Help: A sparkling light / strobing - 4 mins stationary - then the zoom in - deep in english moorland

Thanks for the picture, lovely view indeed.
Sorry to bother you again, but could you post a picture with the window frame in it.
That way it would be easier to pin point where the object must have been; in the sky or in the valley.
Thanks.

komp_uk
Some screen shotsw and the video. SHOULD this be more interesting than just a diamond artifact in the video then I of course have raw , un edited 1080 footage.

I can't really tell a lot from the video.

You seem to think the object is not in the sky, (like a star) but this is not clear from the video.

If you are right about that, the first thing that occurs to me with a 5 minute or so lifetime that may not get very high in the sky, and can flicker a lot, is a Chinese lantern. I'm not saying it IS a Chinese lantern, just that Chinese lanterns do last a number of minutes (consistent with your report), and they can flicker to varying degrees based on their construction (consistent with the video). From what I've seen they tend to flicker the most when the fuel is running low, before they wink out completely, and I don't see anything in the video inconsistent with that behavior.

z00mster
Thanks for the picture, lovely view indeed.
Sorry to bother you again, but could you post a picture with the window frame in it.
That way it would be easier to pin point where the object must have been; in the sky or in the valley.
Thanks.

Well the view is great when looking that way however during the day you can see the barn roof from the @sat on the floor@ perspective So from that angle during the day it is not so spectacular... well it is nice I agree, especially when stood up

I just took this shot and you can compare the trees from a good pic with this pic kind of lined up with a shot from the video.

Is this ok? Or need better? I took the pic from roughly the same position I took the video from (in the parts you can see the window frame...

Let me know if you need something better or....

good day view:



From the Video view:



dual view for perspective comparison:



The photo of window frame: NOTE: THE TREES MATCHING GOOD DAY VIEW ABOVE:

reply to post by gemineye



I wondered what that mark was, I tried rubbing it off my screen haha. I would say it is some form of :

a) Blackbird
b) predator type bird - largish, I see them in pairs sometimes swapping food or chasing down a smaller bird.
c) slow shutter speed and a normal boring bird
d) no idea. If it was something I would have noticed it being there as that is part of a multi shot photo and in the others it is not there so a bird for sure.

With the Plane lights / landing.

The nearest airport that I would see the landing lights would be NewQuay, cornwall but that is quite a way - over 50 miles.

i live in total isolation almost in this house. Just farm animals and wild things. Seen a heli before and also in the North West from me standing still outside would be an Army base but they are restricted to certain areas and not allowed down this way to train.

What you really cannot see in the video is you can barely make out a feint outline of the hills as per my pics - So from where I see it with my own eyes and can be sure that it was not above the high land and was down in the lower than me parts - that I can confirm.

I know the pics don't really say that well. You will have to trust me, I am not one for overstating things.

I would be happy to finish this post with a 'flare' or some other occums razor thing but it is intreguing to say the least as I have never seen it before and I will see it again tonight if it is there again.

reply to post by komp_uk


Great, thanks for the reply! You are definitely one of the more believable-sounding OP's on ATS, lol. So I believe you. I'm really glad you posted this, because given all the details, I have no idea what it is and I love a good mystery! Very glad you posted for us.

Thanks for those pictures.
I have watched the video again and compared the pictures.
It seems to me that the location of the light is slightly above the horizon.
IMO that would rule out the flashlight theory, though it was a good one.
As for the chinese lantern, that could still be plausible.
With the light remaining in one spot, there couldn't have been much (or any) wind though.
How were the weather conditions?
Also, is there any human civilization in the vicinity of that light that could have been responsible for lighting up a lantern?

Cheers,

And have fun looking through the window to see if 'they're back..'

z00mster
As for the chinese lantern, that could still be plausible.
With the light remaining in one spot, there couldn't have been much (or any) wind though.
How were the weather conditions?
Also, is there any human civilization in the vicinity of that light that could have been responsible for lighting up a lantern?

Cheers,

And have fun looking through the window to see if 'they're back..'

I cannot rule out a Chinese Lantern.
The Weather was changeable, clear with odd showers of rain.

There certainly are humans around the area, they could have lit a lantern - absolutely. There are small pockets of homes dotted around Dartmoor. If you go East over the trees for about 20 miles as the crow flies you would come to a City called Exeter. I am on the moor's to the left near a large resoviour of water. The military base would to the top left (NW) of DArtmoor around the Okehampton area (if your looking at google maps.

I would be about 900 above sea level and the city of Exeter is 190 ASL by my search.

Had it been plane(s) then I would have seen more and more frequently. I have never seen a plane inboud nor outbound here. Of course I see high altitude planes heading West to USA probably.

If it was not on the ground and not a plane (would a plane lights disappear like that in the video?) and was stationary and strobing / flickering amazingly (the missus reaction in the audio says it all... she is super skeptical) for a good few minutes and then....gone...

I think I am only just getting interested in my own thread now....

For reference I would be in the middle of this picture, give or take a long walk or so

Been watching out the window (pretty much in front of me).

Nothing as yet, no shining stars to note. No planes coming to land. Just an owl making its noise.

Another 12 mins and it will be the same time frame.

I've just checked the 'playback' facility on flightradar24.com and at the time of your sighting, a Ryanair flight was passing over Exeter en route from Malaga to Liverpool at 37, 375ft. It's unlikely this is what you saw - it would have been visibly moving from south to north at a higher elevation. Slightly further away, a Thomson Airways flight was tracking NE at 15,325ft, descending towards Bristol on its flight from Lanzarote. This is perhaps a slightly more likely candidate in that its airspeed and elevation were lower.

I'm reminded that Dartmoor has been the scene of earthlight or 'spooklight' sightings (whatever they may be), as mentioned in this article about similar phenomena in the Peak District: indigogroup.co.uk/edge/Peakland.htm

Strange how it just goes out like that. If it was indeed a planet, perhaps some clouds obscured the view?

reply to post by SummerLightning


Thanks for that input. I am pretty certain that I would never see anything from Bristol Airport, in fact any of the airports from here.

I do see high altitude planes on the long haul sometimes - if I am looking.

Have not seen any lights of any sort since the OP.

Thanks all for checking it out.

reply to post by komp_uk


Just thought I'd add something that might or might not be of use to you. Back when i was teen at c schoole we spent a couple of weeks at the hostel in Edale. Our dorm was a separate house up on a bluff about 50 feet above the main hostel. it was a large converted farmhouse and the f dorm I was in was one of the front downstairs rooms. We were perched on one side of the Edale valley pretty high up and apart from a flat pan in front the house the land was pretty steep down into the valley. Over the first couple of nights, teens being teens, we didn't sleep till quite late and a few of those there were tad freaked out by a mysterious set of lights that would move across the back wall of the dorm. The pattern had no regular timing however, the lights were always of a similar intensity and duration.

We original thought it was someone mucking around trying to scare us and the actual explanation was a bit of an eye opener. In actual fact the lights we were seeing quite clearly cross the wall of the dorm, always from the same direction were, the headlights of cars on the opposite side of the valley as they crested the rise and then turned. What was fascinating was that, t we are talking a couple of miles at least, across a valley from one ridge to another and yet, even the headlights of 1970s cars were powerful enough to shine clear across the valley and be clearly seen on the wall of the dorm. Given Dartmoor and Edale are similar in being isolated and pitch black at night, it does strike me that, if that light you saw was the light of headlamp or something similar then you should have seen its' beam on the wall of the room you were viewing it from? Whilst I wouldn't claim that as "definitive" I'd take that into consideration. You might like to try and experiment and using a powerful torch, see how far your roomie can still see the beam on the wall of the room as you move away from the house in the direction of the light you saw. It will also give you a better handle on your line of sight that night?

One prosaic explanation does come to mind. That being the following. Due to some temperature inversion you were seeing a mirage of the planet Jupiter that does indeed rise around that part of the sky about the same time of the night.

FireMoon
reply to post by komp_uk
.....Given Dartmoor and Edale are similar in being isolated and pitch black at night, it does strike me that, if that light you saw was the light of headlamp or something similar then you should have seen its' beam on the wall of the room you were viewing it from? Whilst I wouldn't claim that as "definitive" I'd take that into consideration. You might like to try and experiment and using a powerful torch, see how far your roomie can still see the beam on the wall of the room as you move away from the house in the direction of the light you saw. It will also give you a better handle on your line of sight that night?

One prosaic explanation does come to mind. That being the following. Due to some temperature inversion you were seeing a mirage of the planet Jupiter that does indeed rise around that part of the sky about the same time of the night.

Hi, thanks for that input, appreciated. There are no main roads within visible distance (nor at far distance), everything is single thin country lanes. I have checked out the road layout and there is a possible lane that runs down in that area but the light would never be facing my house, I would see it as a side beam only.

That does not mean I am ruling it out, there is a road on the left half of the pic of the view above but that would not be in the direction of the filming....

I think these are the facts:

a. Light was there for about 4 mins, I did not notice it get into position, it was just there, there for a while and I went to get camera and caught the last 2 mins of video.

b. Without the camera and using eye only it was stobing / flashing, you can see it in the zoom in's. Like a star does and you see the lines coming from it.... It has a proper term I am sure.

c. It was just "there"

That is all we know so far. No other local reports have been noted.

I see out that window by default and cannot help notice anything 'not dark' at night and during the day notice nothing apart from sheep and cows

If it happens again and I am here to see it, I will record again - camera close now

Still a mystery....