Strange Encounters

I just stumbled upon one of the dummest news stories ever. At first I thought the site must have posted the piece as a joke, but it appears to be sincere. I wonder why I'm bothering to post about this at all, but I guess it's because the complete ignorance has me baffled, and annoyed. It comes to the public via InterFax-Religion, and reads like this:

'UFO-people visit funerals of the Zaporozhye
Archbishop’s sister - ufologist

“When I took photos (at the burial service – IF) there was nothing above the church, that’s for sure. I took photos from various angles, I turned around, but the UFO is at the same place in all pictures. It proves this object neither a bird nor a plane,” the Ukrainian Komsomolskaya Pravda has cited local ufologist Vladislav Kanjuka as saying on Thursday.

The archbishop believes “it was not an UFO, but the Lord gave us His sign.”

“The Church states UFO, aliens and extraterrestrials don’t exist. However, no one negates anomalies happened at the divine services. Some people see strange things above cupolas, we believe it’s God’s blessing, a miracle,” press-secretary of the Zaporozhye Diocese Archpriest Dimitry Shuliaka said.

According to him, when he looked at the pictures taken in Jerusalem during the transfer of the Holy Fire, he saw “miraculous rays of light, though no one noticed them before.”'

Here's the photo:



Now for a little dose of logic...
The likely cause of the "object" is completely ignored. Notice that local UFOlogist claims, "I took photos from various angles, I turned around, but the UFO is at the same place in all pictures."

Now, that would normally lead a photographer to one conclusion: "There's something wrong with my camera!" Maybe there is something on the lens, or a dead pixel on the CCD. But all the UFOlogist can come up with is, "It proves this object [is] neither a bird nor a plane." Amazing deductive reasoning!

Of course I can't prove that there are no alien piloted craft, or that a god doesn't exist, but a spec in a photo, that appears regardless of which way the camera is pointed, does not harken of the supernatural, or supernormal.

Note that the Archbishop's sister wrote the article and quotes Zaporozhye Diocese Archpriest Dimitry Shuliaka's press-secretary, claiming it must be god's blessing because the church statest that UFOs don't exist. Hmmm. I could make the same argument against a god. But that's a thought for another day...