Starship Asterisk*

If i missed the light post in question it's because i didn't have the photo on hand and didn't remember it clearly. I'm uploading a few more that are closer to the vantage in the original, but they are partially obscured by trees.

Firstly - were those shots taken on 35mm film or digital gear? If it's 35mm, check the negs out first. If it's digital, it's not uncommon to have flux in the noise levels, aka blooming. Quite possibly blooming on the light. If you check the picture out, the streak only goes 3/4s the way up towards the top left hand corner and then fades away. If it was debris like a meteor etc it would show a clear streak the entire image. My bet's on a issue with neg/film/ccd.

Dave W Pastern

david@dia.net.au

Maybe it is the shadow of a contrail that happens to be co-planar with the viewer's line of sight. The sun and the contrail would be to the upper left of the viewer.

It is clearly a UFO coming to enslave the human race. Ive got my tin foil hat ready.

http://www.samhaddow.com/things/8.jpg
http://www.samhaddow.com/things/9.jpg
http://www.samhaddow.com/things/10.jpg
http://www.samhaddow.com/things/11.jpg

Rich wrote:Static discharge between the focal plane shutter and the film pressure plate.
The dischage was caused as the shutter passed over the film, arcing through the film to the pressure plate.
Sometimes this can happen as the film is being advanced to the next frame, but it us usually straight across the imabe area lft to right.

Digital camera, hence impossible.

I don't know what has happened in the recent posts, but this is what I get for a difference image. If I did this correctly, then for some shade of dark grey in this image, there was no color change between the real before picture (6:52:37) and the central picture (6:52:52). A lighter color indicates that the colors lightened from the first picture to the second, etc.

According to this image, which should be double checked, what I'm calling the reflection and some others call smoke, actually appears on this side of the lamp post when it is near the bottom of the lamp post. Also, some white dots suggest some lights came on between image 1 and image 2, which should also be checked in the original images. Note that this image contains the JPG artifacts from image 1 and 2, as well as a new set of artifacts when it was re-JPGed.

Okay, here is my take:

We know it isn't a meteor. If it were, there would be some kind of physical damage to the lamp. If it was something that was so small as to not show any obvious damage, then it would not have been travelling fast enough to move that far in such a short amount of time and strike with such velocity by the time it reached the ground.

This can't be a contrail shadow, the sun isn't in the right spot. Plus you would see the line of the contrail on the ocean.

This can't be the shadow from the explosion of the lamp, it would widen as it went to the sky, which it does not do. Plus, the intensity of the flash is nowhere near enough to cast a shadow like that into air as clear as that. If it was, it would most certainly overexpose the CCD in the camera and you would not see any color, it would just be a very white flare. Plus, if it was the shadow, then the entire rest of the picture would brighten EXCEPT for the shadow during that frame. The differential picture would show difference everywhere else except the shadow.

I find it hard to believe that this is a bug. The white arcs by the lampost are too sharp to be the reflection of a bug that is so out of focus that you can't see it at all as a bug. Plus it's tragectory is far too straight. Also, there would be faint marks in the difference photo as wide as the percieved "wingspan" (the length of the white arc) all along the dark trail in the sky.

So here are some things that we can tell about it's position:

The "impact" must be in front of the lamp. You can see from the difference photo that the white arc is not obstructed by the lampost.

As for the streak:
Case 1: The source of the dark streak is far away above the clouds. The difference photo clearly shows the trail fade abruptly in the sky, indicating it comes through the clouds at the point that it disappears. This point is miles away and high in the sky.

Case 2: The source of the streak is in front of the clouds and in plain view. We obviously can't see anything in the sky generating this, so whatever it is must be invisible.

If the source is invisible, then we are dealing with either space aliens or top secret govt. technology, both of which I find pretty unlikely.

If the source is far away and above the clouds, then the trail would appear much smaller in the distance as it got further from the camera, which the difference photo shows it does not. It stays the same width for it's entire path. The only explanation for this is that the trail is a focused beam that happens to be at the perfect angle for the effect of distance to counteract the collimation of the beam. Even so, unless the focal point of the beam was at the camera lens, then the beam would not be a cone, but have a curved cross-section which would also indicate alien technology, since there are no known beams which collimate in anything except a cone. Also, if the beam were collimated, then the darkening effect that it is having on the atmosphere would get more intense as it gets smaller and closer to the lampost, which it clearly does not.

My only conclusion is that it is a fake, or evidence of aliens. I'm leaning towards fake since I don't see why aliens would be cruising our planet shootin' at lamposts with their nondestructive flare ray in their cloaked spaceship just for kicks.

More reasoning for this: The white arc is not perpendicular to the streak, indicating that it's point of origin does not lie on the line of the streak.

Lastly, over the course of 30 seconds that these three images span, why have neither of the ships on the water moved even a pixel? I think these photos were taken much closer to each other than the EXIF data suggests.

Just my thoughts.....
-Z

Here is a link to the difference photo again since this thread is now like 40 pages long....

http://images.isja.org/images/strange_diff_pryde_01.png

Is it my ageing eyes, or my state-of-the-ark computer? The only abnormality I see in the picture is what appear to be water droplets on the lens causing small distortions. Since the previous and succeeding images showed no abnormality, is it possible that the interval between images was sufficient to allow any droplets to evaporate?

Also notice that directly above the lamppost, in the clouds, there is a small white dot the same color as what I call the reflection in the water. I believe there is a similar dot in the Before image, but I did not check the same position for the Central image. I've checked enough for now. Good night.

Will everyone please quit repeating that it can't be a meteorite as the lamp is undamaged.

The meteorite barely penetrated the water, almost to the center of the round compression front, before exploding back out its water entry path [mostly steam and vapor]. This takes place offshore a bit past halfway out to the anchored barge.

Just wondering if anyone else is willing to entertain the idea that the pole with the mysterious "sparK" is the same pole as this:

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/jsuro/images ... arwin3.jpg

Douglas wrote:

Guest wrote:Hey Douglas, is there any chance you can do another "diff" image, this time including the water directly below the "flash"?

done http://images.isja.org/images/strange_diff_pryde_03.png

Someone mentioned a circular flash shape in the reflection of the water, and when I flip between the before, strange, and after images, I noticed it too. Maybe a diff image can bring it out?

Hmm, can't see such thing...

--
Douglas <douglas at isja.org>

Definitely looks like a bug to me.

Anonymous wrote:If i missed the light post in question it's because i didn't have the photo on hand and didn't remember it clearly. I'm uploading a few more that are closer to the vantage in the original, but they are partially obscured by trees.

Okay.....so this person takes a picture of some strange phenomenon, goes out to look at the lampost in question to determine that there is no damage, and yet can't remember which lampost it is? Sounds really fishy to me....

-z

It took me quite some while with photoshop, but there is a perfectly good explanation.
It's not a streak, it's the shadow of the lightbulb. At the same moment the bulb "exploded" there's a 1000 times stronger light, just for a split second.
It will explain the shadow (streak) and the strange lightning on the right side ( lens reflection ).
So its important to know that the trail is not coming from left above over the water, but from the bulb over land.
Satisfied? I'm open for any discussion.

Lee wrote:Just wondering if anyone else is willing to entertain the idea that the pole with the mysterious "sparK" is the same pole as this:

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/jsuro/images ... arwin3.jpg

Looks like it to me, but looking back inland.

zoltan wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If i missed the light post in question it's because i didn't have the photo on hand and didn't remember it clearly. I'm uploading a few more that are closer to the vantage in the original, but they are partially obscured by trees.

Okay.....so this person takes a picture of some strange phenomenon, goes out to look at the lampost in question to determine that there is no damage, and yet can't remember which lampost it is? Sounds really fishy to me....

-z

I didn't take the original photos. I just went and took a few out of curiosity today.

Can't use my Bad Buoy wrote:

Will everyone please quit repeating that it can't be a meteorite as the lamp is undamaged.

The meteorite barely penetrated the water, almost to the center of the round compression front, before exploding back out its water entry path [mostly steam and vapor]. This takes place offshore a bit past halfway out to the anchored barge.

Look at the difference pics.....the white streak is not obstructed by the lampost, therefore it is not behind it.

Plus, we have already established that for a meteorite to crash down with such velocity it would need to be over 10 meters in diameter, thus the "after" pic would show a firey blazing inferno filling the screen with only the remnants of a shattered digital camera visible.

-z

It's a bug, has to be. It is the only answer that seems probable. Other explanations are fun to think about but highly unlikely when compaired to it being a bug flying by.

Yeah, I think it's a bug too. The only other explanation I would consider is the light burning out, but I don' t think so.

The pole with the spark is taller than normal street lights. Normal street lights aren't much taller than that long black ramp.

http://www.samhaddow.com/things/8.jpg

You can see normal street lights already turned on in the strange_pryde shot. They are slightly above the long black ramp. I think that the area in the background is Fort Hill Wharf. Which looks like this:

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/jsuro/images ... arwin1.jpg

I will assume that the pole with the spark is one of these poles:

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/jsuro/images ... arwin3.jpg

Since I don't see any ship there, I'm going to presume that there is no reason to turn on any of the wharf lights.

Thus, I think I'll put my vote on the bug theory.

OOPS. I meant to post this URL as the height of a normal street light.

http://www.samhaddow.com/things/5.jpg

From this location one can see that the lamp in question would have been "facing" the camera so the exploding light with shadow caused by the pole theory seems to be the better one than the "bug" theory.

http://www.samhaddow.com/things/5.jpg

I have seen such a streak much closer to groundlevel in antwerp,belgium approx. 1 month ago or so. I can supply you with a copy of that picture.

If you say space-time-distortion again ... somehow i think it has something to do with the increase in frequency of the schuman resonance.

Has anyone noticed the tiny light spot in the clouds almost halfway up and almost above the lamp?