"UFOs" in sky over London [internal camera reflection]

Trailblazer

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Staff member
I was just looking through some photos I took in London before Christmas and I noticed this one had a whole fleet of UFOs hovering near the Shard! (The red light to the right, between the Shard and the nearby roof, is an actual light on top of a crane.)

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This is actually a nice example of internal camera reflections, caused by the bright floodlights in Borough Market in the foreground. You can draw a line from each "UFO" to the light source on the opposite side of the image, and the lines all cross at the same point, which corresponds to the axis of the camera lens. (I've missed out a couple of the lights to avoid making the image too cluttered.)

upload_2018-1-8_20-31-48.png


A similar effect created a famous old photo of a "fleet of UFOs" over Washington DC, which is often associated with a 1952 UFO story, although as far as I can tell it is not actually anything to do with that.

upload_2018-1-8_20-40-58.png

The full image reveals the truth:

upload_2018-1-8_20-35-42.png

upload_2018-1-9_21-23-39.png

More on the Washington photo at http://www.blueblurrylines.com/2014/12/photo-fakery-washington-dc-flying.html
 
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