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James Fox

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Great interview. It would have been nice to hear him stick to one topic though. I was really hoping he could have spent more time talking about about the Varginha incident.

What was with that weird question if he ever hit on Erin Ryder? Seemed off topic and unneeded.
 
Several listeners asked the "weird question," so we asked it. Also, this wasn't a Varginha show; we've done that a couple of times with A.J. Gevaerd. the Brazilian UFO investigator.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
Several listeners asked the "weird question," so we asked it. Also, this wasn't a Varginha show; we've done that a couple of times with A.J. Gevaerd. the Brazilian UFO investigator.
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Ah gotcha. I'll have to look those episodes up. Seems fascinating.
 
Paleontologist said:
I don't want to set Chris off here, but I just have to ask about Ray Stanford. In this episode James Fox and Chris talk about Stanford as being such a genius and so perceptive that it is difficult for him to tolerate average Joes like us -- and Stanford apparently agrees. What I don't get is this casting of Stanford as a an extraordinary scientist. Isn't this the same Stanford who was a contactee, channeler and psychic in the past? Was he a member of a (possibly fascistic) cult called "Soulcraft"? Did he once sell a kind of "UFO detector" that was essentially flashing lights? Does he have a scientific education that I just haven't found? Or is he self-taught in physics, astronomy and so on? (Maybe so -- I'm not knocking it.) I'm having trouble connecting the present admiration for Stanford with his apparent record. Am I missing something?

By the way, I can say professionally that Ray Stanford's paleontological work is excellent.
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The strange and gifted mind of Ray Stanford has led him to explore quite a few rabbit holes in his day. Unlike most other folks, though, he is perfectly capable of exiting when he chooses. I don't know what he believes in now, but I saw him lecture recently on Cretaceous trace fossils (dinosaur footprints mostly), and he was impressive. He uses geological maps to find the exposures he wants, but has managed to find fossils more or less in plain sight that others have overlooked. He recently found dinosaur footprints at Goddard Space Flight Center (where his wife works), when he wasn't even looking for them, at a place that people had been walking and driving past for decades.
 
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It was a great interview. I think one of Fox's greatest strengths is that he keeps a healthy sense of humor as the barbs bounce off, and yet he can still plug away at serious research. Or perhaps he prefers to call what he does documentation and film making.

My only criticism would be that he does seem easily distracted at times. Maybe a bit tighter focus would serve him better at this point in his career. Hopefully he is disentangled from the Hollywood cookie monsters and we can look forward to more great things from him in the future.
 
Great show. Interesting tales from inside world of mainstream television pseudo-documentaries, and kudos to Fox for
taking a stand. Independent docs are the only way forward in the miasma of ufology. Fox is correct to tend towards leaving out Roswell,
I'll add another voice to the choir in favor of that one (in lieu of fantastic new evidence, of course). He's as good a documentarian as we're
likely to get, and I'm glad he's out there, whether I agree with him on all the cases or not.
 
James Fox is being scammed and/or being given disinformation by Ray Stanford about his Super 8mm film from 1985. Why?

James Fox said he was only allowed to see Still Images of this film footage. Here's how this scam and/or disinformation works:

The Laugh Factor of using Super 8mm film to take "pictures" of objects over a mile away...

CORRECTION: I was double checking my numbers today between the "negative size" of Super 8mm film vs 35mm picture film, and I am shocked at the difference in "area size". My previous calculation [of 4x difference] was WAY OFF and COMPLETELY WRONG.

Here are the actual sizes:

Super 8mm film is 4.01mm x 5.79mm = 23.22mm Total Area [rounding up to two decimals]

35mm Picture size is 36mm x 24mm = 864mm Total Area

Now, divide 864mm by 23.22mm = 37.21 difference in area sizes [rounding up to two decimals]

This means there is a 37 times increase in resolution when using 35mm camera picture film vs Super 8mm film.

I NOW CALL RAY STANFORD'S STILL IMAGES TOTAL CRAP. I have plenty of 35mm photography experience to know that Super 8mm film image size is a disaster to be using it for anything being filmed over a mile away. Even with a 10x power lens Ray Standford is scamming everyone to be using such a small Image Size to enhance on computer to ONLY show STILL IMAGES of this film footage.

This is pure and simple BS. The STILL IMAGES taken from the Super 8mm film footage is a scam when viewed this way. Why?

The only way to determine the real value of this film footage is to see the ENTIRE film footage in FULL PLAYBACK MOTION with NO ENHANCEMENT. To "cherry pick" just a few Still Images is a PURE DECEPTION. This is not depicting in the least what Ray really filmed. This is at the level of a HOAX and SCAM, imo.

I know what I'm talking about. I have thousands of hours in doing photography and have developed and printed thousands of images in the darkroom using 35mm film.

One Super 8mm film cartridge of 2.5 minutes at 24f/s will have 3,600 images vs the VERY FEW extremely tiny 'cherry picked' and computer enhanced Still Images that Ray has allowed anyone to see. I call this pure BS. What Ray has done is control the information to TRICK PEOPLE about what he really has -> truly these are very low resolution images of objects at a great distance of miles away. Ray can NOT be trusted, imo. These cherry picked Still Images are 37 times lower in resolution than 35mm picture film.

This is a scam and/or real life proof of disinformation! Period. Imo.

Super 8mm film under 10x power can not produce much detail of objects nearing a mile or two away. Even 35mm film can not produce much detail with a telephoto lens. These objects were much further away than one or two miles. My guess is these tests were conducted many miles away from 6-12 miles in distance.

If Ray had used a 6×9 cm (2¼×3½ inch) size of a Hasselblad camera under 10x power, then Ray would have some proof and excellent details of whatever he photographed.

Btw, the Hasselblad is about 6.25 times the film area size of a 35mm picture camera, negative area size difference 5400mm vs 864mm, and that is what it really takes to get clear high-resolution images of objects that are miles away. That's about 232 times the resolution of Super 8mm film with everything else being equal.

Here is the latest on the 701 Film by Tracy Torme and James Fox:

Be certain to check-out the 2 different audio "on air" shows too. Direct download links are provided in the thread below...

Torme will be on DMR | The Paracast Community Forums
 
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Area of film is only one part of the equation and speaks only to potential resolution. The type of lens, it's size and quality means everything when it comes to clarity of image. There are beautiful prime lenses and there are low quality lenses, same for zooms. While yes, large format film, which would usually come with an exquisite lens given the camera model, will yield excellent details for distance, without knowing the optics involved in the equipment it's all guesswork.
 
Burnt State said:
Area of film is only one part of the equation and speaks only to potential resolution. The type of lens, it's size and quality means everything when it comes to clarity of image. There are beautiful prime lenses and there are low quality lenses, same for zooms. While yes, large format film, which would usually come with an exquisite lens given the camera model, will yield excellent details for distance, without knowing the optics involved in the equipment it's all guesswork.
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Here's some perfect examples of the film quality you get with the SAME Canon 10x Super 8mm film camera Ray Stanford was using. It's really crap! Note the time periods are also the same for Ray's 1985 footage too. The mid 1980's.

Here's what Super 8mm film looks like at EXTREMELY close range with the same 10x Canon Super 8mm camera Ray Stanford was using. Just imagine what the WORTHLESS image quality would be at 1-2 miles range. Now imagine at 5 miles distance. Absolutely worthless!



This last Super 8mm film is total proof about what I'm showing. It's a rocket launch with an object that is much bigger than the airplanes, a Saturn Rocket, and the audio voice counts out the down range distance as the rocket climbs. Just simply observe how small it is at 6 miles.

Apollo Soyus launch: " REAL SOUND " Bill Cummings LIVE, on WRMF-AM 1060, July 15, 1975 - YouTube


The above 3 examples really do affirm what I'm stating as follows:

Super 8mm film under 10x power can not produce much detail of objects nearing a mile or two away. Even 35mm film can not produce much detail with a telephoto lens. These objects were much further away than one or two miles. My guess is these tests were conducted many miles away from 6-12 miles in distance.

If Ray had used a 6×9 cm (2¼×3½ inch) size of a Hasselblad camera under 10x power, then Ray would have some proof and excellent details of whatever he photographed.

Btw, the Hasselblad is about 6.25 times the film area size of a 35mm picture camera, negative area size difference 5400mm vs 864mm, and that is what it really takes to get clear high-resolution images of objects that are miles away. That's about 232 times the resolution of Super 8mm film with everything else being equal.
 
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Other things to consider include film speed and the camera's settings: shutter speed, fps setting, and f-stop which will work in cincert to create a fine image if it's a fine grain film. You can project super 8 to a larger image for scrutiny, and you can blow it up for prints.
 
Burnt State said:
Other things to consider include film speed and the camera's settings: shutter speed, fps setting, and f-stop which will work in cincert to create a fine image if it's a fine grain film. You can project super 8 to a larger image for scrutiny, and you can blow it up for prints.
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No matter how optimal these other settings are there will never be much detail of an object over a mile away [using the same Super 8 camera] if the object is near the same size as those I posted. Saturn rockets or any of the largest sized aircraft. That pretty much covers the largest objects that are not natural phenomena found in the sky. Except...

Now, Ray has even claimed filming Gigantic Motherships that are thousands of feet in length. These were at distances far exceeding 20 miles away or more. This will not hold-up to serious debate, imo, because these distances are so far away that no detail can possibly be resolved.

Once the object reaches X-Distance NO DETAILS can ever be resolved. It's permanently out of focus. Sure, you can blow-up any object to gigantic proportions, but due to poor resolution limitations [micro film size, grain/pixel size, shutter/frame speeds, focus, lens quality, etc.] of the filmed objects the detail is NEVER resolved into focus showing any detail... So, someone can be seemingly analyzing something about it, at extreme magnification, but only gullible fools or fraud artists engage in such analysis. Imo.

Don't you agree?

[I was able to confirm today that Ray said these objects were at least at one mile in altitude and approached from further than a mile away, so all the filming was done at least 1-2 miles away. Then the distance increased beyond that, so these objects were always at least 1-2 miles away.]
 
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Open-Minded-Earthling said:
No matter how optimal these other settings are there will never be much detail of an object over a mile away [using the same Super 8 camera] if the object is near the same size as those I posted. Saturn rockets or any of the largest sized aircraft. That pretty much covers the largest objects that are not natural phenomena found in the sky. Except...

Now, Ray has even claimed filming Gigantic Motherships that are thousands of feet in length. These were at distances far exceeding 20 miles away or more. This will not hold-up to serious debate, imo, because these distances are so far away that no detail can possibly be resolved.

Once the object reaches X-Distance NO DETAILS can ever be resolved. It's permanently out of focus. Sure, you can blow-up any object to gigantic proportions, but due to poor resolution limitations [micro film size, grain/pixel size, shutter/frame speeds, focus, lens quality, etc.] of the filmed objects the detail is NEVER resolved into focus showing any detail... So, someone can be seemingly analyzing something about it, at extreme magnification, but only gullible fools or fraud artists engage in such analysis. Imo.

Don't you agree?

[I was able to confirm today that Ray said these objects were at least at one mile in altitude and approached from further than a mile away, so all the filming was done at least 1-2 miles away. Then the distance increased beyond that, so these objects were always at least 1-2 miles away.]
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Detail doesn't just depend on distance, but also on the angular size of the object, the geometry of the line of sight, illumination, and atmospheric conditions. Unless you have the film in question, you can't make claims that the resolution is inadequate.
 
PCarr said:
Detail doesn't just depend on distance, but also on the angular size of the object, the geometry of the line of sight, illumination, and atmospheric conditions. Unless you have the film in question, you can't make claims that the resolution is inadequate.
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Consider the UFO object listed at the end of this post.

Here's some rough but probably "close enough" calculations to consider:

Beside film resolution, it also depends on the contrast level of exposure on the film emulsion that affect the resolving power, along with camera lenses quality, processing chemicals, and digital conversion.

Kodachrome resolving power is typically between 40~80 lp/mm (line pairs per millimeter for low contrast to high contrast) for typical conditions.

Line pairs aren't the same as pixels but for comparison sake we will stick to the standard 2 pixels per line pair.

HDTV is 1920 x 1080 = 2073600 pixels

Kodachrome at 80 lp/mm, (5.79mm * 80 * 2) x (4.01mm * 80 * 2) = 926 x 642 = 594492 pixels

Kodachrome at 40 lp/mm, (5.79mm * 40 * 2) x (4.01mm * 40 * 2) = 463 x 321 = 148623 pixels

[These Super 8mm film dimensions above are only the size of the film image exposure surface only! It is not including the entire surface area that is NOT exposed. Only the exposed image surface area should be calculated. Source from Wiki online.]

In real world tests with the best of lenses & chemicals that were used to test the actual resolving power for Kodachrome is somewhere around 40~80 lp/mm. (Anyone know differently?) Therefore HDTV format grain is at least 3.5 to 14 x the quality of Super 8 mm format, and the sharpness of digital over that of film is unparalleled, and so is the superb color of digital.

HD 1920 x 1080 can be about 14 times the resolution of Super 8mm with typically much sharper image focus and a more accurate and beautiful color range.
================================

Consider the above information about the following UFO target:

The observer films this using Super 8mm film and is flying at 39,000 feet and he films a Mothership that is between 50-150 miles away. He says their analysis showed this Mothership to be 14,000 feet long at an altitude of 100,000 feet. Is Super 8mm film likely to give that kind of accurate information between 50-150 miles away? Check-out the 3 youtube videos I posted for typical Super 8mm film quality using a better camera and lens except for the rocket launch. Rocket launch was probably closer to quality match for the UFO described above.

Comments? Corrections?

Thanks.
 
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The size of the emulsion format, will not determine, but may place limits on resolution. In other words, an 8 mm frame cannot contain as much information as one of 35 mm or larger. So--great optics and other factors may be a necessary but not sufficient condition for a desired level of resolution.

Emulsion film has microscopic grain, comparable to pixels on a digital camera chip. Not speaking as an expert, but I would say that little or nothing can be resolved in terms of angular resolution at values smaller than the grain(s) of an emulsion film.

Generally speaking, the ability of an 8mm emulsion frame to record fine detail is going to stink.
 
To make matters worse for Stanford. Tracy Torme, the other half of the 701 movie, said that Stanford behaved erratically towards him, yelled at him, and berated parts of the movie he felt were not worthy of research. Torme told Fox that if Stanford was going to have any influence or connection with the film, he was out.

Furthermore, Torme scoffed at any truth behind Stanford's footage. He said they came away with nothing, and Fox got next to nothing out of him. Torme is under the impression, most of Stanford claims are bunk and he has little evidence to reveal.

I tend to agree, I have made my opinion of Stanford known on this site, but for Torme to come to this conclusion, is to me, icing on the cake. Torme is a straight shooter, a really bright guy who and a person who has been immune to controversry. If he says something or someone is bulls**t, that says a lot.
 
Open-Minded-Earthling said:
Consider the UFO object listed at the end of this post.


================================

Consider the above information about the following UFO target:

The observer films this using Super 8mm film and is flying at 39,000 feet and he films a Mothership that is between 50-150 miles away. He says their analysis showed this Mothership to be 14,000 feet long at an altitude of 100,000 feet. Is Super 8mm film likely to give that kind of accurate information between 50-150 miles away? Check-out the 3 youtube videos I posted for typical Super 8mm film quality using a better camera and lens except for the rocket launch. Rocket launch was probably closer to quality match for the UFO described above.

Comments? Corrections?

Thanks.
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Yes. I would note that 14,000 feet at 50 miles is reasonable angular size: about 50 milliradians, or about 6 times bigger than the full moon! Just one reason why none of this is persuasive.
 
boomerang said:
The size of the emulsion format, will not determine, but may place limits on resolution. In other words, an 8 mm frame cannot contain as much information as one of 35 mm or larger. So--great optics and other factors may be a necessary but not sufficient condition for a desired level of resolution.

Emulsion film has microscopic grain, comparable to pixels on a digital camera chip. Not speaking as an expert, but I would say that little or nothing can be resolved in terms of angular resolution at values smaller than the grain(s) of an emulsion film.

Generally speaking, the ability of an 8mm emulsion frame to record fine detail is going to stink.
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Do we know what the MTF was for the lens? You can use that to get some idea of how much contrast you would see on the film. The actual angular size of the object appears to be fine for the resolution available.
 
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