My opinion is that it's a sticker or some kind of drawing stuck to the side of your grill cover and you're trying to pull our collective leg. It's so obviously a drawing or cartoon of some type and not a real, three dimensional object. I'm sure some nerd on here will be able to identify it as a character in some Japanese cartoon or video game.

I'd say nice job with the attempted hoax, but I don't think you even put enough effort or work into it to warrant a congratulations or a pat on the back. Next time try dressing your friend up as a Reptilian or Bigfoot. At least it'll be a bit more interesting than a cartoon drawing on a friggin GRILL COVER!

And another thing... those "orbs" that you claim are there... there's a hundred of them in the sky there! It's so obviously a result of the rain. The deck is still wet, and you can see the leaves are stuck to it. The sky is entirely gray, further validating the rain spot theory.

What a LAME attempt at a hoax. I seriously hope that there's a Moderator on here with enough sense to ban people like you without even thinking twice. It's shady characters such as yourself that waste the good members' time on here by having to read your BS postings. Furthermore, you tarnish any credibility this site or its members have. Someone could be coming on here to ATS for the first time, see your goofy posts and your fake assertion, and think that the whole site is a bunch of bull like your post and never come back again!

Now take your Pokemon sticker, or whatever it is, off the grill before mom gets home from work and flips out!

Uh.. why would I do something that obvious if I was going to make a hoax. If I purposefully wanted to make a cool hoax, wouldn't I suspend it from string in the air or something? The surface of that area is rounded, so it would be pretty hard to stick a flat sticker to it. If it was a sticker, you would be able to see some sort of outline or something, and it wouldn't vary in shades like that. I said it wasn't a hoax, and I am offended by you saying that, although I can understand the skepticism. I challenge anyone to find a sticker of this apparent 'japanese cartoon character'... but you won't. Because it isn't one... I'm sorry but I do have more of a life than to put stickers on a barbeque in an attempt to fool a forum of intelligent people. Obviously a lot of hoaxes go through here and I know that people would immediately pick up a hoax. I said this wasn't a hoax, and I stand by that, god dammit. I thought that this would be one of the few places I could find some to prove that this picture is NOT a fake.

And I said that the orbs are obviously caused by rain, right above the second picture...

If I was going to make a hoax, I wouldn't make it crappy like what you allege of this one.

Hopefully someone has enough sense/ability to disprove this sticker theory, because I don't know much about images or hoaxes.

Really, hasn't every image or audio recording or movie been accused of being a hoax? People say that the famous bigfoot footage is "clearly a hoax", while anthropologists and professionals say that a human cannot replicate that style of walking? Who is right and who is wrong?

I hope someone has enough knowledge to tell me what it might be. I never said what it is. I don't even know if I believe it is some sort of being or anything like that myself. All I came here for was some kind of answer, not to be yelled at as a hoaxer, like I am on some kind of witch trial. I posted this because I thought someone might benefit from seeing it, as well as to figure it out for myself. Because I am sure as hell stumped as to what it is. But I know it isn't a sticker/drawing, because there wasn't one there. I understand your accusations, but you don't have to make them quite so harsh. I have taken them into consideration and await further comments.

[edit on 8-7-2005 by Yarcofin]

"It's so obviously a drawing or cartoon of some type and not a real, three dimensional object."

How do you know that everything in existance must be three dimensional to be real? Just because physical objects as we know it have length, width, and height, doesnt mean that this... thing does. What if it is made of light? What if it is pure energy?

If you're going to belittle me, make sure your reasoning is sound, and accept the possibility that it might not be a hoax. And how do you start off with "In my opinion...", and slowly work your way through both your posts until it is as if you were there when I took the picture.

To be honest, I think the sprite guy is a jar or light fixture that just happened to reflect what looked like a little guy.

I love that you pointed out the pockets.

Thats effin hilarious.

[edit on 8-7-2005 by LeftBehind]

interesting pic, but it doesn't seem to be a real creature in that it is 2 dimensional. I'm not saying there isn't the possibility of a 2 dimensional entity, but from what I know of sprites, pixies, gnomes and other mythical creatures, they are usually 3D.

After looking at the close up for a while, my thoughts is that it is a reflection cast from perhaps a window with a cling on or something. it looks very much like those Hummel children...the Precious Moments characters in the way it is shaped.

Seeing the pumpkin also makes me think it's Halloween, therefore probably a Halloween window cling on type of thing.

Thank you, Leftbehind. At least you offer a logical and non-aggressive possibility. While I swear that I did not intentionally make a hoax, the possibility is there that something unintentional such as reflection caused this image, as I have already mentioned.

There is one light on that deck, near the doorway i took this picture from. It wasn't on at the time I dont think since it was at about noon when I took it, and it doesn't have a particularly over-reflective surface.

I understand how objects can reflect a glare, but how do you get a glare with such minute details and odd spaces in it as this one? You can see the difference in complexity between the raindrop "orbs" and the "sprite". I suppose light is a funny thing though and it is possible.

Thank you for your significantly less yell-y post.

Ok, I apologize. I was harsh on you and for that I hope you can forgive me. It's just that I see so many goofballs coming on here with their bogus stories, basically pissing on us and telling us "it's the rain." The fact that you say "it isn't a hoax" quite honestly doesn't mean anything, as that line accompanies every single hoax on here.

Anyway... if you could provide a pic of your grill now, and give us a better idea of the surface that this thing is appearing in front of, that might help. I believe that it's impossible that it's a reflection as it's way too clear and way too bright. The surface of the grill could never reflect something in such vivid color and detail. Whatever the object is, it's definitely right where we see it in the picture, and not reflected or beamed from somewhere else, in my opinion.

Again, I'm sorry for being a jerk it's just that I think it looks so plainly like some kind of 2 dimensional picture or sticker. The point that someone else brought up about the pumpkin and Halloween also makes sense. Is it possible that it's just some kind of corny Halloween decoration that someone put there? Have you showed it to your family and asked them if they recognize it? Maybe a family member was decorating and put it there as a joke or something.

Anyway, if you can show me a close up picture of the grill without the "sprite" there, I think it might debunk the reflection idea at the very least.

Gah. I had a long reply but then my computer froze as I was about to post it .

Essentially in short because I am too lazy to type it all again and I forget some, Yes it was taken a few days prior to halloween. We do not put window clings in the back windows of our house, only in the front, which are not able to cast their effects onto this side of the house due to walls, etc. I think that if you shine a light onto a window cling, it will produce a bright flash back, but no distinct shapes really. And that is only if you are shining a liight on it, not if the window clings are behind the picture area. We never put window clings outside, especially not on the barbeque. And I don't think there are any window clings that look like that, although I suppose there could be. But I'd hope if someone made an elf window cling, they would make it look a little better than this image does. lol. As for Precious Moments, the only ones in my house are the porcaline "Growing Up Girls" in my sisters room, on her shelf. On the other side of the house from this shot. Also, I dont mean to go too far off here but oh well, if the being exists in another dimension (dont ask me how it appeared on a photo then), it could be two dimensional, or just not show up properly in our world. I'm sorry, I had more facts to present but now I have forgotten them after my computer crashed. Thank you though, your suggestion is plausable.

Thank you Rasputin. All that I ask is that it gets a chance. I realize that saying it doesn't make it so. I would have probably said quite the same thing if I hadn't been posting this myself, and it was the other way around.

I have another picture that I took, since I was taking a whole set of these photos to test the camera. I will upload one onto my site and post the image right now. I also examined the grill as soon as I discovered this object in the photo, but I could find nothing like it on the grill.

One difference I notice between the two pictures is that the first one is obviously taken close to dusk and a flash is being used. The second one is taken in daylight and no flash is used. The "crazy sprite guy" could be an anomaly of the flash reflecting off of rain drops.

Very interesting picture regardless of how this thread turns out. Thanks for posting

The appearance of dusk/daylight was caused by the storm. The first picture was near the end of the rainstorm, and the second was slightly after. The overcast during the rain is what causes the appearance of a darkened sky, etc. And the camera on auto-mode (if it was in this shot) may have automatically adjusted some brightness/contrast/focus levels in the picture.

I cannot rule out that the rain could be a major culprit in the image. I wish I had captured it while it was not raining, but this isn't how it turned out. I do not understand how a raindrop could produce such an image though. The image of this 'sprite' would thus have to either had been on the surface of, or inside the raindrop acting as a projector.

Indeed, it is a wonderful marvel of nature, even if it is just reflection in the end =).

I am going to bed now. I will try to respond to all of the posts that occur from here until tomorrow morning when I get online tomorrow. Hopefully they aren't too overwhelming.

Thank you again Rasputin. I wish to contribute to this forum for some time to come, in an intelligent and logical manner. So hopefully I do not get banned for alleged hoaxing when it is not the case. I am sorry if this post stretches the boundary because it is, like all images of it's sort, debatable and indefinate. I am sure even if someone caught a picture of a physical elf creature, in perfect conditions, it would still be hotly debated and discussed how it could have been faked so well .

could u send me the 1000 x 750 original and I'll sort this whole thing out for you.
oh and make sure the pic u send me is un-edited. it has to be the exact original as it was when it came off of your camera!

[edit on 9-7-2005 by adamneldon]

as someone said before is it in your neighbour's garden the bb grill looks like it's behind a wooden fence maybe your neighbours were messing around

No it isn't on my neighbour's property. I dunno how it looks like that to you. :\ I suppose because you don't live here lol. It is on on the corner of my deck. All that is visible in the picture is this black tabletop-like surface on the side of it, and a part of the cover handle. I will get a picture of it from another angle so you can see that it is on my deck, if you want. Post a message if you want a head-on shot of my barbeque showing it on the deck. I don't really think this should be focused around the barbeque. It could have appeared over anything in the picture. The wood on my deck, for example, looks much more reflective when it is wet like that, as you can probably see.

Adamneldon, since you don't have an email in your profile I guess I'll just upload them on my site and you can download them.

Here is the original.

[LINK REMOVED TO SAVE SITE BANDWIDTH, U2U/EMAIL ME FOR IT]

Here is a bigger version of the second picture I posted, without the sprite. Sorry, I seem to have sized it down and saved over the original file:

[LINK REMOVED TO SAVE SITE BANDWIDTH, U2U/EMAIL ME FOR IT]

Here is another original 1000 x 750 picture of the same scene I took, but with the Sephia feature on my camera on to make everything brown-and-white, so it is pretty much useless probably as far as validity goes:

[LINK REMOVED TO SAVE SITE BANDWIDTH, U2U/EMAIL ME FOR IT]

I appear to have deleted the rest, since they were just random pictures of my deck taking up space on my computer, sorry.

I wish the sprite didn't show up so close to the edge of the shot, or it might be easier to see. I had a thought last night as I logged off and went to bed. I had already tried to replicate this shot in daylight, but not in the rain. I was thinking that next time it rains, I should try to take another set of photos and see if I capture another "sprite", which would prove that it was a reflection of some sort, if it shows up again.


Edit: Sorry, I gave the wrong proportions. The slightly smaller one is 1000 x 750 (The middle link). The originals are 2048 x 1536 (The first and last link).

[edit on 9-7-2005 by Yarcofin]

[edit on 9-7-2005 by Yarcofin]

I just had another theory, that possibly (assuming that the sprite is an actual entity of some sort) it is normally invisible for whatever reason, but when a bright light is shone on it, it becomes more visible. It still only looks partially visible in this picture, as parts are see-through/transparent and you can see the black of the barbeque through it. Maybe it is luminescent (I think that is the wrong word though). I don't know what kind of science would back up this theory, but there is another possibility. Maybe the being has reflective properties to it somehow, and it has to be seen as a reflection of itself to be seen at all. Perhaps a little far-fetched, but it would explain how bright it seems etc.

I have also come to the conclusion that the fact it is over the black barbeque is probably the reason that this post is here. The contrast of the black-on-white is the only thing that made me sort of look and notice it. If it had appeared against a less-contrasting background, I don't think it would have even been noticed. Perhaps there are other photos that contain something like this, but nobody has noticed them since it just appears as a white speck unless you view at high resolution, very zoomed in.

I have measured the spot that the sprite appears on, and I estimate the height of the image/reflection/thing at approx. 7 cm (2.5 inches).

Well if it is just reflection, it's a pretty amzing form for a bunch of light particles to take! I was looking at the picture and figured that because of the rain, the wooden decking is quite reflective....I couldn't really see it but if anyone has the software available to see a bit closer, does the 'Sprite' have a reflection on the ground below it?

I think it's a cute little thing though.