Bizarre Objects Caught by Illinois and Missouri Game Trail Cameras

reply to post by JohnnyAnonymous

Although I like the cobweb theory... I still have a problem with what is triggering the camera to snap a frame off. If indeed "Heat" and "movement" both play a role in the camera to be triggered, I do not see what it is that could possibly do that.

Yes I know that has to be one of the weak links in the conclusion but in my defence I did mention in an earlier post that the camera could possibly trigger spontaneously if the batteries were weak.

reply to post by LateApexer313

Hey Sherpa and Nohup did you ever think you'd become adept at analyzing deer cam footage?

Nope, but you do have to open a lot of oysters to find a prize

Originally posted by sherpa
reply to post by JohnnyAnonymous

 

Although I like the cobweb theory... I still have a problem with what is triggering the camera to snap a frame off. If indeed "Heat" and "movement" both play a role in the camera to be triggered, I do not see what it is that could possibly do that.

Yes I know that has to be one of the weak links in the conclusion but in my defence I did mention in an earlier post that the camera could possibly trigger spontaneously if the batteries were weak.

I found the difference in flash brightness and color odd, at first I thought it might be caused by a second light source which would also explain the IR trigger. Your comment about low batteries got me to rethink this. If the cam shuts down due to low batteries could it startup after a bit triggering a picture cycle?

Going with this idea...the first image has the brightest flash, camera startup, and they get progressively dimmer, some even having a yellow tint. The cam shuts off after 9:40pm, pic#6 (low bat.), and restarts at 1:28am, pic#7 (regained power from shutoff), triggering a cycle again. Notice how bright the flash is in picture #7 and that each pic after that gets dimmer. I don't think LED lights turn yellow from low batteries but perhaps this causes the cam's shutter speed/timing to slow accounting for this color change.

I noticed a difference in flash styles of the Cuddeback (top) used to capture these images and the Moultrie GameSpy D-40 (lower) used by Bob Coine to capture the image in the lower right corner. It looks like the cuddeback has multiple horizontal LEDs compared to one vertical filament on the D-40.




ADD: I really enjoy watching you guys go through these images and explain what they might be. I have learned a lot and now find that I look at all pictures/images completely different. [img]>1kwords.



[edit on 4/13/2008 by Devino]

reply to post by Devino


That is an excelent observation and clearly one I did not make.

This is another example of "many hands make light work", pun intended.

But seriously the analytical capabilities in this thread have been a credit to you all.

it doesnt even move... i dont know but i have a feeling this is not a ufo

So many posts about spider's web. I suppose that something else turn on that camera, maybe some animal but we simply can’t see it, the only thing we see is the reflection in that spider's web in front.

[edit on 13-4-2008 by Drex44]

Great job guys,
To add my 2 cents, I think this was mentioned, but there is a small critter that seems to jump about, maybe a rodent of some sort.



My question is would/could that little beasty set off the flash in the first place?

H

Originally posted by Drex44
So many posts about spider's web. I suppose that something else turn on that camera, maybe some animal but we simply can’t see it, the only thing we see is the reflection in that spider's web in front.

[edit on 13-4-2008 by Drex44]

I suppose one might look at it that way. But for us in the community, it's quite a bit more than that.

Were so sorry we disappointed you.. if occam's razor is not your cup of tea, I'm sure there are many other spots that will titillate your senses. You see, without all the fine and astute minds here at AboveTopSecret.com, this could've easily become a thread where everyone just chimed in about it being a UFO or a hoax without any real research bringing us closer to a solution. And then someone (perhaps even you), would've been able to post up on YouTube this "Crazy UFO in Forest" without anyone giving it a second thought. But the truth is we tend to dig deeper than to just say it's this or that.. We offer up illustrations and research to back our thoughts, claims and theories. We contact witnesses and people directly involved in a report/sighting. This is what makes us different than all the other forums/boards your probably used to going to. So now when you see these photos posted elsewhere, you can think about all the hard work that those here put into trying to figure it out.

I'm cutting you some slack with your comment about "So many posts about spider's web" because you are new and because the road/path for us to get to this point/theory/conjecture and best guess was a long journey ...

Hope that in the future you might even be able to assist and be a part of the solution.

Johnny

reply to post by sherpa



Very interesting! From what I can see here, and looking at the comments and some great observations. I'd say it is a self contained experimental object on a training mission. Seems to me, it is warm, has internal heat which triggers the camera, and the "reflections" are from "it" , either looking for something , kinda like gathering coordinates, distance etc., and could also be taking it's own pictures as well. Sending either real time blue-tooth like signals or just recording them to an SD card or equivalent.

I would say it is not an ET but from USA.

We know they have all kinds of remote vehicles that we are told about, this is one we are not. Maybe this thing will take over for helicopter coverage of "events" for tv, or used to look for lost people etc, hard to say for sure.

So, the bottom line for me, is some type of RECON device via our tax dollars at work.

sorta resembles a rod. that would be my guess

Originally posted by Havalon

I may have missed someone saying something about this, but why isn't the plant to the left of the stick in the ground in the daylight photo?

I've read this thread with interest, but I am having trouble buying the spiderweb reflection explanation. When I first saw the smaller image in the weeds my thoughts went to reflections within the optics of the camera. Anyone remember the famous Concorde UFO images? This of course does not answer the initial question: What is the bright light? Anyone have any idea of the co-ordinates of the location of the trail cam? I'd love to take a birds eye view and see what is on the other side of those trees in the background....

Have you ever seen rods?
people thought they were weird animals until it was shown that when an insect flies very close to a digital movie camera it causes strange artifacts, it can happen with birds sometimes as well.
it's to do with the fact that a digital camera does'nt take all the picture at one time as a film camera would do, it scans the picture at a very fast rate, this scanning is about the same speed as an insect flies, so it's photographing the insect in thin vertical slices as it flies across the picture the result is that you get the insect kind of spread out across the picture. the waveform that you can see inside the object is actually it's wigs flapping.
the thing in this picture is an insect, probably a firefly, you can see another one further down the same picture.
the length of the thing is determined by the difference in speed between the scanning of the camera and the speed of the insect's flight.
IT'S A CAMERA ARTIFACT.
nothing more

Just looks like a rod to me.

Though I have never seen one that stopped moving before & by the looks of these frames, it was stationary for some time.

We actually catch lots of rods in our photo's around the Hill End / Willow Grove area in South/East Gippsland, where my family lives. They seem to like the High Country.

They never really bothered me much, I always just looked at them as some sort of Un-classified bug.

But this thing looks exactly like the ones we have filmed before.

Like I said though, strange that it was stationary.

Oh and to the poster above, Rods got nothing to do with Camera glitches...!!

I have seen these things snapped from great distances and all sizes, sometimes upto 5 meters long & 2 feet in width. No bug is gunna make a blurr that big.

Also, they can be seen by the naked eye on occasion too, if you happen to be looking in the right spot at the right time.

[edit on 4/15/2008 by Ironclad]

Shot in the dark.. no pun intended...

Could it be possible something on the ground triggered the camera to take the picture and then "reflected" back the flash onto the lens? The reflection being distorted could give off a triangular shape on the lens?

Just a thought.. someone else more intune with photography may be able to shine more light. Again no pun intended.

Just wanted to add that the contours or shape could be that of a snake... Can snakes give off a reflection when theres a high flash?

[edit on 16-4-2008 by Willbert]

Flash should be fired toward your subject at such and angle that the flash does not reflect back to your lens. All you want is the illumination of the subject to enter the lens, you don't want the flash's light to return in the lens. This way you get true colors.

source;
www.stevesforums.com...


So is it possible with the right angle of the subject, here I'm guessing snake, could reflect back the flash?

The reason I'm going snake is the way the object seems to have a sort of "U" shape to it.. like when a snake slithers along the ground.

Many cameras have built-in flash guns, while others have a fitting for a flash known as a hot shoe (see figure 17). On many 35mm single lens reflex cameras (SLRs), the shoe is usually above the lens, with the result that the light emitted by the flash reflects straight back into the lens, resulting in patches of glare (hotspots) appearing on photographs of objects with shiny surfaces (e.g., varnished paintings, glass surfaces and objects, or porcelain).

source;
icom.museum...

Like a shiny snake in the grass... we all see an object in the grass which ties in with the object we "think" is in the air...

I'm leaning on lens flare from the snake in the grass.. thanks for the interesting photos.

Edited to add a link to the types of snake/s one can find where these pictures originated from.

mdc.mo.gov...





[edit on 16-4-2008 by Willbert]

Hmmm.. snake in the grass.. and I withdraw the glare back into the lens.. looks more like a web reflection. See ya all on the flip side..

All right, here's my nickles worth of thinking 5 minutes on the matter.

These game trail cameras use optics. The quality and price of a camera is usualy determined partly by the optics. Optics are lenses and depending on who manufactures the lense, have defects and a thing called reflection on the back of the lense.

If there is a cover lense, this will reflect on the optic lense to cause the lower reflected movement caught on the recording media.

As to what the subject could be, I am going to guess it is a firefly or lightning bug setting off the camera. I say this because there is reflection on the camera optics and that can only be by a subject either reflecting the flash or generating its own light source. Since it is blurred and has several bright spots, I say lightning bug. Since the flash can frame a subjet 30 - 60 feet out, I say the bug is twenty feet away with the trees being at the 60 foot range just out of the flash depth.

reply to post by sherpa


I tried to find a really good video about these rods. Sadly, after walking my dog one afternoon all my video bookmarks "mysteriously" dissappeared from my browser!

So here is my current contribution to this interesting thread: