Weird object in my picture of CA fire.

Can someone tell me what this is that I caught in my pic. I took about 4 pics several seconds apart of a fire in Acton, CA. I'm in Tujunga and we can see the fire just popping over the ridge here at 7:20pm when I took the pics. I didn't notice the black object until I showed them to my husband. However it only appeared in that single pic and we've been watching intently to see if maybe it was a helicopter but have not seen any whatsoever in the sky. Cause of fire is supposedly lightning and it's 102 degrees + right now.

Im posting all four photos taken within seconds of each other starting at 7:12pm. the first 3 are void of anything then bam, something is in the last photo.

Kinda looks like a beetle or other insect buzzing your camera. I'm not very good at photo analysis though but that's my thought.

Well it appears to be quite far away and when I zoomed in on it it looked odd. Also note it was taken with a kodak Easy Share Z730.

i'm pretty good with camera's and it doesn't look like a but on the lens i have no idea what that is

That is an interesting picture. My first thought was that it was a bird but I am not so sure. It does seem to be off in the distance which would make it quite large. So you didn't hear or see any aircraft fighting the fire, dumping water, etc/

No sounds whatsoever. We waited and waited to see or hear helicopters but there was nothing.

Here is a blown up pic, the best I could do but Im no expert with pics at all.

This is a pic of a Click Beetle taking off. If you look at the body and the wing covers, from the front and below would be a match. With it out of focus the wings would dissapear and you would lose all detail and just have a blurry out line.

Everything in the distance is in focus, yet this isn't, so it must be within a few feet of the camera. A bug flying by while your taking a pic would account for you not seeing anything.

I tend to agree. Insect in flight.

To the OP ,
GREAT pics, and honest question.

Kudos to you, for showing and
asking.

Regards,
Lex

reply to post by favouriteslave


Well, let's see.... Mothman ... First Nations/Amerindian Thunderbird ... California condor at weird angle....

[edit on 2/9/07 by Pellevoisin]

Honestly it looks like a winged man out in the distance flying upwards...

Sure it's probably just a bug or dirt on the lense, but that is what it looks like. Neat pic.

To me that kinda looks like a mothman.

I've done some enhancements to the image.



Still can't quite make out what it is...

reply to post by favouriteslave


Photobucket always resizes images. Could you please upload the full size raw image to another source like imageshack?

Cheers.

Favouriteslave, Imagehsack can only host images that are below 1.2MB. If you could send the ORIGNAL image to me, I would be happy to modify it and also adjust it so that it can be hosted. Please check your U2U's for my email, cause Umbrax has been known to spam so I don't want him getting my address.

Also, were you using the camera at the full 5 megapixels, and was JPEG compression set to 'standard' or 'fine'?

MOTH MAN !, im just kidding. looks intresting. Ill check this post every so oftain see if you turn any thign up.

Take Care, Vix

Originally posted by roadgravel
That is an interesting picture. My first thought was that it was a bird but I am not so sure. It does seem to be off in the distance which would make it quite large. So you didn't hear or see any aircraft fighting the fire, dumping water, etc/

It looked like a bird to me at first as well.

Thats what my eyes told my brain, based on the image at first glance.

Then my brain told my eyes, but wait, why would a bird be flying through clouds of dense smoke? or even remotely near them? and then i realized it cant really be a bird .. well it 'could' but .. highly unlikely. Project Blue Book would've said bird or insect .. disinforming bastards.

here is an odd thought, I looked at it and my wife looked at it and we thought it might be a cali condor?, not sure but we've heard they are large birds, is that possible?

Ok guys thank you for all your help! I really want to know what this is because I frequently watch these hill and take pictures of them just because they are always so pretty. Just to give you and idea of the distance between my porch and where the fire actually was see this link.


Fire

This is about 20 miles between me and the fire/ridge. The fire was located south of the 14 Fwy in Acton, essentially directly north of me. ( I am in Tujunga.) It appeared to be on my side of the fire/smoke but definitely far from me and closer to the smoke. I highly doubt any bird would be flying that close to the smoke especially seeing as how it was on the other side of the mountain and wasn't a direct threat to anything on our side at that point. The fire ultimately ended about 10 minutes later and we never saw a water dropping helicopter in the area as we frequently do because we live in the Angeles Crest Forrest. We know where all the stations, helipad and fire depts are in the Tujunga,La Canada area.

As for the condors, there is condor peak but we are talking 20 miles northwest from us and very west of the fire location in an area called Valencia where Magic Mountain is located. So if it was a condor it would be travling from beyond the fire, across it and south toward us. It would have been safer for it to stay north in its habitat rather cross the fire onto a side where there is no habitat. Looking at that map link above Condor peak is up the 5 fwy past Newhall and Stevenson Ranch.

[edit on 3-9-2007 by favouriteslave]

[edit on 3-9-2007 by favouriteslave]

[edit on 3-9-2007 by favouriteslave]

[edit on 3-9-2007 by favouriteslave]

[edit on 3-9-2007 by favouriteslave]

Hmm... In that enhancement that Kacen did, it looks like each "arm" is rougly the same shape, In the enhancement, it doesn't look like a bird or bug though. Very Strange.

reply to post by favouriteslave


So are you able to upload the raw image so we have a better chance to figure out what this is?