Probe

If this was a vehicle piloted by non-humans studying the Earth, how might they have been able to monitor Cornet and Fischer from that distance and know what we were doing? How would the pilot be able to keep "his" vehicle moving at the same relative speed as the car from the perspective of the occupants in the car? In other words, how was the pilot able to pace our car?

When reviewing the videotape the light cast from a street lamp momentarily illuminated an object just in front of the windshield near the roof. That lamp can be seen at the end of the animation. The object then disappeared or became invisible. It is clearly behind the rear view mirror, because the left edge of the mirror obscures the right edge of the object.

By why couldn't the object merely be a reflection of something off the dashboard or in the car? Why does it have to be an ET probe?

Videotape: 8mm, recorded on a Sony Handycam video Hi8, model CCD-TRV81 (3-971-670-0).

For any good investigation, all possibilities must be explored. Winshields and car window glass are notorious for reflecting images, both from outside the car and inside it. But for images to be seen, the observer has to be at the right angle to catch the reflected light. Otherwise the reflection will not be visible to that observer. In order to test whether or not something in or on the car was briefly imaged on the windshield as the street light reflected off of it, Cornet went to a Chevy dealership and examined a new Impala. Although the Impala was a 2000 year model, only the tail lights had been modified from a 1999 model. The features of interest, such as the dashboard design, windshield, air intake ducts for the heating and cooling systems, and windshield wipers, were the same as those on a 1999 Impala.

View of Impala windshield, air intake duct with grating, and elongate defrost vent on dashboard with a grating which has cross slats spaced far apart. None of these features resemble what was imaged in the video.

View of windshield tinting (top) and image distortion along the left side of the windshield (note building brick pattern just below rear view mirror).

View of left-side side air control vents, which are situated below rim or lip of dashboard, and not in a position to be imaged by reflection off the windshield.

View of dashboard to show contours and lip which would prevent any duct gratings on this face from being imaged on windshield.

View of sun visors from the side that faces window when they are turned down. Nothing on that side resembles what was imaged in the video.

View of windshield from angle the video was taken, showing sun visor and rear view mirror in approximately the same positions as in video. The visor was turned more clockwise and more viewed from the side in the video. Note position of side view mirror which reflected a light in video.

Another slightly more angled view of windshield from passenger's side. Light on rear view mirror goes out when door is closed.

In between the visor and mirror a strange object became visible during four frames on the video as the street light caught it at a certain angle. As the street light moved towards the car, the illumination faded rapidly and the object seems to become invisible. Either that or the object was a reflection from something outside the car. But for it to be imaged like that, the object had to be close to the car and distinct from other objects surrounding it (otherwise they would have been visible also). Note that it is imaged on or through the tinted part of the windshield, making visibility even more dependent on bright illumination or bright reflection.

Watch the animated gif below and then review the still frames of the object. The images used in the animation were cropped in order to keep the size of the animated gif as small as possible without losing resolution (263K).

Note the height of the telephone pole as it passed the camera. It gives a good reference to where the top of the windshield is located. The positions of the sun visor and rear view mirror also frame the extent of unobstructed visibility through the windshield. There was nothing on the roadside which could have produced such a shape. There was nothing inside the car which could have produced a reflection or mirage like that. During the four frames the object is visible, it moves with the car, thereby eliminating a stationary object outside. Between the second and third frames in the animation, Herm moved the sun visor over his seat forward so that he could have a better view through the windshield. At the moment the visor was moved forward, the device became visible.

Original video frame containing the best image. Visor & mirror enhanced to show their positions more clearly.

The following discussion concludes that nothing on the car caused the image recorded on the video. Instead, the remote possibility that this was some sort of robotic probe associated with the AOP will be examined. Remotely - controlled probes are occasionally recorded in association with AOP (e.g. 2 June 1993).

The anomalous object has a definite shape: It is elongate with curved sides, has what appear to be sensor or antenna-like projections coming off the bottom and top, and has a rectangular area containing what look like louvers or a grating across it. No cross slats are visible, however - in distinct contrast to vents on the car, and the spacing of the slats is too close for this to be an image of an air control grating on the car. Beyond that description nothing more can be said about this device, except that it appears solid and constructed, and not a reflection.

The method of propulsion which enables a device or probe to hover just outside the car windshield and move with the car is unknown but certainly of great interest. We heard no sound coming from that area of the windshield. If the louvers were directional slats used to direct airflow, we heard no sound above the drone of the car engine.

This device or probe would have allowed the pilot to monitor us closely with a camera, possibly overhear our conversation, as well as gauge our speed and orientation relative to the AOP so that it could appear to pace our car.

The U.S. military has already developed various types of small remotely - controlled robotic flying devices containing cameras. One particular device, called the Black Widow, was featured in the September 1999 issue of Discover magazine.

Such a probe could have kept pace with our car, but it is unlikely that it could have done so that close to our windshield without occasionally bumping into it and making its presence known.

Without any reason to suspect a probe, any speculation that the anomaly might have been a probe would only be fantasy until all alternative explanations could be eliminated. On 11 October 1994 Cornet was paced along the Garden State Parkway by two AOP, one of which stayed with him for 72 miles from the Atlantic City exit to Red Bank, NJ (see The Escort). Cornet had just given a program (hosted by George Filer, regional Director of MUFON) on public access television in Atlantic City on his Pine Bush research. During the trip back to Red Bank, Cornet had what he thought were telepathic conversations with someone, who he thought was the pilot of the object on his right. When the two lights first came up to the edge of the parkway, one on each side of him as he got onto the parkway, he received a distinctive telepathic hail: Something like, "Hi! We saw your show and we liked what you had to say."

Whether or not he really had telepathic conversations with one or more of the occupants cannot be proven. Skeptics would call his account anecdotal, and most would probably dismiss it as a product of a vivid imagination. However, during the trip the conversation became humorous when Cornet thought, "I wonder what it is like to fly one of those things." He got an immediate thought back: "What is it like to drive a car?" Then Cornet picked up the thought, "You must have a problem refueling," implying that the pilot did not have such problems (was this humor in reply?). Realizing that he might be in mental contact with another intelligence, Cornet took a chance. He focussed his mind on driving, looking at the road, looking at the steering wheel and foot pedals, looking at the dashboard and instruments, and thinking that this is what it is like to drive a car (or truck). What he got back surprised him. The pilot's response was immediate. For a moment (not long enough for him to lose control of his truck), Cornet saw in his own mind what the pilot saw on the craft. When he got home he sat down and drew what he remembered seeing. As he drew, what appeared on paper surprised him even more, because it was as if his brain had recorded more than he remembered seeing in that instant. If this was his own creative imagination at work, it was spectacular and detailed, he thought. If this was a projected image given to him by the pilot, it was extraordinary!

When dealing with human memory, we have no way of confirming its reality without some other record which would verify the information in that memory. We have no technology or medical capability yet to probe the human brain in order to find out where a particular piece of information is stored, where specific visual data is stored, how it is stored, and how those data were created, accessed, and/or recorded by the brain. Therefore, when dealing with human thoughts and memory, there is always the chance of confabulation or intentional distortion, either by the individual who possesses that memory or by whoever caused that memory or vision to be created in the first place.

How was it possible for the pilot to have a close up image of Cornet driving his truck? The right view screen shows a panoramic view of the landscape and highway from the vantage point of the AOP. But the left screen shows a close up of Cornet and his truck.

Something had to be following the truck closely for this vision to be accurate. That is why Cornet suspected that the anomaly in the video was a fortuitous glimpse of the type of device which enabled the Garden State Parkway pacer to view Cornet so closely on his viewscreen. Is Cornet correct? You be the judge. It is because of that event that Cornet thought "probe" when he first saw the anomaly. He had to discipline himself to look for other alternative explanations in order to overcome his personal bias.

Was the anomaly a prosaic and mundane reflection off the windshield of something in the immediate surroundings, or was it a chance glimpse at a robotic probe? Without information about what could have been imaged at the location the video was taken, any conclusion on the part of the author is at least partly subjective. Without examining an Impala, the possibility of reflection from something in or on the car could not be eliminated. Whatever it was, it can be concluded that it was not part of the car, but something outside and close to the car. It was not dirt on the windshield, because that would have been noticed before by one or both of the car's occupants (in addition, rental cars are usually inspected and sent out with clean windshields).

If that object was connected to the AOP, it is extremely fortunate to have gotten a picture of it. Such information could tell us a lot about how AOP technology might work and who might be behind it. Note the human hand on a joystick in Cornet's vision (The Escort vision or drawing). If Cornet had made up this vision in his imagination, why depict a human hand or joystick?