Trying to figure out what it is I recorded? [Spotlights on Clouds]

C

cliffvan84@g

New Member
Filmed at the Boarder of Mass and New Hampshire right on the coast, facing inland on July 3, 2025, at about 10:10 PM.

What it shows: A fast-moving object enters the frame from the bottom left very early in the video (just before the 1-second mark). Right after, the video goes darker — that's me manually adjusting the exposure in an attempt to make faint lights/orbs more visible.



Context: These are two clips taken back-to-back from the same spot. They've only been trimmed for length; no edits or filters were added beyond the exposure change.
 

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cliffvan84@g said:
4 sec in, bottom right of the screen?
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That looks like something else. Maybe a laser, or a reflection in your window. [EDIT: as it correlated with the sound, it's almost certainly a reflection of a passing car headlight]

2025-09-12_05-57-16.jpg


The dim lights are spotlights, we've seen them dozens of times. You often can't see the beam.

You might be able to figure out where they are coming from. Is there a concert or festival venue in this direction?
2025-09-11_09-26-19.jpg


It's also possible that it was a venue setting up and testing for 4th of July
 
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Appreciate the lens-flare idea. but some more context from my side
  • Yes I'm facing south-west toward Newburyport, filming over rooftops. And I'm pretty sure whatever is in the sky is over the marsh
  • So only places in my area pretty much that ever gets spotlights are Tens show club which I went into and asked if they had had any spotlight going on that night. they confirmed no spotlights that night (and said it's been years since they've used any).
  • Hampton (2 miles north) did have beams last weekend for the seafood festival, but the look was completly different. With spotlights you usually see a visible beam/column—there's no beam in this clip.
  • If you crank up the audio, there's a brief engine-like rev about that starts up 4sec. The visual I'm flagging is just really the fast mover in the lower-right. But if you really watch it, you can actually see it come through the cloud on the bottom left-hand side of the screen before flying out of the sight
Given no bright on-frame source, no visible beam, and the trajectory/shape, a lens flare doesn't fit well plus unrelated ambient engine sound. Open to a replication that shows a headlight off-frame producing the same effect without a visible beam.
 
cliffvan84@g said:
  • So only places in my area pretty much that ever gets spotlights are Tens show club which I went into and asked if they had had any spotlight going on that night. they confirmed no spotlights that night (and said it's been years since they've used any).
  • Hampton (2 miles north) did have beams last weekend for the seafood festival, but the look was completly different. With spotlights you usually see a visible beam/column—there's no beam in this clip.
Click to expand...

I have personally witnessed spotlights hitting clouds numerous times and they are exactly what your videos show. And it is absolutely not true that you "usually see a visible beam/column" because that entirely depends on weather and atmospheric conditions and your viewing location/angle. Examples have already been provided by Mick but I'm sure you can also do a simple search on Youtube to see countless others.
 
Turn your volume way up on your computer when you watch it and then tell me how that is a lens flare. Pretty sure lens flares don't have sound?
 
cliffvan84@g said:
Turn your volume way up on your computer when you watch it and then tell me how that is a lens flare. Pretty sure lens flares don't have sound?
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There's *no such thing* as a stand-alone lens flare. Lens flares are always the reflected glare of some other thing that emits light (e.g. "lens flare from a passing car's headlights"). These other things that emit light may also emit sound (e.g. "a passing car"). The sound *strengthens* the argument that it's "lens flare from a passing car's headlight", not weakening it as you seem to hold true.
 
I'm facing southwest toward Newburyport over rooftops. I went into Ten's Show Club and they confirmed they didn't have spotlights that night (and haven't used them in years). Hampton's beams were last weekend, two miles north—wrong direction and a different look. It was cloudy and raining, so if a sky tracker were hitting the cloud base you'd normally see a visible beam, but there isn't one here. If you crank the audio there's a brief engine-like rev around 4 seconds that's ambient; the thing I'm flagging is the early fast mover in the lower left. Given the geometry, lack of any beam, and motion, I don't think "lens flare" fits; best read is a near-field object (bug/debris) plus unrelated ambient engine sound.
 
cliffvan84@g said:
I'm facing southwest toward Newburyport over rooftops. I went into Ten's Show Club and they confirmed they didn't have spotlights that night (and haven't used them in years). Hampton's beams were last weekend, two miles north—wrong direction and a different look. It was cloudy and raining, so if a sky tracker were hitting the cloud base you'd normally see a visible beam, but there isn't one here.
Click to expand...
Why do you hang on to the spotlights? Why would that be something else but spotlights, as it has been shown it really really looks like them? Also, rain can sometimes be very local. Are you 100% sure it was raining and cloudy everywhere?

cliffvan84@g said:
If you crank the audio there's a brief engine-like rev around 4 seconds that's ambient; the thing I'm flagging is the early fast mover in the lower left. Given the geometry, lack of any beam, and motion, I don't think "lens flare" fits; best read is a near-field object (bug/debris) plus unrelated ambient engine sound.
Click to expand...
What is an early fast mover?
 
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cliffvan84@g said:
It was cloudy and raining, so if a sky tracker were hitting the cloud base you'd normally see a visible beam, but there isn't one here.
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Hi, Cliff. Nice to meet you. I think maybe you're feeling a bit defensive about your sighting, and perhaps taken aback by the certainty others are expressing in the identification, but we've seen these things before, and they've been previously discussed in depth. Trust me, everyone here has been challenged by others in the past, so don't get discouraged!
 
Ann K said:
Hi, Cliff. Nice to meet you. I think maybe you're feeling a bit defensive about your sighting, and perhaps taken aback by the certainty others are expressing in the identification, but we've seen these things before, and they've been previously discussed in depth. Trust me, everyone here has been challenged by others in the past, so don't get discouraged!
Click to expand...
I used to see something very similar when living in Norway, up until a few years ago. A supermarket (a Rema 1000 store) used to have a single, small, but powerful lamp, set up near the entrance to the store, that moved around in an automated pattern. On some nights it would show up as a distinct beam, but on others, a fuzzy spot on the cloud layer, hanging over that part of the city, just like in the OP video.

It would be placed outside once or twice a year (the darker part of it), the most memorable being in the runup to Christmas.
 
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