Our friend J.H. lives with her husband and children in north-central Georgia, USA. She is a professional livestock breeder, and a good amateur photographer. She has been invited to take part in a photography contest by The National Library of Photography.

Due to many strange objects appearing in photos JH took on 26 June, 04 July, and 18 July 2007, she embarked on a month long photographic study. She was determined to be scientific, take pictures every day for 30 consecutive days, keep notes, and have an open mind. She is more concerned with finding out the truth, rather than search for possible U.F.O.s.

JH has taken control pictures as well. She photographed a sheet of blank white paper to ascertain if her camera were producing digital artifacts. She took pictures from the inside of her car of insect splats on the windshield (windscreen JC). JH took photos of a spider in its web against the sky for comparison. She has made pictures of birds in flight, and captured airplanes and helicopters for her records. She found that in SOME of her photos, what first seemed to be an anomalous formation of objects was in fact clouds of gnats. In these ways, JH is showing us that her study is truly scientific.

JH took hundreds of pictures during her 30 day study, and some of them revealed anomalous objects. The 8th frame taken on Day 17 contained just such an object. Here is what our friend JH had to say in her own words. (It has been edited for privacy and clarity - JC)

Study Day 17 - 8 August 2007

Hey Jeff,

Got up bright and early this am - and I started taking photos before it got to 107 today - that is what it is supposed to be later on -I will be hiding out... in the house.

008jpg - Really werid. I dont know if it is a lens flare or what - I had it on flash - and i heard this ping noise - like something misfired or fired - I thought it came from my camera - I dont know - never had that happen before either - so I dont really know if THE SOUND CAME FROM THE ANOMALY OR THE CAMERA??? BECAUSE I TOOK 4 PICS IN THE COURSE OF 1 MIN AND A FEW SECONDS??? You know it happend really fast ???

JH

This is possibly the most baffling case in the entire 30 day project. The object in question is not a lens flare, because there is no source of light which would cause one. The multicolored appearance of this thing also belies the lens flare explanation. The Sun was fully set, so it's not a factor. I don't know how the camera itself would create such an image. And if it did, it seems logical that this sort of image would have occurred before or after. A high flying cloud would have persisted, and been visible before and after the photo was taken.

So in the end, I can't tell you what it is, only what it's not. We can be fairly sure it's not an insect, bird, airplane or helicopter. It's certainly not a balloon, either.

Let's take a look at the original photo, a few enhancements, to decide for ourselves shall we?

The photos JH shared with us were resized, zoomed, and incorporated into animated GIFs by Jeff Challender as appropriate for the web. All photos copyright © 2007 JH of Georgia.

This animated GIF is comprised of the frame in question, jpeg #8 from JH's Study Day 17, 8 August 2007. It is unenhanced, and although presented just as it was shot, it is reduced from 640x480 pixels to 360x240 for the web.

The YELLOW circle has been added to show where object is located.

As you can see, this object bore no resemblance to insects, birds, balloons, lens flares, or atmospheric phenomenon. Therefore, I must classify it as unknown.

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At the end of the day, it's up to YOU to draw your own conclusions.

© 2007 Jeff Challender