Comments on: Champ Crunch

By: wuffing

wuffing — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:12:13 +0000

Al, you may be able to calculate the buoy position from data already in this thread even before Stephanie posts the “cheats”.

If you look at the two hi-res images of bathers on the ledges you will see there is noticeable parallax between the two photos – both horizontal and vertical.

If you identify the obvious landmarks like the foreground buildings, the chimney stack and the University clock tower on a detailed map of the area you should be able to fix the buoy quite easily.

Then Stephanie can tell us whether you are right or wrong!

Where is that photo expert when you need him?

By: CIJ

CIJ — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:50:26 +0000

Very cool post.

By: BigTruth

BigTruth — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:58:36 +0000

Stephanie,

Thanks for your on site information. I tried to determine buoy
location based solely on online info. See my video above ¨Champ Size Calculation¨. Maybe we can settle the buoy distance now!

Can you go to a cliff location and align the buoy visually with the
right side of Jupiter island.

Remember the spot on the cliff. (get a reference point that would stand out on google earth)

Then go to tip of rock outcrop where Olsen was and find a reference
object on the horizon aligned with buoy. (Used blue in video above.)

Then go to google earth.

Draw line (Path line in Google earth) from right side of Jupiter Island to your cliff location.

Draw line between Olsen position and your reference object in distance.

Then use ruler tool to measure where they two lines intersect.

Olsen Position to Intersection of the two lines.

Thanks.

By: wuffing

wuffing — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:49:04 +0000

Stephanie, it is very unusual to find someone who can estimate distances accurately, especially over water. Try to make friends with a golfer who owns a laser rangefinder, and borrow it for an hour. Then measure the distances between everything in all the photos. You are doing very well. Thank you.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:14:25 +0000

Well, further research I’ve done with the distance the woman from Parks and Recs gave me seems to be wrong. I believe that the buoy is 200 feet from the beach, not 90 like she said, however, I think it’s still 60 feet from the point where the video was filmed to the buoy. I’m using my photographs, a still from the video I took and Google maps that has an accurate scale for distance and have pin pointed where the buoy is.

One picture that I took, I must have been standing in nearly the exact spot as him, with the cribs, buoy and city of Burlington in the background. I also hiked around the other side of the ledges across the inlet to get shots of where he was standing from a distance and made sure to get the buoy in the picture and have used that to estimate where exactly that bugger is.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:34:54 +0000

Okay guys, I just got some pivotal information. I spoke to a woman at the Burlington Parks and Rec, who takes the water samples at that spot of Oakledge Park. She told me that the distance from the point where the video was filmed to that buoy is between 45-50 feet away, 60 tops (but she doubts it’s that far out). She takes her samples from the beach, which is right there but further away from the buoy, and her exact number is 90 feet from the beach to the buoy, but she stressed that where the video was shot was less than 60 feet away from the buoy. (She saw the video too, btw).

The height of the buoy that sticks out of the water is 3 feet. The depth in that spot of the lake is less than 10 feet, and she told me when that video was filmed, the lake was at a low level, so it was closer to 9, maybe 9.5 feet deep right there.

By: wuffing

wuffing — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:42:15 +0000

Stephanie, thanks to your generous help we are getting the data we need to measure the object.
According to my figures which I made using Photoshop the Olsen object is 5.1 times longer than the buoy is high, in image #0291. It is closer of course so it is smaller in proportion to its % of the buoy distance. The object distance only depends on the camera ht above the water. My last post gave percentages for 10, 9 & 8 ft camera height. You Stephanie tell me he was lower down so 7ft high gives 53%, 6ft high gives 49% and 5ft high gives 44% of buoy range.
The object would then be 81″,75″ or 67″ long if the visible buoy height is 30″. The lower down the camera was, the closer and smaller the object is.

With different buoy height and distance just alter things in proportion.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:40:20 +0000

Wuffing, I actually think Olsen was standing right on the point, probably only a foot or so away from the water. When I went to the park last weekend I made sure to look at where the buoy was, as well as the cribs (oil tanks), standing where I thought he was according to all of that. That would put him at almost water level.

My morning is too busy to call the park, but I plan on doing that this afternoon to try to find out how far out that buoy is. We just got back from a trip though and with a three year old, a big dog…well, I’ve been rather busy. :p

By: wuffing

wuffing — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:51:37 +0000

Well Norman, I can easily do a “what if” calculation. From the photo of the promontory and Juniper Island I make the height of the middle tree to be 25.9 ft, and so a probable ground height at Olsen’s location is around 4 ft above water level. Camera height will be around 9 ft. If the buoy is 165 ft away and is 2.5ft high it measures inv tan 2.5 / 165 = 0.868 degrees high and that is 16 pixels on my copy. The “object” is about 40 pixels below the buoy distance, which is 40/16 x 0.868 = 2.17 degrees below the buoy. Just make a triangle with camera ht as 8, 9 or 10 ft and the distance to the object comes out at 92, 97 or 101 ft. So object scale is about 56%, 59% or 62% of buoy scale, and object is 86, 90, or 95 inches long. That’s end to end working on image number ..0291.
It’s a whole lot of IFs, and I don’t think its an animal so I’m just working out how big a hoax it might be.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:35:42 +0000

I’m trying to find out the exact distance from the buoy to the point where Olsen was standing, but cannot find it online of course, though I did find depth charts. My next step is to call a ranger at the park tomorrow and see what they can tell me. I wasn’t about to swim out there to find out myself and the buoy itself only says “Go slow” on it.

Since Olsen was holding his phone to film, I’m going to assume he was holding it at the average height of a man. Obviously he wasn’t using a tripod, so it’s anyone’s guess what height the camera is.

I will say this, that buoy isn’t far from the shore, it’s VERY misleading in the video and looks much, much farther out than it really is. Also, the water isn’t more than 10 feet deep in that whole area. You can actually see the bottom if you look closely at the map on google.