Subject: weird picture
From: Christine
Date: Mon, October 2, 2006 9:35 am
To: Pictures

Hi - I got this picture from the archives of a cam of Augustine Island. I would love to hear your thoughts on what the lights could be. Additionally, there appears to be many small little lights throughout the picture. The link is as follows:

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/webcam/archives/AugustineIsland/2006_01.php

Check out January 13, 2006. Your thoughts would be appreciated. 

Thanks,

Christine

Unfortunately, you are not seeing any evidence of extraterrestrial activity in this photograph. The two larger lights that you see in the upper left of the picture are most likely lens flares, which we describe in depth here. Since the Augustine Island webcam is used to monitor volcanic activity, we were instantly reminded of the popular misidentification of UFOs at Mt. Popocatepetl, Mexico, as viewed through the Cenapred webcam. (See special section on Mt. Popo here). Before the UFO webcam 'hysteria' moved northward to Alaska, we felt that we should investigate and explain things thoroughly.

The Augustine Island webcam, similar to the Mt. Popo webcam, is mounted indoors, where the volcano is photographed through a glass window. Pictures from January 28 and January 29, 2006, reveal that the window is covered with spots of dirt (see first photo below). These spots of dirt remained in exactly the same place in numerous webcam shots taken at various times over the two days.

Based upon the apparent misty weather condition, we believe that the tiny dots of light in the January 13 photo that you submitted are most likely tiny droplets of water on the windowpane, and light from inside the room is reflecting off them, thus giving the appearance of tiny orbs. Some of these show up in the cropped enlargement we made of the photograph, above. Internal light reflecting off the glass window may also be responsible for the larger objects that we have identified as lens flares in the upper left of the photo.

In keeping with the spirit of the mistakes frequently made at Mt. Popo, we looked at the June 2006 archives to see if we could spot any insects that may be perceived as UFOs. Insects at Mt. Popo typically show up in spring and summer, a time when insects are prevalent in most parts of the world. It is during this time of the year that people mistakenly assume the anomalous black dots at Mt. Popo to be UFOs. As with the Cenapred webcam, the Augustine Island webcam has also occasionally photographed insects, which we have included in this study (see second and third photo below).

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