Belibaste & Michael;
I finally got around to listening to this, thank you.
Some Thoughts:
I was at this UFO conference in San Jose, so this whole thing happened darn close to my nose.
Side Note: I went to see David Icke, to check on whether his viewpoint is shifting much since his
big shift/encounter with some herbal/chemicals a few years back. Report: He has some new material,
but no real recent progression of his point of view. End sidenote.
But what I noticed that was really "out there" was out on the veranda by the hotel where me & sweetie
ate our box lunches. There was a group of people out there staring up in the sky and gaping. I
thought, "Man a sighting right at the conference, WOW" We were both scared to look. But then we
discovered that a bundle of mylar balloons, apparently having drifted up from nearby Great America
amusement park had a handful of attendees hovering by the wayside like moths near a light! The
longer we ate, the more that tune from the Twilight Zone played in my head!
Anyway to summarize this Coast-to-Coast show:
Anywhere, any night, grab IR goggles and look up and you will see UFOs. Though this seems preposterous
on the surface, the fact that this took place near San Jose (me) makes it seem closer somehow. Anybody
got a pair of these beasties I can borrow/rent for a few nights? Seeing it with my own eyes, I will pay for.
Perhaps there is a business opportunity here?
These are the ones from the AM show, as seen on EBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/PVS-7-B-NEW-GOGGLES-ANVIS-NIGHT-VISION-NVG-GEN-3_W0QQitemZ300277630767QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item300277630767&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A0%7C293%3A2%7C294%3A50)
$3600 = typical price.
The WIKI provides some hi-level snurf:
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_vision_device#Generations
but nothing about spectrum. This article, from _http://mae.pennnet.com/display_article/317484/32/ARTCL/none/none/1/Night-vision-devices-to-blend-infrared-technology,-image-intensifiers/ does give information about spectrum, at least enough now for a ballpark about the sensitivity level and frequency band with which these folk are claiming to see the UFO battles:
Near-infrared night-vision sensors detect light in the 0.6-to-0.9-micron spectrum, and are the basis of today’s advanced third-generation night-vision goggles, monoculars, and weapons sights.
“Generation-3 technology is based on the photo cathode, which is a solid-state gallium arsenide compound that is much more sensitive to light energy than were the generation-2 sensors,” says Don Morello, director of U.S. government marketing at ITT Night Vision in Roanoke, Va.
Second-generation light intensifiers combined a microchannel plate with the photo cathode tube to multiply electronics and produce an image. The gallium arsenide-based photo cathode, conversely, “converts the photons to electronics in a much more efficient manner to get more signal out,” Morello says.
“We chose gallium arsenide for its sensitivity to the near infrared, because that is where most of the energy in the night sky is,” Morello continues. “Generation-2 loses sensitivity in the near infrared, while Gen. 3 peaks in the near infrared.”
So my guess, this means that 30000x - 50000x amplification of a signal in the 0.9-0.6 micron wavelength range. I caveat that with the notion that sometimes when a sensor sees something unexpected, it can be because the sensor is responding to a signal in a not-so-expected way.