2008-07-17 - Shanghai, Pudong New District (PRC) - Triangle

"V" Shaped object with multi color lights over Shanghai PuDong sky.

July 17, 2008 between 2052 and 2106, I captured 47 images on my digital. These images were in what I believe is the east sky of Shanghai, Pudong New District, PRC. The time stamps on the images are 2152 to 2206 hours because my camera had been set to a different time than where I was taking the photos.

At about 2035 hours on Thursday July 17, 2008, I was in the study of my apartment where I frequently go to view the beauty of the buildings in Shanghai Pudong. Within a couple of minutes I noticed what appeared to be slow a reddish color light from my vantage point about 40 degrees up from my position. My first reaction was do to nothing, but after a couple of minutes of city gazing, the light was in approximately in the same location.

I went to my desk to get my binoculars (power of 15 X 60 X 63) and see if I could get a better view. To my surprise the view was very clear. I saw an array of lights that formed a “V” shape. The color of lights ranged between reds, blues, purples, greens, and at time some yellow. They were flashing randomly and they were randomly changing colors. In my estimate there were about six to ten lights on each side of the apex of the V. This “object” for lack of a better term seemed to hover, and every once in a while made almost floating moves, certainly not “darting”.

After a few minutes of watching in amazement, because I am not a particular believer of UFO’s, (but I had never seen anything like this) I considered getting out my camera. However I thought that it may not get a good shot and/or the object may disappear. When I finally decided to get my digital camera (Nikon D80) it took about a minute or so to change to my telephoto lens (80 X 300). I have not used the camera too often in the manual mode, but I knew that if I left in automatic mode, that the flash would be used and I did not want it because I was inside looking through a window. So, I switched the camera to manual mode with auto focus enabled. In the beginning I could not see the object, so I first focused on a building within my site then directed my lens back to the object in the air. I actually took three shots (two which captured nothing and one of the spire from the building I focused on, before I auto focused to the spire). On my fourth attempt I was able to capture the object. I believe that I set the camera to manual focus before my fourth shot, but it may have been auto focus, because at some point in time, I changed the focus mode (on my 28th shot).

Over the course of 13 minutes I clicked every so often. However, I was holding the camera in my hand, leaning on the window frame and doing whatever I could do to keep it steady. I am not sure that the F stop setting was, but I can obtain that because I have not changed it. At one point in time I actually changed the camera to a second manual setting which took a longer exposure. I finally decided to get my monopod and set the camera on it so I could have a bit more stability, however by the time I set my monopod up (within a minute or so), the object started moving towards the south and then further east. I continued to shoot until the object was no longer within my sight. As of 2157 hours, at the point when I am writing this sentence, the object has not reappeared.

As I state above, I am not a UFO believer, however I did see something, and I did capture some very interesting digital images. As soon as the object had disappeared I opened my Web browser and searched for a web site to report this event.

Images available on request.