Is it a bird? Is it a Plane?........

Originally posted by Kastogere
those are not headlights from behind me glaring in my face

That's what I'm going with. The bright lights in the middle is a vehicle directly behind you, and the lights on either side of the bright lights are all the vehicles in the other lanes behind you reflecting in the windshield.

Again, everything in the photo is clear. The camera is focused on infinity meaning everything up close is focused and everything afar is focused like the gas station on the left way ahead of you. Everything is focused except the "lights in the sky" which means those lights are not part of the image in front of you.

Those lights are out of focus and look exactly like a reflection in the window. You've got lots of vehicles behind you with lots of bright headlights. They will cause reflections on your windows.

Sorry, but I don't believe you that you saw these lights in the sky. That's my opinion.

reply to post by Kastogere


All I see in the picture is lights, I'm more interested in what you could see. Were the wing like edges just like a light or could you see something more like a metal object, like a disc?
Can you remember any more details about it?

Well, since it is banking to the right it could be an aircraft lining up to land at Ted Stevens.

If it is a close and as bright as you say, at least another thousand people would have seen it. That's taking into account all of the cars on Old and New Seward and people in the parking lots.

Now that I think about it, the mall there is filled with the kind of people aliens like to abduct. Also, if they wanted to walk among us, they would fit in perfectly there. Not a single person would notice.

Who knows, maybe just stocking up at Sam's club for a long trip home.

reply to post by Kastogere


So you mean all those lights as if it were a flying wing.
Well I'll say it was a flying wing in very low flight.

reply to post by Kastogere


I think you know what it was, after all you did see it in person. I think you are testing to see who can figure it out with the evidence provided. You said it went over your car, is it because you traveled under it or because it flew over you?

That doesn't look like any reflection to me at all, it looks like something is actually out there swooping by...

And it also looks very dangerously close to the traffic... No aircraft pilot would even think of attempting a stunt like that in the real world.. would be a very rare occurance..

It looks like a real unknown to me.. Wish I would have been there to see that.;.

Actually it seems pretty obvious to me that this is not a reflection of headlights on the windscreen. It's pretty easy to tell too. Look carefully at the street sign below and to the right of the object. You can clearly see a blue reflection on the sign that matches the color of the object. In order for that to be the case, the light would have to be outside the car I would think. Again, look carefully at that road sign.

Originally posted by csuldm
I realize the title of this thread is a Superman reference (It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman!).

The thing I never understood about that quote though, is why were the people who yelled the first 2 things so excited?

Anyways...

I'd bet money that those are just reflections on the inside of the windshield coming from the headlights of the cars behind you.

They were probably excited to be on television!

No, it has not

Again, could it be possible to have access to the original photo with the full EXIF data?
Sorry to say, but if you do not provide it, your photo will always looks suspicious and what you says will only be speculation.

In other words, if we can check that the EXIF data wasn't altered, it could be a way for you to validate your sighting.

Thanks!

Edit to add:

In the meantime, a quick check of the JPEG compression signature with JPEGSnoop gives results that are consistent with the use of Photoshop:



One more reason to provide the original photo to clear up the bad impression...

Now that I think about it, I'm going to say it was probably headlights. You would have them shinning on you from 4 different directions.

Originally posted by jimbo999
Look carefully at the street sign below and to the right of the object. You can clearly see a blue reflection on the sign that matches the color of the object. In order for that to be the case, the light would have to be outside the car I would think. Again, look carefully at that road sign.

This road sign is by itself blue and what looks like "blue reflection" on it is not in fact. This sign is lightened by spot lights:





Anyway, since there's no news yet from the OP, I decided in the meantime to run the photo in my favorite software to see if I could get something interesting.

Since it appears to be a foggy/rainy day with low clouds cover, the light is very diffuse: light rays are strongly scattered by the small suspended water droplets in these weather conditions.

Therefore there's a minimum distance at which the higher possible gray value for the pixels in a selected light cannot be 255 (the maximal possible value i-e the brightest pixel that saturated the camera sensor)

A simple way to visualize this is to apply to the whole gray picture a luminosity curve and to do a step by step increase pixel value.

The brightest pixels for the closest objects in the picture (the two cars ahead and the closest streetlight to the extreme middle left) have a value comprised between 253 and 255 and the only other object that have these values as well is the alleged "ufo":



The streetlights in the background have lower values.

What does that mean?
That mean that this "ufo" can only be very close to the photographer, and at max in the same vertical plane as those of the cars ahead and the streetlight at the left.

Originally posted by Kastogere
The object is less than 1000 yards away,

I would say rather less than 10 yards away... and maybe less than 1 yard away...

Originally posted by elevenaugust

Originally posted by jimbo999
Look carefully at the street sign below and to the right of the object. You can clearly see a blue reflection on the sign that matches the color of the object. In order for that to be the case, the light would have to be outside the car I would think. Again, look carefully at that road sign.

This road sign is by itself blue and what looks like "blue reflection" on it is not in fact. This sign is lightened by spot lights:

Anyway, since there's no news yet from the OP, I decided in the meantime to run the photo in my favorite software to see if I could get something interesting.

Since it appears to be a foggy/rainy day with low clouds cover, the light is very diffuse: light rays are strongly scattered by the small suspended water droplets in these weather conditions.

Therefore there's a minimum distance at which the higher possible gray value for the pixels in a selected light cannot be 255 (the maximal possible value i-e the brightest pixel that saturated the camera sensor)

A simple way to visualize this is to apply to the whole gray picture a luminosity curve and to do a step by step increase pixel value.

The brightest pixels for the closest objects in the picture (the two cars ahead and the closest streetlight to the extreme middle left) have a value comprised between 253 and 255 and the only other object that have these values as well is the alleged "ufo":

The streetlights in the background have lower values.

What does that mean?
That mean that this "ufo" can only be very close to the photographer, and at max in the same vertical plane as those of the cars ahead and the streetlight at the left.

Originally posted by Kastogere
The object is less than 1000 yards away,

I would say rather less than 10 yards away... and maybe less than 1 yard away...

edit on 2-2-2013 by elevenaugust because: (no reason given)

Let me help you. Do a search for Great Clips Anchorage. Look at the map and click on "D"(corner of 88th and old seward). Then click on street view. After that click 3 times to the right and that is were this picture was taken from. Like I said earlier, at least a thousand people would have seen this if it was a UFO and flying during rush hour.

My guess is it's the reflection of street lights and cars from a pending wire or electric cable across the street.

I looked at the street view in Google of where the picture was allegedly taken (thanks to another users directions) and took the following screen shot.



From my opinion, the OP would've been near the same spot as the blue truck. Notice the Walmart sign on the right hand side of the street, and the traffic lights up ahead. Both of these can be seen in the original picture.

Also notice the street light that would've been directly over the top of the car from which the original picture was taken.

My opinion is that the light from this streetlamp was shining directly down upon the windshield of the car, and cast the light that we see in the original picture.

Some might say, "that's not it because all the other street lights show up as yellowish/orange in the original". However, look at how the other visible street light in the screenshot (directly to the left of the Walmart sign) is a different type than the one I'm pointing out. Most likely different light bulbs, and most likely different color of light as well.

Can someone with more expertise in photography / lighting validate this at all?

reply to post by csuldm


That would explain why he never gave a description of what he saw and why he didn't come back with the original picture. I'm not any kind of expert but I agree with your theory.

I have this strange idea that members here should know that they can't get away with posting a hoax picture, but still they do.

reply to post by LEL01


Agreed.

I suppose this thread is just about dead then.

No wing no UFO what a crock.
Something like that would be international news instead of a row of lights posted
with the question mark instead look a this row of lights resembling a wing UFO.