Oh my God there it is!
June 1, 2005 3:08 PM   Subscribe

Prophet Yahweh summons UFOs. (video) Prophet Yahweh has the uncanny ability to summon UFOs (unidentified flying objects, not space aliens) by praying. Press release. More news about this important news from important news sources.
posted by Baby_Balrog (46 comments total)
 
Well. At least I thought it was interesting.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 3:52 PM on June 1, 2005


it is interesting...i posted it to metachat the other day : >

We decided balloon.
posted by amberglow at 4:04 PM on June 1, 2005


More videos here.

And this whole thing is just nutty. And it's probably not just that Yahweh fellow, there are probably others. (He seems exceedingly and unnervingly earnest, from the videos and letters I've seen.)

Even more nutty: I saw something with my own eyes that looked a lot like that a few days ago, at night, in the desert southwest of Phoenix, AZ.

Except it was glowing orange, varying in brightness about as randomly as random could be, holding perfectly still, and then it vanished without any sort of apparent rational logic about it.

I can't explain it, and it's totally one of those "you had to be there" kind of things. It wasn't any sort of aircraft I've ever seen or heard of, and I heard about (and saw pictures of) the F-117 and B2 stealth aircraft years before it was publicly acknowledged, because I had family working at Skunkworks.

I know aircraft. I know physics. I know when something looks out of place, and I notice all kinds of out-of-place things well before anyone else around me does. This defied any explanation I could come up with, other than "Uh, well, shit. I don't know what the hell that is."

I'm not saying it's aliens. I'm not saying it's even extraterrestrial. I'm not saying anything other than "Woah. I saw one of those. Just recently."

Yeah, it could be ball lightning or swamp gas or hallucinations or any number of other rational explanations.

Please, explain it. Please. This could be the tip of the most important news or event in recently known history. The story of "We are not alone." Perhaps.

Scoff if you like, it's perfectly natural and expected. But, what if?

Needless to say I'm keeping batteries in my digital camera and film in my film camera and taking them wherever I go for the time being.
posted by loquacious at 4:19 PM on June 1, 2005


Balloons generally don't move towards the ground, at least not like that. They especially don't start up high, come down low, and then take off up into the sky again. Weather balloon my ass.
posted by loquacious at 4:22 PM on June 1, 2005


Fighter jet, long way away, prob F-16 with the big bubble cockpit giving a nice consistent shine through various orientations.
posted by belling at 4:28 PM on June 1, 2005


ok, then, it's a UFO. We just let them fly around like that? Right near a giant air force base in Vegas?
posted by amberglow at 4:32 PM on June 1, 2005


Yeah? Inverted all the time? What, with that bubble cockpit making up like 1/30th of the total silhouette, what with it's obvious wing and tail structures and dark and easily spotted profile just not showing up at all? Even when the object passes in front of clouds, you don't think you'd see the aircraft profile? These bubble cockpits, they glow and hover motionless much?

3-4 times a day here there are F-16 overflights from Luke AFB, usually in paired formations. Not once have I noticed the cockpit bubble first, much less even really seen it. It's marginally difficult to even make out the canopy on an inverted F-16 even at an airshow altitude with Thunderbird or Blue Angel paint on it.

That is not a shine-flare off of a canopy. Check out the zoomed-in videos. It's obviously a spheroid or sphere.
posted by loquacious at 4:43 PM on June 1, 2005


> ok, then, it's a UFO. We just let them fly around like that?

Can we safely assume that we have any control to stop beings from another universe, who have mastered space travel, from flying through our skies? I mean, if we're going to go as far as to acknowledge that it's a UFO in the first place, then let's also give them the power to run circles around our existing man-made aerial technologies.
posted by chowder at 4:48 PM on June 1, 2005


And would we trust the US government to be forthright and tell us that there were unidentifiable objects flying circles around them, and that there wasn't anything they could do about it?
posted by loquacious at 4:52 PM on June 1, 2005


The videos posted on GLP (which I guess are taken from Prophet Yahweh's Pay-To-Join site) are pretty incredible. They are much more impressive than the one on the news report.

Can anyone think of a *credible* debunk for these? (watch the videos from GLP first)

Let's hope he does as he says and brings one down over Las Vegas in the next 45 days!
posted by renesisx at 5:01 PM on June 1, 2005


If the plane were far enough away, and the sun bright enough, the optics in the camera could flare the reflection so that it was bigger than the silhouette of the plane. Notice in the one zoomed in section of the posted video, the circular object gets 'sliced' for a couple of frames as it nears the top left corner. This would be consistent with a lens flare effect on a very distant point light.
posted by belling at 5:14 PM on June 1, 2005


Credible debunk.
posted by Bort at 5:21 PM on June 1, 2005


Oh my god... I scoffed so hard I just choked on my beer.

Aliens are not visiting our planet.... space faring civilizations probably don't exist, or they would already be here bossing us around...

And the preposterous notion that we would be privy to alien visitations - right here & right now at this very moment is just ridiculous. It's a revival of the Aristotle & Ptolemy's geocentric universe.

Earth is the center and the aliens are fighting Jesus for domination of our billboard charts... gimme a break.

And don't pull that "their from another dimension" argument - that's about as believable as intelligent design.

It's Las Vegas people - there are a bazillon commercial, private and military planes in the skies at any moment... any one of them could be a blurry spec in a video camera's view finder.
posted by wfrgms at 5:33 PM on June 1, 2005


Nice find bort, that photo with the him actually holding weather baloons is a pretty convincing debunk.
posted by chowder at 5:34 PM on June 1, 2005


IF these UFO's are extraterrestrial, I can't help but wonder why the aliens would choose Las Vegas of all places in the world to make their appearance.

Maybe at first they could have been attracted by all the lights but...it's just so seedy. Do they have a sand shortage on their planet? Do they enjoy gambling and prostitution? I do NOT welcome our new redneck alien overlords!
posted by leapingsheep at 5:35 PM on June 1, 2005


It is fake. Prophet Yahweh has a confederate posted about a mile away. The confederate releases a mylar balloon, or, rarely, a colored one, filled with helium. Yahweh times it so that the balloon is released as he prays using a beeper or other digital communication device. Then, when he is finished praying, Yahweh starts looking for the balloon in the sky. It takes a few minutes, and then the balloon appears high in the sky. Sightings last until the balloon reachest a height at which the air pressure outside is low enough to pop the balloon. Then the sighting is over. At times the prevailing winds of the upper atmosphere appear to propel "the craft" in a realistic fashion.

Sounds right to me.
posted by amberglow at 5:47 PM on June 1, 2005


Nice link, Bort.

Actually, I can buy the weather balloon release. I might be able to buy the reflection flare, but that doesn't really explain everything in the videos. I would think that a lens/reflection flare on a moving aircraft would vary a lot more than that.

It doesn't explain the weirdness I saw a few days ago, though, because it was at night.

Sorry if I got a little heated, defensive and contfrontational, but now I can see how people who've seen inexplicably weird shit in the sky go off the deep end trying to explain what it was that they saw - or didn't see, as the case may be.

I'm pretty sure what I saw wasn't any of the following: A fixed or rotory wing aircraft. A blimp. A meteorite. A satellite or "iridium flare" (named for the Iridium global phone service satellite constellation). I can't say it wasn't ball lightning, because I've never seen ball lightning, but I'm pretty sure ball lightning moves around.

It could have been a weather balloon, if someone had bothered to send up a balloon on a very taut tripod-tether (it was rather windy - gusts up to 20 MPH - and this thing held motionless in the sky) and then illuminated it from the inside with a very bright orange fire-like light for a few minutes, and then turned it off. (It was a very, very bright moonlit night, so whatever I saw was pretty damn bright.)

I can even buy the idea of pranksters doing something just like that just for the fuck of it, because I've done stuff like that, family members have done stuff like that and friends I know have done stuff like that. (My uncle used to prank Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory with hydrogen balloons bearing paylods of aluminum confetti.)

But everything in my intuition screams at me that it's none of these things. I remember distinctly how I felt and what I thought while unblinkingly watching this thing, and it was something along the lines of not being scared or creeped out at all, and thinking something like "Woah. Weird. If you're what I think you might be, it's about time."

Am I a credible witness? Fuck no. Did I see something I've never seen before in the night sky? Hell yes.
posted by loquacious at 5:50 PM on June 1, 2005


have you searched around to see if there are other reports of it, loquacious?
posted by amberglow at 5:52 PM on June 1, 2005


If the aliens were so advanced, why would they make themselves tools promoting a dork like this?
posted by shoos at 6:04 PM on June 1, 2005


DAMN!! ... and i linked to this on my blog ... well, now i guess i get to link to bort's links, too ...
posted by pyramid termite at 6:04 PM on June 1, 2005


loquacious, what you have just described is the same exact thing I saw about two years ago in Jacksonville, Florida over the Atlantic ocean. There were two of them, one illuminated and then the other. They were incredibly bright orange and remained perfectly still. They went out after about a minute. I have no idea what they were. My best guess would be navy blimps of some sort (there is an air force base in Jacksonville after all), but why they would have test flights at night is beyond me. There were other witnesses, but they seemed pretty uninterested by the sight. As for this prophet, I doubt it's real.
posted by benightedly_heedful at 6:14 PM on June 1, 2005


loquacious: It could have been ball lightning. Ball lightning has been reported to hover. Or it could be some phenomenon like ball lightning that hasn't been officially "discovered" and studied yet. Sprites (related to lightning) were only discovered, what, 15 years ago? I saw a bolide once (meteor fireball), and that was very cool.
posted by Bort at 6:16 PM on June 1, 2005


And the preposterous notion that we would be privy to alien visitations - right here & right now at this very moment is just ridiculous. It's a revival of the Aristotle & Ptolemy's geocentric universe.

Not that I'm backing the idea that aliens are visiting us, but that's just silly. Why would now be any more or less likely than any other point in time for alien visitors? Do you expect them to call ahead? If they're out there and they come, they come when they come. I'm not sure what's so "preposterous" about that.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:18 PM on June 1, 2005


ROLY'S UFO SCHOOL
1. Loft weather balloon on nylon string to 2000 ft.
2. Have string run through pulley on ground so that when pulled horizontally, balloon sinks down vertically.
3. Have car pull horizontal part at 20+ mph.
4. Instant crazy-ass UFO movements. Go to #1 if desired.
5. Extra Credit: at same time as #1, loft secondary slack nylon string connected DIRECTLY to same car. At appropriate time, cut first string and let second string take slack. Whoa -- sudden direction change!
posted by rolypolyman at 6:24 PM on June 1, 2005


That, and who says people think any potential aliens are visiting only us? And who says they have the same (lack of) motives or ethics that we do?

Bort: Yeah, the lightning sprites thing is fantastic, along with mega-lightning. Unrelated, but I've seen a couple of bolides, along with meteor trails of varying colors, and various spins and stuff going on. I like watching the skies.

I'm still looking for my first fulgurite, but I'm not entirely sure how to find them, other than keeping my eyes peeled for holes in the ground surrounded by fused sand. But then, poking around in random holes in the ground in Arizona is a pretty good way to get bit by something venomous, be it reptilian or arachnid. And then again, I have yet to find my first geode, but I did find a whole quartz point a while ago.
posted by loquacious at 6:31 PM on June 1, 2005


This is only tangentially related, but loquacious, your description of an orange glowing sphere is reminiscent to me of the Marfa lights, a (sometimes) group of hovering yellow lights that appear rather consistently in the desert outside of Marfa, TX. I've seen them myself and they're rather fascinating.
posted by invitapriore at 6:47 PM on June 1, 2005


One time we were sitting on the beach in Florida at night, and out over the ocean there were these two little red lights, making very odd swervy movements. Every once in a while there were three or four really bright objects that would appear in a row, then disappear.

We all totally freaked out, it was not normal.

Then I remembered we were right next to an airforce base, and realized they were fighter planes dogfighting over the gulf. The bright spots were anti-heat seeking missile flares. They were so far away they were silent.

Not UFO's, but still really cool.
posted by belling at 8:00 PM on June 1, 2005


Bort wins!

(and wrecks my post.)

I had sort of thought of that...it would be so easy to station someone a ways off, then signal them with a pager.
But to take advantage of Yahweh's name! Foul.

*goes off after Marfa lights*
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:05 PM on June 1, 2005


The Marfa Lights are headlights from a nearby highway. The only mystery is the odd way the light is refracted so they move around oddly.
posted by abcde at 8:07 PM on June 1, 2005


abcde: Upon doing a little more research (I had never really approached it from a skeptic's point of view) it would appear that the headlight theory is valid and credible. It all hinges upon whether the accounts of earlier sightings (see Robert Reed Ellison on that page) are true or fabricated.

It was kind of nice for that comforting little stretch of time during which I thought they were inexplicable, though. :/
posted by invitapriore at 8:25 PM on June 1, 2005


Welcome To The Visitors Area Of My Site

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UNTIL 45 DAY MEDIA SUMMONINGS HAS ENDED

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Do Not Attempt To Pay To Enter Video Area

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OF MY MEDIA-ONLY SUMMONINGS EVENT, SUBSCRIBE TO MY
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posted by warbaby at 8:49 PM on June 1, 2005


I don't know what to make of it. It's definitely a UFO (unidentified flying object, not OMFG Space Aliens From Mars Here To Eat Our Brains!). Until I see more and see OMFG Space Aliens From Mars Here To Eat Our Brains! it will remain a curiosity, nothing more.
He says in the next week many more will appear and come even lower, so *bring on the aliens mo-fo!* entertain us with your extraterrestrial ju-ju
posted by mk1gti at 8:58 PM on June 1, 2005


I'm not entirely sure, but is "Prophet Yahweh" the same guy as the infamous Miami-based cultist/late-night infomercial personality Yahweh Ben Yahweh?

If so, then one of my favorite obscure nutcases has finally hit the big time! And, apparently, been released from jail! And can apparently summon balloons!
posted by StopMakingSense at 9:20 PM on June 1, 2005


In the ABC news video, you can see his pager when they shoot the under-belly shot of him "praying".
posted by 5MeoCMP at 9:46 PM on June 1, 2005


Yeah...
fucking...
right.
posted by baphomet at 9:59 PM on June 1, 2005


You know, one of the tragedies of post 60's ufology is how the extraterrestrial hypothesis has chased out all other possibilities, especially ones that are not materialistic.
posted by Snyder at 11:31 PM on June 1, 2005


You ever release a helium balloon and see how they fly every which way as they go through different layers of air?
posted by planetkyoto at 12:38 AM on June 2, 2005


Aliens are not visiting our planet.... space faring civilizations probably don't exist, or they would already be here bossing us around...

And the preposterous notion that we would be privy to alien visitations - right here & right now at this very moment is just ridiculous. It's a revival of the Aristotle & Ptolemy's geocentric universe.

Earth is the center and the aliens are fighting Jesus for domination of our billboard charts... gimme a break.

And don't pull that "their from another dimension" argument - that's about as believable as intelligent design.


You sound quite sure of these things, wfrgms. That's not being sceptical, that's being reactionary. Not very scientific. You mention Aristotle and Ptolemy... what about Galileo? His theory of a sun-centered solar system made him deal with some really reactionary guys in the church at the time. All because the paradigm of the time wouldn't allow for a new mode of thought. Kind of like now, no?

Besides, we just have to wait, what, a week? Then either Vegas will be the biggest news in the history of news or Yaweh will be revealed as a crank.

Stay tuned, folks.
posted by zardoz at 1:41 AM on June 2, 2005


Reminds me of the UFO I saw with some friends. It was about the size of a van, a dark mass that looked like a boulder, and it moved silently just above the treetops.

Later that night about a mile away I saw an architectural fountain that had a case of bubble bath added. The huge pile of soap suds had calved off a big chunk that drifted in the wind.

Occam's razor says soap suds beat interplanetary intelligent beings.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:35 AM on June 2, 2005


I am impressed Bort. Nice work. As per the Marfa Lights. There have been reports of the lights long before there was any highway. I don't know what they are but I don't buy the highyway solution.
posted by shockingbluamp at 9:08 AM on June 2, 2005


what about Galileo? His theory of a sun-centered solar system made him deal with some really reactionary guys in the church at the time.

Argh. I hate this kind of argument. And it's false. The church said to Galileo "We know the earth goes around the sun, but we don't want the common person thinking that, because then the church is put in a less important light" Besided, comparing this wackjob to Galileo is patently absurd. Just because people didn't believe Galileo, doesn't mean we should believe every nutcase who claims to have special powers. I mean, some people didn't believe the world was round, right? So does that mean you should believe the Time Cube guy?


Besides, we just have to wait, what, a week? Then either Vegas will be the biggest news in the history of news or Yaweh will be revealed as a crank.


Or you could read the upper half of this thread. It's just what it looked like. A weather balloon.
posted by lumpenprole at 10:52 AM on June 2, 2005


lumpenprole, I'm not talking about this one guy, I'm talking about the UFO phenomenon in general. I don't know what it is exactly, but the evidence points to something not explainable by our current science paradigm. If you believe it's all bullshit or swamp gas or weather balloons, then you're ignoring evidence/data/information about the phenomena.

And it is a belief that you have.
posted by zardoz at 3:12 PM on June 2, 2005


You guys ever seen that movie Three Men and a Baby?! THERE'S A GHOST IN THERE!!!
posted by papakwanz at 10:38 PM on June 2, 2005


Seriously though, I'm a little surprised that a group of people as skeptical of Bush's WMD claims as Metafilter is would be so gullible to the bullshit claims of this wackjob.
posted by papakwanz at 10:39 PM on June 2, 2005


WTF are you on, papakwanz? As I read this thread, each and every participant has said this "Yahweh" dude is a scam artist.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:52 AM on June 3, 2005




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