if insects are being reported as UFOs while captured on
video tape? What is really going on inside a camcorder when it captures
an image? What the hell are these things? I told Jose and Karen that we
need to concentrate on the best data. That meant concentrating on the images
captured at the fastest shutter setting and using points of reference in
the field of view. ( ie. telephone lines, trees, etc..) Jose then published
his "sky fishing" protocol. People started to send in better
quality video. I examined the possibilities. The more I analyze the tapes,
the more bugs become bugs, the more birds become birds, and the more Rods
become Rods. Recognizing the fact that the Rods were nothing like anything
that I've ever seen before, I'm convinced by the hundreds of hours of tape
I've analyzed, that the Rods seem to be a unique phenomenon. I don't think
they have anything to do with classic UFOs. How can anyone say anything
else, after looking at the Rods, other than that they appear to be alive?
They don't appear to be "mother-ships" or "cigar-shaped"
craft. They look and behave like a biological entity. Yet not birds or
bugs. Having become engrossed with their shape ( we now have classifications
of Rods: the "centipedes", the "spears", and the "white
Rods") I began concentrating on the "centipede" type Rod.
They display the most structural detail. They display "wings"
or "appendages." I figure that by concentrating my analysis on
these "appendages" that they will tell me more about what we
are observing. Usually the "appendages" are observed in pairs.
But not always. And the number of the pairs varies. Yet the relative length-to-width
ratio of the centipede rods stay about the same no matter what shutter
setting is used. One day, while in Jose's basement, looking over his shoulder
at the computer monitor, I notice a feather that was next to his computer.
Then it hits me: the variations in the configuration of the "appendages"
can be easily explained if they aren't "wings" or separate "appendages"
but are a really a "fin" that runs along the body.
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- Like the fins on a cuttlefish. And if
this fin is translucent and only catches the light depending on the light
source and the angle of the body to the camera, then this fin will be illuminated
along different parts of the body. The fin undulates along the body in
varying patterns depending on what the maneuver the Rod is currently performing.
Please remember, at these shutter settings, bugs still are identifiable
as bugs. Bugs have shorter, more distinct bodies and legs hanging down.
Bugs have wings attached to the top of their body. Their wings don't blur
along the side of their body. All clearly evident at these higher shutter
settings. As a UFO investigator and being well versed in the physical sciences,
I'm now even more convinced of my assumptions regarding these Rods. I've
now observed the video evidence that is the "smoking gun" of
all Rod evidence to date: Broadcast quality video that can demonstrate
that the Rods are a unique phenomenon. They were taken by Mark Lichtle
while filming parachutists jumping into a vertical cavern in Mexico, Sotano
De Las Golondrinas-The Cave of the Swallows. Fourty-five minutes of digital
tape that is just filled with Rods. We've got birds, bugs, people and Rods
all in the same sequences. If anyone can look at this tape and say there
is not something unique there, then they are not being intellectually honest.
And we know of even more tape taken in this same location by another party.
But that doesn't matter. Because this is the "Smoking Gun" of
Rods. If these tapes in this cave don't show what we've described as the
Rods for the last few years, then we don't know what evidence will be required
to demonstrate the Rods as a unique phenomenon. A phenomenon that needs
to be studied even further. Now it is up to the skeptics to prove that
they are bugs or birds, and not something else. Reproduce these images
with the same camera, with the same high shutter setting. the same high
resolution while taking pictures of provable bugs or birds. This video
has:
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- In the SAME sequences:
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- There are shots of Rods
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- There are shots of bugs
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- There are shots of birds ( very fast
swallows )
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- There are shots of people ( standing,
jumping, falling, parachuting)
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- There are shots of rain.
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-
-
- Examine this video in real time, as it
was filmed. Then examine the video frame by frame. Then I ask you to observe
the obvious:
-
-
- 1. Insect wings are attached to the dorsal
side of their thorax. a. There is a shot of a Rod from the end, the "appendages"
are attached to the middle of its body b. No legs are apparent at all.
c. There are shots of bugs where you can see the wings and legs and how
they are attached to the bug.
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- 2. Rod "wings" appear like
a continuous wave when viewed from the side. a. Just like a cuttlefish's
fins would look like. b. Centered along the length of the body, unlike
an insect or a bird.
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- 3. We are not dealing with "blurs"
because the Rod's structure is the same no matter what their orientation
is in relation to the camera. a. One shot in particular has a Rod flying
into view over the cameraman's right shoulder. It banks into the field
of view, flys away so that you can see the Rod "end-on", and
then continues to bank and fly out of view to the right.
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- b. A rod flies into the shadow of the
cave. How can a "blur" have a shadow cast across it?
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- 4. Notice the behavior pattern of the
birds, bugs, and Rods. They are different. a. One sequence has a flock
of swallows fly in front of a base jumper as he jumps into the cavern,
and then a rod flies by. This offers many frames to compare the shape and
"wings" of the swallows and the Rods. b. Some sequences have
the Rods performing extremely fast changes in direction, even performing
a loop.
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- 5. The Rods are extremely fast. a. Faster
than the swallows b. Faster than the insects c. Faster than the parachutists
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- These are just some of the basic observations
to hold in mind while observing this video. And the video is most appreciated
when viewed at full speed before seeing it in slow motion. We have seen
these things before in the video evidence that Jose has collected to date.
But never like this. Instead of a few frames here and a few frames there,
we can now watch what we call Rods in what appears to be a natural habitat
for them. They zip in and out of the field of view, more frames available
for analysis than that have ever been available before. There is only one
way to proceed at this point. We need to get the equipment and experts
necessary to define this phenomenon once and for all. At the least, we
need ornithologists and entomologists there to examine and document the
local flora that could possibly emulate the Rods. We need high resolution
cameras set up in a stereo configuration to determine the position, distance,
size, and velocity of the Rods. We need higher speed cameras to eliminate
any blurring to show the true structure of the Rods. Then, and only then,
can we define this phenomenon. All in all, this video is the "smoking
gun" of Rods.
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