Picture Of UFO Doing 90 Degree Turn Caught By Australian Photographer

I saw this picture on Reddit this past Friday and thought I'd share the story behind it. The photographer took this night time picture on 07/20/2015, at Eden Park, which is a locality in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The camera used was a Nikon D90...some of the camera settings:
4 second exposure, ƒ/1.8, 50.0 mm, Flash (off, did not fire), ISO Speed - 5000, Exposure Bias - 0 EV and Max Aperture Value - 1.7.
This person claimed that they didn't see the anomaly at the time and just recently submitted the picture to MUFON for analysis. Here's a comment from the photographer:

I'm a creative photographer, and tend to take photos all the time, no matter what the situation. I was at a party and was taking a break to relax. I took a four-second-exposure and did not see the object until I looked at it on the computer later. I dont know how far away the object is, but it took four seconds to produce that path. If it were a lens artifact, you would see the source of the flare in the photograph as well. There has been no cropping or post-production on the image. It is what it is, which is nice because its so high quality for once.

I would like to get them professionally analysed, as its been years of people looking in a halfarsed way and then getting angry as if its fake, just because they cant obviously shoot it down, so I just didnt bother to do anything with it. See what happens over the next couple of days, and otherwise I'll open it up to the community and your good self.

www.reddit.com... _name=UFOs

One person mentioned, that they used a sky chart and found that the object started it's 90 degree turn right in front of the star "Deneb" . Here's a picture of the sky chart:

The bright star center left is our old friend Deneb, and the "L" seems to start right there (probably coincidence). With a 4 second exposure, there should be very short star trails, but other than that, there is no detectable motion blur. This allows us to measure the size of the anomaly. Once you know the angular size, and that it moved over four seconds, you can relate it's speed to its distance.It appears to be in sharp focus, so it's not right up close. Since you have the RAW file, you might want to look to see how many pixels wide the streaks are. It's a really interesting image. I can't come up with an easy explanation.

www.reddit.com... _name=UFOs

Well, here's the picture of the anomaly making that right turn:



I enlarged and enhance the original picture and noticed a small red "orb" in front of Deneb. Seems like this object was responsible for that 90 degree turn...what are your thoughts?

Interesting.

Curious to see what the MUFON have to say about this.

Anyway, regarding my own opinion, I'm always cautious about faint trails captured on camera in night shoots with long exposure, especially when the "90°turn" is visible solely on the brightest star.

Looks like a simple camera artifact that might happen at the very end of the exposure when the camera is accidentally moved before the shutter is closed, like in this example:



The dotted trail is a streetlamp (the brightest thing in the whole scene) captured on the CCD sensor while the camera was pulled down, the shutter still opened. The ambient light wasn't enough to impress the whole scene during that very short amount of time, thus the absence of motion blur, let alone that the flash was fired at the beginning of the exposure...

In this case, it happens only for the brightest star because the sensitivity (a combination of ISO, aperture and the likely very short amount of time when the camera is moved at the end) is just enough to capture the light of the brightest star.

Possibly, a simple contrast/luminosity enhancement of the photo might confirm or not my theory, making the "90° turn" visible on the others brightest stars.

Well, I'm not saying that this can't be a UFO making a 90° turn, but well there are some clues that indicate that the explanation is more likely mundane.

Would like to see the original photos though...

Also, check out this IPACO report about a "Star Trek like" thingy captured on a Sony Alpha 77 mounted on a Bresser telescope N 203/1000 Messier LXD75 GoTo, that appears to be only the result of the shake of the camera/telescope at some point during the exposure, producing thus this odd shape for the stars.

In this report, I was careful in my conclusion at the time I wrote this report, but now, I'm fairly confident that this was just an effect of the shake of the camera/telescope, that could have been avoided with the use of a cable release.

I couldn't see any right turn until the very zoomed in shot, but it is there. Interesting, but unfortunately with no way of determining range (distance), there is just no way to conclude how fast it could be going or if it is some kind of algorithmic artifact of the camera or what it could be if it is an object (bug, drone, UFO etc). I would chalk it up to - neat, but this mystery will never be solved.

originally posted by: elevenaugust
Interesting.

...

Also, check out this IPACO report about a "Star Trek like" thingy captured on a Sony Alpha 77 mounted on a Bresser telescope N 203/1000 Messier LXD75 GoTo, that appears to be only the result of the shake of the camera/telescope at some point during the exposure, producing thus this odd shape for the stars.

In this report, I was careful in my conclusion at the time I wrote this report, but now, I'm fairly confident that this was just an effect of the shake of the camera/telescope, that could have been avoided with the use of a cable release.

Nice link -- very, very intriguing, but ultimately just an interesting phenomenon. To the OP: I am not saying all UFO phenomenon are mundane, just that things as inconclusive as this OP unfortunately remain so.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

It's 90 degrees between points of light. Looks like operator error.

Lmao you guys are ridiculous.

It's a UFO. Get over the fact that we're not alone. Reading your possible explanations gives me a head ache.

Star and flag for interesting stuff. I'm not photographer or analyst, but it's pretty interesting.

originally posted by: SR1TX
Lmao you guys are ridiculous.

It's a UFO. Get over the fact that we're not alone. Reading your possible explanations gives me a head ache.

A.) I don't think we are alone in the universe. I think it is almost certain that other technological civilizations exist elsewhere, somewhere, in the universe. However, I also don't think there is conclusive evidence that Earth is being visited by those technological civilizations.

B.) This might be an ET craft, or it might be a digital image glitch or motion artifact similar to what 'elevenaugust' mentioned. I can't tell, and I'm not sure how you ruled that out.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Based on where the lights are in the image it looks like image glitch from user error.

The light source starts above deneb star, goes through deneb star and comes out red trollolololol. Guess it go hot

a reply to: elevenaugust

But he just happened to move/shake the camera in a perfect 90 degree angle? I guess anything is possible...maybe his muscles are autistic, they only twitch in angles that are pleasing to the analytical mind?

a reply to: shawmanfromny

Running edge detection on the available image the vertical line looks somewhat straight, the horizontal not so much. Having access the original image would have been nice.

There is a bright light on the left. Could it be a small lit object?

Btw a smooth motion in 3d can look like "perfect" 90 degrees in 2d.

originally posted by: 3n19m470
a reply to: elevenaugust

But he just happened to move/shake the camera in a perfect 90 degree angle? I guess anything is possible...maybe his muscles are autistic, they only twitch in angles that are pleasing to the analytical mind?

And how are the chances for a move/shake of a camera to transform a simple star (in this case ι Her) into a "Star Trek like" shape?



Full report of this case can be seen here.

Also, what's with the "perfect 90° angle" myth? It could be 87° or 93°, does that makes the case more or less impressive and valuable?

originally posted by: SR1TX
Lmao you guys are ridiculous.

It's a UFO. Get over the fact that we're not alone. Reading your possible explanations gives me a head ache.

Are you really that naive? You see a small light in the sky and conclude, "We are not alone"? That's what is ridiculous. On the Hynek scale a "nocturnal light," which this is, is the LOWEST item on the scale. You're not even to the "Close Encounters" part of the scale yet. You have no scale, no distance, no definition, nothing but a light. You can't see a light in the sky the size of a star and conclude, "Aliens!" That's just stupid.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

Just my 2 cents. A UFO doesn't mean an alien ship...it means unidentified flying object, which this anomaly is. It's unknown and it performed, what looks like a 90 degree turn above ground. Could it be a camera glitch? Well, this person is listed as a "pro" photographer on their Flickr account, which means that they probably are very familiar with their camera and used a tripod, during the 4 second exposure. We're not talking about just a "nocturnal" light, but rather, the source of this light. If Mufon's analysis of the picture rules out photographer error, or a camera glitch, which I believe it will, then the question would be, what "object" can perform a 90 degree turn in flight?

a reply to: shawmanfromny

There is no proof of a flying object. Possible, but not likely.

a reply to: elevenaugust

Myth? OK, let us say the light trail shows 87 degrees...so what? It's close enough to be a right angle to me and certainly appears that way in the picture. The photo in question doesn't show a distorted image of a "star", but rather, a lighted "object" that made a "nearly" perfect right angle, due to the trail it left behind. This photographer politely answered many questions on Reddit and appears very open and knowledgeable. Until this is proven to be a camera glitch or operator error, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to list this as an unknown aerial anomaly.

there's been a comment that the lens would have bent a 90 degree angle anyway. I didn't argue, but my personal opinion is that an object far away through a 50mm lens is not going to be bent. Its not a wide angle lens, and its in the centre of the frame. I dont know what you mean by 'frame'. Its a single image. I cant tell which direction its travelling in, or why it would appear or disappear in a flare like that. That flare wouldn't just be it being stationary, its an explosion of light of some kind. It really depends what direction the object was travelling, to say what nature the explosion was.

www.reddit.com...

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

There's also no proof that it's a camera glitch or photgrapher error. MUFON hopefully will determine that. Until that happens, this "anomaly" is open to conjecture.

It's just a light in the sky. It will never be more than a light in the sky. Where can you possibly go with this? Nowhere the least bit useful. That's the problem with lights in the sky. You can't come to any conclusions. All Mufon can possibly do here is say, "We can't explain it." That's about it. (I'm a former Research Associate with Mufon, from the Walt Andrus days.) There are a few insanely gullible people who will yell, "It's aliens! It's aliens!" over this, but that simply is not credible. The fact is, there are literally thousands of reports exactly like this. If you look at the Project Blue Book files (which are stored on 3 x 5 cards) the vast majority are just like this: "Observed a light in the night sky traveling NW from SE." Put the check in the box and store this away with all the others, then look for something better. Really.

It's just a light in the sky. It will never be more than a light in the sky.

Except when it's not just a light in the sky. But... we just ignore those sightings. : )