USAF Sergeant photographed three UFOs making right-angle turn

Captured images of UAPs making very sharp turns at high speed seem to be very rare, so when I found the following beautiful image in Michael Hesemann's UFOs the Secret History (1998) it excited me.





NICAP gave a fairly detailed account of William (I think it should be Willard) Wannall's sighting as follows, in Section 8 of The UFO Evidence (1964).

28. Wannall Photo, Hawaii. Mr. and Mrs. William L. Wannall, Honolulu, Hawaii were driving south on 10th Avenue at 8:45 p.m., when they noticed "three large lights flying in a wide formation over the Kaimuki area.. sky was clear, and visibility unlimited, prevailing trade winds." (SAUCERS, Vol. IV No. 2). After watching the lights for about 1 minute, Mr. Wannall took a photograph of them with his Cannon 35 mm camera using Anscochrome color film (32 ASA), exposure 1/8, aperture f/1.8. NICAP has viewed only a black and white print, which shows three lights in a triangle pattern, two of which have sharply curving "trails". Off to one side is another, slightly larger, apparent light. There is a dark background with no visible landmarks. According to Max B. Miller, who examined a color print, the lights are bright yellow except for one of the "trails" which is bluish-green. The fourth "object" was not visible to the photographer. The light sources are surrounded by an "aureole- type effect."

But I think the picture deserves far more attention than this - nothing less than the full Bruce Maccabee treatment in fact.

Although I've not been able to find a copy of SAUCERS, vol iv, no. 2, I doubt that any detailed analysis would have appeared there.

So In default of a published professional analysis of the photo (if one has been made I haven't found it) as an amateur I've noted the following points:

1. Whether it was a UAP or not, the stationary position of the large light on the right shows that the camera remained stable during the 1/8 second exposure.

2. The three bright white images on the left were caused by overexposure while the three UAPs remained stationary during part of the 1/8 second exposure time. Almost certainly the UAPs remained still during the first part of the 1/8 second. The traces on the emulsion then record the objects' acceleration and turning during the remainder of the 1/8 second exposure. It is possible that they 'sensed' somebody was pointing something at them and 'decided' to make a rapid exit.

3. Because they took place in less than 1/8 of a second, the rounded turns of the three UAPs would likely have appeared as right angle turns to a human observer. Because of the foreshortening in the photo, we cannot estimate the actual angle of turn.

4. Although we don't know the size or distance of the UAPs, with any reasonable assumptions their accelerations must have been astonishing. For example, if they were around ten metres in length, the traces suggest that in less than 1/8 of a second they had travelled say 100 metres. They therefore reached velocities of around 3000-4000 kilometres per second within 1/8 of a second. Not your normal 1950s aircraft.

5. While the white images of the stationary UAPs are overexposed, the traces likely represent their true colours. Professional analysis of colour changes and discontinuities in the traces could reveal much, for example spinning or strobing at frequencies greater than 50 hertz.

6. The fainter patches of light top left may include lens flares caused by the UAPs when stationary. Professional confirmation and analysis of this could confirm the photo's authenticity and add other information.

Comments much appreciated.

Source of text:
www.nicap.org...

Willard Wannall looks to have been a trustworthy and upstanding man. He evidently became something of a UFO nut after the sighting, not before:

www.wannall.com...

long exposure photo while moving the camera does this to light sources to...
just saying

Originally posted by Vandalour
long exposure photo while moving the camera does this to light sources to...
just saying

But how come one light is not distorted?

reply to post by Vandalour


That would be the case if ALL lights had the same blur. Not all the lights in the pic have motion blur. So the camera was not moving during the snapshot.

This is an interesting picture. Thanks for sharing!

very interesting photos, I'll be keeping my eye on the thread to see where it goes. I will definatly agree this has nothing to do with the camera moving.

regards

Thanks for this interesting thread. S&F

Three things to add to the study of this photography:

1- I copy-pasted and overlayed the second "UAP" (after blackened it) using magic tools onto the first one:



While the thickness of the second UAP "tail" is slightly larger than the second UAP "tail", there's a 100% match of both shapes...

2- I recently worked on a photography that exhibit similar light behaviour:



Close-up:



The interesting thing is the light in the background seems to move, while the whole image still standing, giving the (false) impression that the camera wasn't moving at all.

You won't believe me, but the camera at one point was moving....at the end of the exposure.

Notice also the dotted line aspect of both the light in my sample above and of the third UAP "tail" in the Honolulu photography.
This is due to the frequency of the light (sodium streetlamp in my sample) that the "camera eye" sees.

3- One interesting clue in the testimony: "The fourth "object" was not visible to the photographer"

Is this the same image ?



www.welt.de...
www.welt.de...

If it is, which one is the original version ?

reply to post by easynow

Interesting find, thanks!

To answer your question, the 35mm film is a 24*36 format, which means that it have a 1.5 ratio.

The photography you found have a 483*322 size, then also a 1.5 ratio

However, the photography in Michael Hesemann's book have a 978*359 size, which gives a 2.72 ratio, not a format that I know to exist back in 1956 (and in any time BTW - or maybe a 24*65 panoramic? [2.708 ratio]), unless I'm mistaken... meaning that either it has been cropped or it has been edited for the book, with the fourth "standing" UAP added...

reply to post by elevenaugust


No problem. you might be correct about the image being edited for the book.

I did some more searching on that website and found another version of the picture


Fliegende Untertassen in Viererformation, aufgenommen 1956 in Honolulu auf Hawaii.
www.welt.de...

I could be wrong but i'm guessing that ^ version is probably the original cheers

Great find! Yes, this is most likely the original version with a 750*500 size (1.5 ratio again).

Anyone else knows any other version of this photography?

Interesting pic for sure...

What I like about it is the domed saucer shapes of each object even though they have slight distortions...

This reminds me of some of the very interesting old school images of saucers.. The average joe and debunkers always trashed these types of images because of the distortions surrounding the photographed objects, but they never came up with any reasons except negative ones in their armchair explanations. (I'm only talking about the consensus unexplained images of the past) , not the known hoaxes..

Experts like bruce maccabee have pointed out many interesting things about a lot of the genuine unexplained ones, and has shown many times that what has been photographed, could not be any conventional or mundane thing..

I'm sure if he is aware of this image, that he would probably check it out and give an opinion of it, on his site..

Many thanks to all for the expert comments.

NICAP has viewed only a black and white print, which shows three lights in a triangle pattern, two of which have sharply curving "trails". Off to one side is another, slightly larger, apparent light. There is a dark background with no visible landmarks. According to Max B. Miller, who examined a color print, the lights are bright yellow except for one of the "trails" which is bluish-green. The fourth "object" was not visible to the photographer. The light sources are surrounded by an "aureole- type effect."

So the crucial fourth, stationary, object was present both in the original colour print studied by Max Miller and the black and white copy studied by NICAP. If the fourth object was present on NICAP's print but not in Miller's, the discrepancy would have been noted at the time.

I uploaded the Hesemann version after finding that only low-quality copies of this image were available on the net.

I should have added this additional information from NICAP in my OP.

28. March 5, 1956. William L. Wannall, Hawaii (cS orig.) bS/VN (#)

Cheers

reply to post by elevenaugust


elevenaugust,

Thanks for the interesting comments.

I gather you're referring to the mains frequency of the electricity supplied to the lamp, causing output to flicker, not the emission frequency of the sodium line (or lines).

But if the three Honolulu images with 'tracks' were created by street lamps or similar, why did only the image on the right show this effect?

And if the Honolulu 'tracks' were due to camera movement, then all three tracks would be parallel, not just two.

And in any case how could camera movement create such smooth curves in the Honolulu image? In your photo the abrupt down and up movement of the camera is obvious.

So even if we discount the evidence of the third stationary light on the right, I think we can rule out camera movement as a factor in the Honolulu image.

Would be interested in your thoughts regarding possible lens flares in the Honolulu image.

Cheers.

Originally posted by Lowneck
Thanks for the interesting comments.

You're welcome!

Originally posted by Lowneck
I gather you're referring to the mains frequency of the electricity supplied to the lamp, causing output to flicker, not the emission frequency of the sodium line (or lines).

Right.

Originally posted by Lowneck
But if the three Honolulu images with 'tracks' were created by street lamps or similar, why did only the image on the right show this effect?

Only a guess at this point, but anyway (in spite of the two original source you provided):
1- Not sure about the original size ("panoramic", well not exactly, but sort of...) exist back in 1956, will have to do a better research work on this point.
2- Like I said, we have an interesting (and odd) clue in the testimony: The fourth "object" was not visible to the photographer.... However, among the three other, this is the brighter. I have an hard time to believe that he haven't saw this bright light, while the three other were visible, so, IMO, this could be some camera trick (flare, reflection, whatever...), need to be check though

Originally posted by Lowneck
And if the Honolulu 'tracks' were due to camera movement, then all three tracks would be parallel, not just two.

Yes, you're right, there's a slight difference between n°1-2 and the n°3 (the ones with the dotted 'track'), but this difference could have been due to the difference in the light origine. It's clear anyway that the general movement is the same. This point need also to be checked and tested.

Originally posted by Lowneck
And in any case how could camera movement create such smooth curves in the Honolulu image? In your photo the abrupt down and up movement of the camera is obvious.

Yes, but if the camera instead of done an abrupt down movement (and in a straight line), do the same movement in a curve, that's what you'll see.

Originally posted by Lowneck
Would be interested in your thoughts regarding possible lens flares in the Honolulu image.

Lens flares are possible with argentic films as well, but in this precise case, that seems not to be the case (for the fourth light) unless the format is not native and two flares are missing:



'0' is the center of the photography in the flare hypothesis, determined by the distance between 1 and 1' divided by 2.
As lens flares always occurs along a symetrical central inversion point (with the same exact distance between the light source and its reflection both mesured to the center of the photography), we should expect to:
1- Have a larger and higher image size (1089*378 instead of 980*360)
2- Have flares of both '2' and '3' in respectively '2'' and '3'' as well.

Cheers.

Hey more fuzzy pictures of bright lights....I'm certainly convinced now.