Looking for explanation of "UFO" claim

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<p>A UFO "researcher" is claiming that the lenticular "object" in this image is an alien craft of some kind. I'm looking for a rational explanation. I've been arguing with someone who's been trying to convince me that it's probably a raindrop. I don't think so.<br /><br />Here's the deal. This was taken with a trail cam, albeit an expensive one, but still a trail cam -- 3.1 megapixels, at 1/2880 sec, ISO 50, no flash.<br /><br />It's too symmetrical and doesn't match any other image of a raindrop I've yet found. I'm thinking either insect, bird, something on the lens or some kind of lens flare. The smaller spot above has me a bit confused.<br /><br />Insights? Opinions?<br /><br /><img src="http://www.mufoncms.com/files_jeud8334j/72570_submitter_file6__JAMLUFOEnlarged.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1536" /></p>

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<p>Looks like rubbish to me. The 60s and 70s were the heyday of flying saucer stories. As the number of people with cameras has increased--the number of sightings has decreased.</p>

<p>In 1973, I decided to put this to the test--does anyone whatsoever know what they are talking about--and are there really any experts that know the difference. Well, I got my "Andy Warhol" 15 minutes of fame. Walter Kronkite, John Chancellor, and others all covered it. 'Experts' from California (Stanton Friedman), MUFON, universities, and general nuts rallied to the cause. Studies on end of the negatives. At the end of the day it was this.</p>

<p>A war horse newspaper photographer named Carson Baldwin of the Bradenton Herald (who developed that roll of Pan-X) called it BS. He stated that under the conditions and equipment there was no way that the photographs could have been made. This contradicted with the USAF, and DoD--that showed up at my door and threatened me with disappearance...</p>

<p>He was right. Now are there things that our government is flying about that they do not tell us about? Aw, hell yes.</p>

<p>What is it? You and I can project a hundred stories and conspiracies into it. Maybe it is an atmospheric inversion anomaly. </p>

It's the spirit of christmas past.<br>Or the Royal Scottish National Orchestra's rendition of God save the Queen.<br>I'm not sure which, but either one or the other. And that's a fact.

Carl Sagan wrote this about UFO sightings, years ago: " It would save me so much time and effort to be able to study extraterrestial life directly and nearby...Even if the aliens are short, dour, and sexually obsessed= if they're here, I want to know about them." And if not aliens, who cares what it is. Maybe just that cheap uncoated lens filter. Enjoy the discussion. You cannot win. Actually looks like gecko droppings to me..

<p>It's a UPA: unidentified photo artifact. </p>

<p>I wouldn't mind "losing," <a href="/photodb/user?user_id=251643">Gerry Siegel</a>. If it really is a raindrop I'd like to know. It just looks tioo lenticularly symmetrical to me. It doesn't match any of the other images of stop motion raindrops I found. I'd expect one to be more flattened at the bottom. And I'm not sure that at ISO 50 and without flash you could capture one even at that shutter speed. But I could definitely be wrong. <br /><br /><br>

Of course it's not a spaceship!</p>

It is whatever you want it to be.

Charles, I have never captured a raindrop in flight wit my usual shutter limits , so I am not sure what rain looks like in its aerial falling phase. Any raindrop shooters at hand? . Are raindrops symmetrical through their fall? . To me, they all look like streaks. Are the drops different depending on wind velocity? So no insights from we non scientific but still rational observers I am led to believe though , that raindrops are not of tear drop shape. Stop motion raindrops,a real challenge, even with stoboscopic flash, Harold Edgerton milk experiments relate.

<p>There appear to be two identical artifacts in this image -- though of different size. This does not appear to be the whole 3.1 MP image. I would like to see the image before and after this one. It also seems unlikely that this image was captured at ISO 50 and nearly 1/3000th of a second. I would also like to know the exact specifics of the location of the camera. Is there any likelihood of a reflection from an external light source? If this is a solid object in the frame the lighting on it does not seem consistent with the lighting on the clouds.</p>

<p>Here's a diagram from NASA. But there's a lot of variability.<br>

<img src="http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/sites/default/files/article_images/rain-drop-shape-diagram_1.gif" alt="" /></p>

<p>The guy I was debating this with offered this image, which I didn't find too compelling.<br /><br /><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/21/article-1201154-05CA69ED000005DC-732_306x326.jpg" alt="" /><br /><br /></p>

 

<p>I found this and shared it. It makes it sound damned near impossible with that equipment. Does it win the argument? Maybe. But I'm not absolutelysure. But he does sound like he knows what he's talking about though.<br /><br />https://smokephotographist.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/how-to-photograph-rain-stop-motion-without-flash-and-neglecting-air-resistance-hehehehe-16-2/<br>

The camera was pointed at the sky. I believe that the "objects" only appear in one frame. Images were taken one second apart.<br /><br />This is the biggest version I could find. It includes EXIF info.<br /><br />http://www.mufoncms.com/files_jeud8334j/72570_submitter_file6__JAMLUFOEnlarged.jpg</p>

 

<p>Here is a UFO for you. Not bad for a 15 YO kid...</p>

<p>http://www.slideshare.net/mufonnexus/mufon-ufo-journal-1974-6-june-skylook</p>

<p>We had a Pnet discussion on water spray photography at http://www.photo.net/casual-conversations-forum/00cmoZ in which I presented several photos of water drops in mid-air. I doubt that Charles's photo is of water drops because, 1), both the objects and the clouds are roughly in focus, whereas if the objects were water drops, they would be within a few inches of the lens and either the object or the clouds could be in focus, but not both, 2), assuming that there is motion blur, the objects are moving sideways, not down (unless the photo is turned 90 degrees), 3), if these were water drops there would definitely be motion blur at 1/2880 s exposure time. The lighting looks too symmetrical top-to-bottom for the elongation to be motion blur of water drops which change shape and reflect light unevenly as they move. I don't know what the objects are, but, assuming that the photo is not a fake, the simplest explanation is probably the correct one (Occam's Razor), although we may never know what it is. Simple explanations do not include alien UFOs.</p>

<p>Glenn, thank you for your thoughts. </p>

<p>There's some sort of a pattern in the whole sky that looks like a woven basket. Perhaps a reflection on a mirror or through glass. What I'm sure of is that this isn't a UFO, but a cheesy scam. ;)</p>

<p>Why was a trail camera aimed at the sky? Was it setup on a bird trail? Is this the whole picture or was it cropped from the original?</p>

<p>Alan, he was trying to capture a photo of a UFO. There's a news article being passed around from site to site (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/12/23/ufo-captured-man-says-he-has-proof/77857852/). I assume that's the full image. It's described as the one image out of more than a quarter million whee he finally captured what he was trying to. As far as I'm concerned that's way more than enough opportunity for some really weird things to appear by chance. I also found this article that mentions him (if anyone's all that curious): http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/missoula/close-encounters/Content?oid=2064634&storyPage=2</p>

<p>And by "weird" I don't mean alien or supernatural.</p>

<p>I was just given a link to the full image. I was wrong. That was a cropped version. It's here:<br /><br />http://cropcirclesresearchfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2015-11-04-12-00-21-M-5_20.jpg<br>

Does that put both the objects and the clouds within the same plausible DOF?</p>

<p>Could be a glass oyster within one of the lens's glass elements that just happened to be revealed by the angle of the sun flare to right of frame refracting about. The images below shows similar disc like shapes but not silver metallic.</p>

<p>I took multiple shots adjusting both camera angle and position of the sun through the window and post processed them to bring out the multi-color sun flare bands.</p>

<p>I'm surprised no one mentioned the severe chromatic aberration along the edge of the disc's shiny highlight. That pretty much rules out that it came from within the lens elements. But something fishy about that highlight is that it is on the opposite side of the disc shape not facing the sun so I'm wondering where the other light source on the left is from.</p><div></div>

<p>There's not nearly enough (or any!) detail of how, where and at what orientation the picture was taken. Was the camera pointed straight up, through a glass window or what? The pale blue/cyan streak passing over the clouds from the left-hand edge looks suspiciously like mist or smearing on a pane of glass.</p>

<p>Beside that, those tiny sensor cameras have so much depth of field that it's impossible to estimate the size of the object - if it is a real object and not a reflection artefact. Could be a millimetre across and right in front of the lens, or it could be several feet across and a good way away. Could be a kid's shiny helium balloon being blown away. That would be my best guess.</p>

<p>I've seen a couple of "UFOs", in the broadest sense that they were flying and that I couldn't identify them. One of them looked like a dark-coloured over-curved boomerang flying above cloud level at a low velocity (maybe carried on the wind). It appeared to be somewhere in size between that of a large bird and a small light aircraft, but size is difficult to judge against a featureless sky. I observed it for minutes through binoculars, and still couldn't make out what it was. In the end I put it down to an escaped novelty balloon, shaped more like a swimming sea creature than anything else, but I've still not seen any balloon shaped the same. Escaped kite? Didn't look erratic enough in flight for that.<br>

The second sighting was at night. Again a slow moving object, self-luminous and looked like a hot-air balloon. Except that no balloon shape was visible above what looked like a large yellow flame, and no gondola or basket visible below. Several other people stopped and watched it progress across the sky, and none of us could say for certain what it was.<br>

Just two small mysteries that remain unsolved, but I certainly don't think they were "manned" by aliens!</p>

<p>UFOs have a way of dragging people out of the bushes who place all of their self-value on being "right" at the expense of every other human value.</p>

<p>As said in 'Life of Pi'....<em>which story do you prefer?</em></p>

<p><a href="/photodb/user?user_id=2403817">Rodeo Joe</a>, The problem with the balloon hypothesis, or anything moving at similar speed, is that the objects appear as such in only one frame in the sequence. They're not there a second before or a second afterwards.</p>

<p>You can easily fake this by glueing a toy size disc on a pane of glass and pass it in front of the camera quick enough for the camera to take one frame since it's motion activated. It might explain the double image of the same disc but smaller and fainter above the foreground disc shape.</p>

<p>Can anyone explain why the bright highlight of the disc is on the opposite side away from the sun positioned on the right?</p>