The “Rods” Controversy
Like many of you, when I first saw videos of the cryptozoological phenomena dubbed “rods,” I was fascinated by their seeming ubiquity. How the hell could something like this have gone on for so long without getting any notice?
The darting behavior, and the almost protozoan-like appearance of these newly-discovered animals caused a huge sensation in the mid-to-late 1990s. There is an online article which claims that optical physicist/ ufologist Bruce Maccabee said that the objects “are between 2 and 4 meters in length.” It is also claimed that they travel at speeds of up to 300 kmph. Others have theorized that they are miniature UFOs of some sort. (I’m assuming here that they mean smaller versions of what are assumed structured craft of unknown origin.)
I believe the reason that this had gone on so long without any scientific notice was that people who had seen them on video and film in years previous to about 1995 had either ignored them or realized that these mysterious “animals” were most likely insects.
Jose Escamilla, the man most credited with bringing the rods phenomenon to public attention, still claims that it represents a real heretofore undiscovered life form. He is currently asking for $175,000 to produce a high-definition video presentation.
Escamilla claims that rods will show up at higher shutter speeds and with better resolution on high-definition video as well as film. Since I have never seen this for myself, I’ll have to withhold judgment.
As this site shows, the use of standard 30 frames/ 60 fields-per-second NTSC video rate produces “rod”like artifacts that are virtually indistinguishable from the more famous footage shot by Escamilla and others in his camp, and they are video and still pictures of insects. This site (another section of the first one) performed an experiment with thrown objects to see how the video process treated fast-moving objects and came up with the same conclusion. I’ve worked in the video and film industry for about 15 years now, and I’ve seen many examples of this phenomenon.
Now, there may be rod-like images that show up on better video and film equipment at different shutter speeds and in different lighting etc, but why should we assume that a known phenomenon (insects showing up as “rods”) are a separate issue from an unknown that looks exactly like it?
If anyone has access to an HD camera with variable shutter speed settings, you might want to try this experiment yourself, although the History Channel’s program Monster Quest has already performed a version of it. Escamilla cries foul on his site, but without the supporting evidence he claimed was left out of the program, we are left with nothing but his report.
I would truly like to discover that rods are some form of fast-moving airborne life form, but the evidence I’ve seen doesn’t support it. Actually, I think I have met Mr. Escamilla, and if I remember correctly, he was a pretty cool and pleasant guy. Unfortunately, that isn’t enough to sell ideas to more than a small portion of the population.
Perhaps he will get his wish and will be able to prove his hypothesis. It would be a pleasant surprise, and the vindicated underdog is always a great story. Unfortunately, I sort of doubt this will happen.
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Mar 31 2008 
April 1st, 2008 at 1:02 pm
It always surprises me how little is known about this particular phenomenon, or at least how little it is discussed. I made a post regarding the, “Rod Phenomenon” just a couple of weeks ago and inevitably arrived at a similar conclusion, i.e. “There’s so much more information out there that only further confirms that rods are no more than insects, but perhaps more importantly there’s nothing out there that directly disputes this fact.”
I also found it puzzling that Dr Maccabee chose to avoid the more prosaic explanation, and even more so considering that he seemingly performed the necessary analysis as well as providing quite a detailed overview of the analytical process, I also commented that: “Strangely, Dr. Bruce Macabee (Navy Physicist & Image Analyst) whose opinion I would generally say carries weight was unable to verify the, ‘Base Jumping Rods’ as insects (which is what I’m sure they were.)” (http://tinyurl.com/ypkrg6)
Great post as usual…..
April 1st, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I dunno-this is one of those things
that I never payed a whole lot of heed
to-if the things are so common, where
are the bodies? Surely somebody would
have found one on the ground, or one
the windshield of their car at some point? ( And I positively shudder at the
prospect of running into one on a motorcycle…imagine trying to pick
one of those out of your teeth.)
April 1st, 2008 at 3:46 pm
My favorite “rod video” was an old piece of film from “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau” from the seventies. Some goober on the internet was claiming it was “full of rods” proving that they were not only living in the air, but the waters were teeming with them
Of course, I looked at his video and what was teeming was brine shrimp.
When I pointed this out on the guy’s message board, which I did politely, mind you, the guy was quite rude and insulting. He so wanted to believe in rods living in the air and in the sea, that any proof to the contrary was enough to set him off.
So, of course, I had to track down another bit of film from the same show (different episode–and this would have been much easier now that we have YouTube!) this time with the sound narration intact, where Cousteau’s voiceover makes reference to the fact that they were swimming through a bunch of brine shrimp.
This bit of evidence was not only ignored by said rod fanatic, it was removed from his message board.
This interaction, which took place years ago, made me mistrust just about anyone who believes rods are anything but video artifacts. (This and the fact that I am friends with a professional videographer who assures me that rods are in fact nothing but video artifacts.)
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Dr Dil,
Thanks for the compliment. Like you, I am also perplexed at Dr. Maccabee’s comments. Perhaps he was taken out of context? I hope so.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Craig,
Not if they’re INTERDIMENSIONAL!
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Helgarde,
I hesitated to bring up this aspect, but yes, it’s present among believers and fundamentalist skeptics, which are another type of believer.
I can’t tell you how many times people have come up to me saying that there IS an alien base under a mountain in New Mexico, but when I ask them if they’ve ever seen it, they say no and/or get irritated with me.