[Hawk]

The pictures below were taken from the deck of a boat I was on two weeks ago, tied up to a dock in Vienna on the Danube River. We are looking north at a nearby church steeple. When reviewing the pictures the next day I noticed two small dots of light to the left of the steeple in some of the frames. I had not noticed those dots when I shot the pictures. The dots do not appear in the several frames prior to the second and third frames shown below. The frames are consecutive the only difference being the first two were shot horizontally (landscape format) and the third was shot vertically (portrait format), the time between them being a matter of seconds. I used an EXIF data app to extract the info for each frame which shows the three frames were shot within a period of 37 seconds When I noticed the dots of light I enlarged them to see what they might be. I cannot explain them. At first I thought they might be the headlights of an airplane from a nearby airport. However the enlarged views do not reveal an airplane or landing lights. Moreover, according to local residents there is no airport near the area where we were docked. So what might they be? Light reflections? Lens aberrations? Artifact in the camera? Or..........????? First frame, taken at 21:18:11

Second frame, taken at 21:18:21

second frame detail 1

second frame detail 2

Third frame, taken at 21:18:48

Third frame, detail http://www.allcoast.com/photos/data/507/100004objec>
This post edited by Hawk 06/11/2008

 

[Pelagic Hunter]

Maybe a UFO? Vienna is known for strange unexplained lights in the sky.


A little excerpt I Googled below:


On Saturday, June 15, 2002, at midnight, eyewitness Michael N. and his friend Steve were sitting in a third-floor flat in the Hietzing section of Vienna, the capital of Austria, when they noticed a strange glow beyond the window.

"We saw maybe 20 of these gleaming objects from the window of our room on the third floor," Michael reported, "It was approximately midnight when we saw them. They went in groups from the ground into the sky. First they moved quite fast, then they stood still in the sky, and then they moved again. And we also heard several loud booms!"

Michael described the UFOs as "yellow-orange round glowing objects, very fast-moving" as they "went up into the sky." (Email Form Report)

(Editor's Comment: This is the second UFO report the Roundup has gotten from that section of Vienna. Is there some kind of UFO parking garage under the ground in Hietzing?)

 

[reel man]

Sound can bounce off the ionosphere, and light(s) can reflect if the right conditions exist in the atmosphere. It may have been a set of headlights from a vehicle climbing a grade then disappearing after it crested a hill.

 

[jiggermyster]

It's a reflection (refraction?) that occurred on the lenses of your camera. Maybe a smudge or raindrop on there? Notice how the spacing and stagger of the 'UFOs' are similar to the lights below and to the left of the steeple? When you rotated the camera, the reflections rotated too since the reflection is toward the 12:00 area on the lens. (Zeiss optics wouldn't do that... *g*)

This post edited by jiggermyster 06/12/2008

 

[Hawk]

I think you are right or at least on the right track. The rotation of the camera and the change of position of the light seem to coincide. I would like to be able in some way to measure the arc of the change in position of the lights and compare that with the arc described by the rotation of the camera. My initial suspicion was some kind of artifact in the camera....either a bit of dust or something on the sensor.

I am curious why the light is not in the first picture above yet it is in the second one shot ten seconds later with no change in the position of the camera. The vertical format shot was at a slightly faster shutter speed, 1/20th as opposed to 1/15th for the other two.

Equipment usedL Nikon D50 with Auto Nikkor 28-200mm f3.5 AF/G lens.
Exposures were:
First photo: f 3.5/ 1/15 sec; 28mm
Second photo: f 3.5/ 1/15 sec; 28mm
Third photo: f 3.5/ 1/20 sec; 28mma

 

[Casting call]

Back in the early 90's i was stationed in Germany. While on a field excersize (Graffenwoer for those who were also stationed in Germany), I was driving the LT in an M113 after a day at the range. We were driving on a tank trail tactically. Meaning, no headlights, just our blackout markers. Anyway, from the drivers hatch, I look over my right shoulder to check if the LT was awake in his commanders hatch. As I turned my head, I happened to look up at the sky behind me. I saw what appeared to be multi colored ligts in a triangle formation. At first I thought they were flares - after all, we were at a range.

20-30 minutes mustve gone by and I look back and up again. The lights were still there. Flares dont last that long, and I didnt know what to make of it, so I reasoned that it was a meteor shower.

I get back to garrison and asked my buddies if they saw the "meteor shower". None of them did. Theyve been indoors all night.

So that event remained a mystery to me. When something is a mystery to me, I USUALLY think about it for the next few weeks or at least days.
This time, I had COMPLETELY forgot about it...UNTIL -
One year later, I got out of the Army, and Im home watching that show UNSOLVED MYSTERIES. They were talking about strange lights observed over EUROPE the previous year.

They did a re-enactment based on interviews of two French Police Officers. As soon as i saw the re-enactment, EVERYTHING CAME BACK to me as if it had happened the day before.

Im usually not one to believe in little green men from mars, but what i saw with my own eyes, as well as countless others is facinating.
After all, with the millions of different solar systems, its hard say that earth is THE only planet that can sustain life as we know it.

 

[Done_Deal]

I agree

 

[HD]

It's the Mother ship deciding not to pick Eddie up....again.

 

[Hithard]

See now I know I've seen everything Allcoast has to offer, sea monsters, fantasy charter fishing operations, and now Michael posting UFOs.

Either way I've always been of the mind that there is other life around and like to belive they get a kick outta settin up in the background of some vacationers pictures.

In all seriousness I was going with the refraction until I realized it wasn't in the first picture. It would be odd for it to show up in the other angles but no sign in the first.

 

[Fiskadoro]

Ghosting of ground streetlights in the optics. I took the liberty of altering the image to black and white then boosted the contrast in the light occupied sky. This produced a third Ghost light in the image and as you can see it pretty much matches the triangulation of the lights below it to the left.

I'm no expert but I think your seeing the reflection of the street lights off an inner piece of glass in your lens to another lens piece further out in the lens that is in turn reflecting it back through the length of the inner lens. Since they are not inverted (or upside down) you could actually figure out which ones are involved but that is out of my league without looking it up. Some lenses are coated to prevent this but I gather some of your inner lenses in your camera are uncoated which is common, and that allows such things to happen. At any rate it's not a UFO. Jim

This post edited by Jim Day 06/26/2008