2003-07-22 - Gilbert, SC - Light

I have pictures. I had just bought a new digital camera and was trying it out on my tripod. I live on a lake and we had just experienced a severe thunderstorm which had abated and the cloud formations were beautiful. I was simply filming the clouds with the sun glowing vaguely behind the darkened clouds. The camera was on auto and all I was doing was pressing the shutter button every three seconds. I was not viewing the scene through the camera. I was simply watching the clouds roll with my eyes and pressing the shutter on the camera which was on the tripod at my side.

I saw nothing odd or unusual.

After shooting eight or ten pictures, I took the camera upstairs to the computer and downloaded the pictures for editing or deleting. To my amazement, there were several photos depicting a bright light beginning at the top of one of the photos and falling through a pine tree quite rapidly through several of the photos. It was not in the shape of a saucer or any other shape, but it was quite clearly a light which was moving through a three second sequence of photographs. Then it split into two lights.

I was not frightened by that sequence until I viewed the next photograph. It depicted a smokey trail that wove around not only the tree but also snaked around a light pole and through the atmosphere. I had seen that phenomenon before on television shows on cable channels which reviewed videos and photographs taken by others who had witnessed the same sorts of events.

I reviewed the sequence of photographs for over two hours and concluded I was not a nutcase.

I am an attorney and quite sane. It continues to astound me that I captured this occurence in less than one minute, but I have the evidence. I have a sequence of eight photographs! I cannot say that I truly wish to have this in my possession.

((NUFORC Note: We will request copies of the photos, and may post them to the NUFORC site, with the photographer's permission. PD))