I just received an email about this photo from the Google group
"UFO
Collective" written by Kentaro Mori, with the original file attached as well.
Seriously speaking now, here are my thoughts about this picture:
Running some quick preliminary tests with our dedicated software IPACO, I can say that:
1- There's no indication that the file was tampered with. The firmware version "I9300UBUGMK6" is here and all the metadatas are strongly consistent
with those of others original sample photos taken with the same cellphone (Samsung GTI9300).
2- I agree with what Kentaro said in the group, there's no detected modification in the jpeg compression signature.
2- The color of the "object" match that of the clouds that can be seen at the lower left part of the photo, suggesting that both are in shadow. As you
can see in my radiometric comparison below, the value of the lowest gray pixel is close in both cases (43 vs 58).
3- From a meteorologic POV, lenticular clouds can have a large range of shapes/colors/position within other clouds and comparatively to the sun
position. As far as I know and in some rare cases, they can indeed be associated with cumulo-nimbus or cumulus congestus cloud. The opinion of a
professional weather forecaster could be interesting though.
All of the above strongly suggest that what we have here is just a "special" shadowed lenticular cloud and that the photo wasn't tampered with.
However, please keep in mind that this is just a quick assessment and that, possibly, a deeper analysis could lead to a different conclusion.
edit on 29-1-2014 by elevenaugust because: (no reason given)
edit on 29-1-2014 by elevenaugust because: Removing the bad quote
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