Rods! What the Heck?

Just what are these crazy things called Rods? First Click here to watch a short video (about a minute long) that shows a rod, then shows it in slow motion. The Video was shot with night vision lenses and the camra was motion sensive so it only filmed when something was moving. After you watch the Video then read on.
What you have jsut seen is a phenomenon called rods...

José Escamilla, explorer and filmmaker, discovered strange flying rods while investigating UFOs with his wife Karen in New Mexico in 1994. A satisfactory explanation for these enigmatic things is still being sought. Are they alive? Are they dangerous? Where do they come from and where do they go? Below are his answers to questions I emailed José earlier this month...

1. How, when and where did you first discover the rods?
On March 5, 1994, I videotaped UFOs that appeared in broad daylight over Midway, New Mexico - a small community nine miles southeast of Roswell. Then on March 19,1998, I again videotaped the area, making a documentation of where the UFOs had appeared on March 5. While reviewing the March 19 tape, I saw something that I had never seen before: A streak passes by the camera from across the road and right above where I was standing. As I saw this through the viewfinder, my first impression was that these were insects or birds. Then when I reviewed the footage frame by frame, I realized that they were not insects or birds... but something else. Upon seeing the objects on video, Karen, my wife, coined them "rods" because they resemble microorganisms she has seen under a microscope.

2. Do rods only show up in photos and in video, or can they be seen with the naked eye?
They can be seen with the naked eye. If you have ever seen something zip by in your eye peripheral - and most all of us immediately assume it was a close flyby of an insect or bird - but then you turn and look and there are no birds or insects anywhere in sight, then you have witnessed a rod with the naked eye. People have come up to me at lectures after seeing the footage of what these things look like, and they tell me that they too have seen them with the naked eye. They are extremely fast, but they can be seen.

3. What do you think they are? Are they alive?
All the footage, from the early shots to the latest "smoking-gun evidence" from a cave in Mexico, seem to reflect that these objects may be living organisms. In fact, we now have discovered how they may fly! I have also just acquired footage of an actual cigar-type UFO that is traveling from left to right and slow across the sky over Rhode Island, and two rods zip through - all in the same scene! This is groundbreaking footage because lots of people who have been videotaping rods have termed them as alien craft, which we feel they are not. The cigar-shaped object in this particular footage resembles in great detail the object videotaped by Tim Edwards and Tom King, and it certainly moves much slower than the two rods. We are excited about this new evidence.

4. How do you know they're not just lens flares or some other optical anomaly?
Early on in the investigation, I knew we would have to dispel the claims that skeptics would make in trying to discredit what we were documenting, so we did a variety of tests, including shooting toward the sun where lens flares would appear across the lens point of view. And guess what? We captured rods zipping past as they always do, and the lens flares remain stationary in the scene.

5. There are many skeptics, of course, who have denounced both your methods and your findings. Can they be convinced?
Most people don't know that I am a professional film and video editor with extensive credits and experience. And in doing these tests, I came up with a protocol that basically washes away the insect-bird theories skeptics also brought out. With this protocol, which I call "sky fishing," there is no way that anyone can misidentify all that is videotaped. Skeptics like Joe Nickel of Skeptical Inquirer don't claim insects anymore because of the obvious, but they have alluded to a hoax. Kal Korff and Bob Shell, however, continue to call rods mis-filmed insects. This is simply because they don't know any better. Needless to say, the new Smoking-Gun Evidence video shows it all.

So, what do I think? I think that it is pretty interesting stuff, but is it real or just some elaborate hoax? Who knows, I tend to lean toward thinking that it is real but again, who knows and who knows what info may turn up in the future to alter my opinion, that’s why I invite you to keep an open mind and keep walking in this big weird world of ours!

I’m Average Joe

email: OurWeirdWorld@gmail.com