Wyoming UFO

[NorCal Dave]

I guess I'm trying to understand what's going on. For March 10 in Green River it was a low of 22F:

https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/green-river/82935/march-weather/336575

And per Mr. Beckwith's comments, he filmed this at 3:30AM for 30 minutes with a camera on a tripod. Is seems strange that someone is cruzing around on a brisk 3:00AM morning, happens to see a UFO, sets up his camera and tripod and films for 30 additional minutes.

Now one could argue he is the local chapter leader of some sort for MUFON and as such he is prepared. He always has a camera and tripod in the car with him just in case and it paid off this time. Maybe he works the graveyard shift or is just an insomniac UFO guy out looking for UFOs. But if he's that prepared of a MUFON investigator, his description is a bit weak. He talks about his equipment, but as far as location, it's just "I recorded this east of Green River" and "the object appeared over Scotts Bottom Rd." Not much else to go on. @john.phil provided this location for the road:

However, Beckwith never says in what direction he is filming, just that it was recorded "east of Green River". If we actually trace out Scotts Bottom Rd. it goes for quite a ways and east of Green River it gets close to I80. IF Beckwith is filming over Scotts Bottom Rd (red line) and looking west (blue arrow), he may be looking towards the I80 tunnels (blue circle).

Or just flip the filming location on the other side of Scotts Bottom Rd, and he would be looking east at I80. I can't find anything about a big accident or nighttime road work in the area for March 10, but really it would just take one tow truck off in the distance along I80 helping a stranded motorist with his yellow lights flashing.

The other option is he knew where to film. Given the location is vague, it's the middle of the night and he has a camera and tripod ready to go, maybe he knew or suspected there would be something to see.

 

[Duke]

I guess I'm trying to understand what's going on. For March 10 in Green River it was a low of 22F:

View attachment 66762
https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/green-river/82935/march-weather/336575

And per Mr. Beckwith's comments, he filmed this at 3:30AM for 30 minutes with a camera on a tripod. Is seems strange that someone is cruzing around on a brisk 3:00AM morning, happens to see a UFO, sets up his camera and tripod and films for 30 additional minutes.

Now one could argue he is the local chapter leader of some sort for MUFON and as such he is prepared. He always has a camera and tripod in the car with him just in case and it paid off this time. Maybe he works the graveyard shift or is just an insomniac UFO guy out looking for UFOs. But if he's that prepared of a MUFON investigator, his description is a bit weak. He talks about his equipment, but as far as location, it's just "I recorded this east of Green River" and "the object appeared over Scotts Bottom Rd." Not much else to go on. @john.phil provided this location for the road:

View attachment 66763

However, Beckwith never says in what direction he is filming, just that it was recorded "east of Green River". If we actually trace out Scotts Bottom Rd. it goes for quite a ways and east of Green River it gets close to I80. IF Beckwith is filming over Scotts Bottom Rd (red line) and looking west (blue arrow), he may be looking towards the I80 tunnels (blue circle).

Or just flip the filming location on the other side of Scotts Bottom Rd, and he would be looking east at I80. I can't find anything about a big accident or nighttime road work in the area for March 10, but really it would just take one tow truck off in the distance along I80 helping a stranded motorist with his yellow lights flashing.

View attachment 66764

The other option is he knew where to film. Given the location is vague, it's the middle of the night and he has a camera and tripod ready to go, maybe he knew or suspected there would be something to see.

The original newspaper article I posted explains he was contacted by a friend who was seeing a UFO. By the time he got to his friend's location, it was gone and Beckwith went back home. The friend called him later saying it was back, so again he went to his friend's location. This time he claims he saw it, and was able take this video.

 

[Mendel]

The original newspaper article I posted explains he was contacted by a friend who was seeing a UFO. By the time he got to his friend's location, it was gone and Beckwith went back home. The friend called him later saying it was back, so again he went to his friend's location. This time he claims he saw it, and was able take this video.

Article:

As Wyoming state director for the Mutual UFO Network, Beckwith has taken and investigated hundreds of UFO reports over the years. After earning a degree in molecular biology, he went to law school and now is a practicing lawyer, including serving as the city attorney for Rock Springs.

When he got a call from a friend late Saturday to come check out an unusual light in the sky, Beckwith went right over. But by the time he got there it had disappeared, so he went home.
When he was called and told it was back, Beckwith rushed out again, this time with his camera equipment. And after setting up his camera with a 400 mm zoom lens on it, the phenomenon appeared again and he pressed record.

In the sky above Scotts Bottom Road east of Green River in southwest Wyoming, the light seemed to oscillate back and forth for about 40 minutes, and at one point a smaller white light seemed to come out of it, hover for a few moments, then disappear.

In the video, the movement of the object seems to be consistent with camera movement associated with having a high-powered telephoto lens equipped. But Beckwith said the camera was on a tripod and stationary.

"The camera wasn't moving. (The object) was oscillating back and forth in a very steady rhythm," he said. "It was in the air, and even with my telephoto lens, the best I could get was a bright orange light.

"There's a clip where this little white orb (that's) clearly associated with the object comes out, and those objects are moving. The movement is very steady. That movement is definitely not camera shake."

After the light disappeared, Beckwith said he and his friend drove down the road to investigate and make sure there was nothing there that could explain what they'd just witnessed. There they met another vehicle coming the other way with three teenagers who reported seeing the same thing.

"They said, 'We saw it too. We were up on the hill and it appeared above us,'" he said.

Source: https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/03/11/is-this-a-ufo-wyoming-attorney-posts-video-of-mysterious-light-in-the-sky/

Jim Shelton states mater-of-factly that what Beckwith saw high in the sky was "my campfire."

Note that he says, "the movement is definitely not camera shake", and not "I saw it moving myself".

 

[deirdre]

Jim Shelton states mater-of-factly that what Beckwith saw high in the sky was "my campfire."

that was a FB comment. on a video where noone knew where the camera was pointing.

Article:

But that hasn't stopped people responding to his video on Facebook from chiming in with their theories.

"Those are lights on a military aircraft and I'm guessing the white light you saw emitting were some type of sortie for training exercises," speculated Jenny Nicodemus.

Another thought that "it's probably a high-school kegger and bonfire."

Jim Shelton states mater-of-factly that what Beckwith saw high in the sky was "my campfire."

And several said it resembled the orange oscillating light in the front grill of the famous KITT car from the 1980s TV show "Knight Rider."

Source: https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/03/11/is-this-a-ufo-wyoming-attorney-posts-video-of-mysterious-light-in-the-sky/

 

[NorCal Dave]

He still gives no real indication where they are or where they thought the UFO was. He says in the sky, but afterwards drives over to the area to check it out. Where?

After the light disappeared, Beckwith said he and his friend drove down the road to investigate and make sure there was nothing there that could explain what they'd just witnessed. There they met another vehicle coming the other way with three teenagers who reported seeing the same thing.

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/0...y-posts-video-of-mysterious-light-in-the-sky/

 

[Duke]

Note that he says, "the movement is definitely not camera shake", and not "I saw it moving myself".

Still don't know, which is why I asked the question of @Z.W. Wolf (as he stated in post #22 above) where he found a source that clearly stated Beckwith didn't see it oscillate with the naked eye.

 

[Duke]

He still gives no real indication where they are or where they thought the UFO was. He says in the sky, but afterwards drives over to the area to check it out. Where?

After the light disappeared, Beckwith said he and his friend drove down the road to investigate and make sure there was nothing there that could explain what they'd just witnessed. There they met another vehicle coming the other way with three teenagers who reported seeing the same thing.

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/0...y-posts-video-of-mysterious-light-in-the-sky/

If they were set up in Beckwith's friend's front yard, I suppose I can understand not wanting to give specifics about the guy's address. I wouldn't blame the guy for not wanting to have people show up at his home, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever they saw/videoed. Could give a general location, however.

I don't do FB, so I don't know if Beckwith has posted any updates about either locations or any research he's conducted since. It would be interesting for him to contact "Jim Shelton" (see post #44 above) to determine where his campfire was on the morning on 10 March. If it's in the same direction Beckwith was videoing, shouldn't be too difficult to build another campfire and video it from the original camera location to compare it to the 10 March video.

 

[deirdre]

I don't do FB,

i dont see ANY of those comments from the article on his FB. maybe they deleted them after an article came out or maybe Beckwith deleted them. as now all i see are people proclaiming how awesome the vid is... only 1 comment mentioning a possible campfire (from a gal with a bunch of alien links on her FB page) and asking for coordinates. 4 days ago. no answer from Beckwith.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Doesn't look like a UFO to me. Phantom fires and ghost lights are natural phenomena; I ran into many instances of these when I went through the old newspaper databases. I also found sightings of apparent aerial plasmas --balls of red fire flying about, etc. I tossed all of them out as natural phenomena.

 

[JMartJr]

Doesn't look like a UFO to me.

In what way?

 

[Ann K]

In what way?

'S OK, JMart, it's just a U.

 

[Todd Feinman]

In what way?

It just looks like other likely natural phenomena described in the past. I don't see a form or structure, just the appearance of a fiery light. Not moving in any intelligent way. If you go to TROVE newspapers or newpapers.com or the California Digital Newspaper Collection of Library of Congress newspapers and type in "phantom fire" or variations, items will come up, including phantom fires on the water. There are all kinds of fascinating natural phenomena described in the old articles; even if you don't think any of it is "aliens!" y'all could have a lot if fun trying to solve the mysteries described by people in the past. I ran into a lot of balls of red fire flying about --especially in Australia.
Here is a collection of old articles I gathered from about 2012 - 2018:
https://alienexpanse.com/index.php?threads/old-encounters.4959/
They are interesting, regardless of what you think they might be. Here's a fun one:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/119404983?searchTerm=ball of fire

 

[Eburacum]

We know for certain that fires sometimes occur on the surface of the Earth. Fires or other glowing phenomena that appear in mid-air are less likely, but we can't rule them out in this case - unless we can determine whether or not the light that Beckwith filmed for 30+ minutes was actually on the ground, or in the air.

Since the light seems to have remained in one position for 30+ minutes, that suggests very strongly that the light was actually on the ground, or at the very least attached to the ground by a rigid structure that did not move for 30+ minutes. I think that strongly suggests that this is not an aerial phenomenon, such as a drone, earthlight, or an alien spacecraft.

The curious 'back-and-forth' oscillation seems to be a badly-adjusted image stabilization feature on the camera, as demonstrated by @Z.W. Wolf . The other factor that seems to be relevant is that we only have the first 39 seconds of a 30+ minute clip; I assume that nothing interesting happens in the rest of the 30+ minutes, otherwise we would no doubt have to sit through it all.

 

[JMartJr]

Thanks, I'll check out the articles/links you provided.

I guess we are using different definitions for UFO -- I tend to be literal, and it looks like an Unidentified Flying Object if it looks like it is flying, looks like an object, and is unidentified. Intelligent movement is not a requirement. Being reported as a UFO is a plus! ^_^

This one, to me, looks a lot like an amber light bar for a piece of construction equipment or a tow truck, that kind of thing. (Folks up-thread have made a decent case that it is actually a fire, whether "a fire" qualifies as an "object" would be an interesting discussion) so it does look like an object. It looks like it may be flying, or at least in the air, but it could as easily be on a nearby mountain. And though there are several things that have been proposed as explanations, it has been reported as a UFO and has not yet been firmly identified, though some progress has been made in that direction.

So with all that, it looks like a UFO to me, with a bit of weirdness being added by an odd camera glitch. Hopefully MetaBunk and other interested parties can move it into the "identified" category.

 

[JMartJr]

... we only have the first 39 seconds of a 30+ minute clip; I assume that nothing interesting happens in the rest of the 30+ minutes, otherwise we would no doubt have to sit through it all.

That would be one interpretation. Another might be that there are features in the unshared 29 1/2+ minutes that give away what it was, which may not be the desired outcome for somebody enjoying their 15 minutes of fame in the UFO believers community.

NOTE: I am not making an accusation, I have no evidence that this is in fact the case. But it is a possible alternate explanation for only sharing the 3o seconds that we have, in addition to "nothng happens in the rest of it" idea. The witness could of course take the idea that something is being hidden off the table by releasing the rest of the vid and information about where it was taken that would allow for a meaningful investigation, at the risk that a mundane answer may be found. Clarifying whether what we have is speeded up would also be helpful, if this has not already happened.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Well, you folks are doing very good work here. You are UFOlogists; and good ones. We need more folks to dissect the garbage and hoaxes and mistaken identifications, which are everywhere these days. I get sick of folks jumping to "aliens" every time, too. There are a lot of folks who don't think critically about hoax videos and blurry footage. From watching you folks, I see that you work together and use your expertise to try and identify unidentified things; when an answer can't be found, the case will go into a holding pattern or set aside until more evidence is available, you never jump to "aliens!" and that is fine. We will see if there is anything to it, in the long run. But I'd suggest it is a good idea to keep all possibilities open, as difficult as that might be under the immense weight of all the nonsense. And to be kind to those folks who may not have your type of technical expertise; it doesn't mean those folks are innately stupid. It is important to show respect (in the subtitle of Mick's book) for all, your message will carry farther that way, too.

 

[John J.]

...looks a lot like an amber light bar for a piece of construction equipment or a tow truck...

Funnily enough, I nipped out for some shopping at a convenience store at 20:30 last night; maybe 100m/ yards down the road from the store was a large-ish slow-moving truck with a long amber lightbar on top, the individual lights going on and off in sequence giving the impression of a single light travelling left-to-right then right-to-left. Maybe a council gritter. Made me think of this thread.

Jim Shelton states mater-of-factly that what Beckwith saw high in the sky was "my campfire."

Must be worth considering. Even if the light wasn't Mr Shelton's fire, If Mr Shelton was closer to the area of the lightsource than Mr Beckwith at the time of the sighting, it has to be asked why he didn't see strange lights in the sky.

Had a quick look on Google Maps; there is a waste-handling/ landfill site approx. 11.5 km / 7.15 miles to the east of the Scotts Bottom Road location indicated on @NorCal Dave's map (Post #41, here),
the Sweetwater County Solid Waste Disposal District 1.
Maybe this is too far away to be a plausible location for the lights? I don't know.

As we might expect, bulldozers, diggers and tipper trucks work the site. I'd guess they'd use amber lights if they work at night (pictures from Google Maps):

Different online find of the same site:

I don't know if there are ever planned burn-offs or spontaneous fires at the site.

Possible, but maybe controversial evidence that this is the location of Mr Beckwith's lights- and they might be of ETI origin:
In the set of images Google Maps gives us for the Sweetwater waste disposal location, we find this photo (I kid you not):

(Source from Google Maps, here.)

Despite the desperate efforts of hard-working bulldozer drivers, battling through the night, it seems that by the break of day some aliens had survived, and were moving out. Pray for the people of Green River.

 

[john.phil]

which may not be the desired outcome for somebody enjoying their 15 minutes of fame in the UFO believers community

The footage was produced by the regional director of MUFON in Wyoming, and he said he never saw, and by implication, never recorded a UFO before:

ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) - Over the weekend, Rock Springs city attorney and long-time UFO investigator Richard Beckwith spotted something strange in the Wyoming sky, unlike anything else he has seen in his career. He captured the event on camera.

"I've never seen a UFO before I made this recording," he explains.

Late in the evening on March 9, Beckwith received a call from a friend who lives near Green River, about 15 miles Southwest of Rock Springs. He grabbed his camera and tripod, and what he witnessed once he got there came as a shock. He watched the object "pulsate'', moving rapidly side to side.

Beckwith isn't trying to prove the object was an alien spacecraft, he's simply trying to find an explanation. He has received a few potential leads on social media, but hasn't yet found any evidence to what it could be.

source: https://www.wyomingnewsnow.tv/2024/03/13/witnesses-report-potential-ufo-sighting-over-skies-rock-springs/

The remainder of the footage might hold information in it that would allow to clarify it, but I do not believe he has an interest in hiding it. It seems to me that the reason he released only 40 seconds is because that was his best take.

 

[john.phil]

Had a quick look on Google Maps; there is a waste-handling/ landfill site approx. 11.5 km / 7.15 miles to the east of the Scotts Bottom Road location

You are ignoring the terrain and, just to clarify, he was not at Scotts Bottom Rd when he recorded the footage. He said the UFO was above Scotts Bottom Rd, which could mean either on top of the road, or up hill behind the road.

Looking East towards the waste heap, as you suggested, from the middle of Scotts Bottom Rd (find post #41 to see the extension of the road):

 

[deirdre]

Even if the light wasn't Mr Shelton's fire, If Mr Shelton was closer to the area of the lightsource than Mr Beckwith at the time of the sighting, it has to be asked why he didn't see strange lights in the sky.

Mr Shelton might be a FBer who lives in Texas and was just being funny. I see those types of statements all the time on youtube and Reddit.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I have stabilised the footage a bit (from 00:05). Atmospheric effects are present, mixed with what it seems to be the camera's stabilisation glitch enhanced by the optical+digital zoom.

---

View attachment 66753


My interpretation of the scene: it looks like fire contained to a fixed width. Detached flames and smoke coming out are noticeable, thus possibly someone enjoying a bbq. At the 00:30 mark, it looks like someone sprayed water on the fire, as what seems to be mist moves down towards the fire and the fire seems to react to it by calming down. Then, a phone or torch (white light) briefly comes out and is quickly turned off.

Thank you for this. It's consistent with a small fire or perhaps one piece of heavy equipment.

Before going on, I'll answer a question:

Where did you find he said he didn't see the oscillation with the naked eye? His FB post (see #19 above) quotes him as saying, "The movement of the object is not the result of a camera shake. The object is actually oscillating, back and forth." Doesn't specify "naked eye," but I think it's inferred he saw it oscillate in real time

I was just following the logic. Beckwith is frustratingly vague on just about every point. He never said he saw it oscillate naked eye, nor did he say he did not see it oscillate naked eye. An unwary reader could take his firm statement, "The camera wasn't moving. (The object) was oscillating back and forth in a very steady rhythm," as meaning he saw it oscillate both naked eye and on the video. After all, you should be able to see that kind of movement naked eye, even with the smaller apparent size.

Why did I say this?

He didn't see the "oscillation" naked eye, after all. My best guess right now is that this was a light source on a hill. The wobble is a camera glitch. Someone claimed that it was a bonfire.

Just following the logic... which I'm forced to do since Beckwith is vague about just about everything.

The movement we see on the video is almost certainly due to a known glitch with this family of Sony cameras. Therefore Beckwith saw this movement on the video only. You'd suspect that he would be troubled by the fact that he didn't see that movement naked eye. So I was expressing a bit of surprise.

This is natural speed.

Following the logic again. That's what everything points to. Once again, we're being forced to untangle this vague report.


Why it might be a single piece of heavy equipment:
Don't get too fixated on an amber beacon. The amber nature of the light may because we're seeing light reflected off the yellow paint of the machine.

Directional and non-directional lighting. Non-directional light is reflected light.

In this scenario, the white light may be a directional light on the machine, as seen in the above video.

Why it might be a fire:
The amber light is consistent
It is described as flaring up and disappearing... more than once. In fact there's more than one sighting. This could be interpreted as the fire dying out and more wood being added on... then dying down again. Pretty consistent with a campfire. "Mist" has been been mentioned in the above post, but isn't it more likely to be smoke.

Just as with the heavy equipment scenario, there's a role for direct light and reflected light. The campfire is the direct light. There's also reflected light off the ground, bushes, etc. The shape we see in the video is consistent with seeing a campfire surrounded by the reflected light of the campfire.

I'm favoring the fire scenario, but with all the vagueness... it's just a notion.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Possible, but maybe controversial evidence that this is the location of Mr Beckwith's lights- and they might be of ETI origin:
In the set of images Google Maps gives us for the Sweetwater waste disposal location, we find this photo (I kid you not):

Mayor McCheese and The Grimace are aliens?!!

 

[john.phil]

. "Mist" has been been mentioned in the above post, but isn't it more likely to be smoke.

It originates above the amber light and moves downwards towards it, then the light seems to react by dimming down and reducing in volume, once the cloud makes contact. I said mist thinking of someone spraying water, but sand would fit better a campfire.

I have isolated the section of the footage that shows the effect, and increased brightness a bit to try to reveal the source of the cloud. The clip came from timestamp ~00:28 all the way to the end.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

In the article Beckwith states...

"It was in the air, and even with my telephoto lens, the best I could get was a bright orange light"

This "in the air" jazz is a classic bit of ambiguous language used by UFO eyewitnesses.

See: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ufos-hovering-over-air-force-one-at-lax-airport.13295/#post-307916

Some examples:

"It was over my head." In the same way that a light fixture on the ceiling 50 feet down the hallway is over your head. Or a distant cloud or distant aircraft just above the horizon is over your head. Or Venus just above the horizon is over your head. Meaning at a higher elevation. A compound error could occur when someone later pictures the UFO hovering a few feet directly above the witness.

"It was over my house." Meaning the way you could see a distant plane over the roof of your house. A compound error could occur when someone later pictures the UFO hovering directly over the house.


In the article...
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/0...y-posts-video-of-mysterious-light-in-the-sky/

we get a classic compound error.

The pulsating orange blob of light bobbing back and forth in the night sky above Sweetwater County...

In the sky above Scotts Bottom Road east of Green River in southwest Wyoming...

"It was over my house." Did Beckwith ever say it was hovering directly over Scotts Bottom Road? An unwary reader of this article could get the impression that the object was doing just that... hovering hundreds... or thousands... of feet directly over Scotts Bottom Road.

Hendry, A. (1980). The Ufo handbook: A guide to investigating, evaluating and reporting Ufo sightings. Sphere.


The reporters are clearly picturing a light well above the horizon. What are the readers picturing?

But it's likely that this light was on a hill, not in the sky. We had to drag this out from a tangle of ambiguity. Why?



Haven't we learned anything over the past 70 years?

Yes. Yes, we have. But we seem to be ignoring what we've learned. I get the impression that knowledge is being aggressively ignored.

In 1974 an investigator for MUFON or NICAP or whatever would carry a bundle of eyewitness report forms. The form would ask...

-apparent size
-degrees above the horizon
-apparent speed in terms of how much sky the object moved across
-a description of shape/sketch; always taking apparent size into consideration

And so on.

In 2024, the "Wyoming state director for the Mutual UFO Network" gives a vague report to a local paper. None of these things are taken into account. He ignores the problem of compounding errors. Why?

Beckwith has multiple online outlets for presenting a meticulous, fact based report. The kind of report a serious minded investigator would take from a UFO witness in 1974 or 1964 or 1954. But he doesn't present such a report on his own sighting Why?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

It originates above the amber light and moves downwards towards it, then the light seems to react by dimming down and reducing in volume, once the cloud makes contact. I said mist thinking of someone spraying water, but sand would fit better a campfire.

I have isolated the section of the footage that shows the effect, and increased brightness a bit to try to reveal the source of the cloud. The clip came from timestamp ~00:28 all the way to the end.

View attachment 66778

Please take into account that this is a multi-generation video. Let's not read too far into things that may just be artifacts.

 

[John J.]

You are ignoring the terrain

Er, yes, I hadn't considered the terrain. There is something of a valley from the northmost stretch of Scotts Bottom Road and the waste facility, but I can't establish a credible direct line of sight. Apologies.

The lights being over Scotts Bottom Road is problematic in terms of establishing a location (and therefore possible cause)

-Scotts Bottom Road= orange line. Annoyingly I didn't include a scale (tired!)
The blue line= railroad. Maybe Beckwith saw lights on a maintenance wagon/ used by a maintenance crew.

In 1974 an investigator for MUFON or NICAP or whatever would carry a bundle of eyewitness report forms. The form would ask...

-apparent size
-degrees above the horizon
-apparent speed in terms of how much sky the object moved across
-a description of shape/sketch; always taking apparent size into consideration

And so on. In 2024, the "Wyoming state director for the Mutual UFO Network" gives a vague report to a local paper? None of these things are taken into account.

I think this is a good point.
Even if swept up with the excitement at the time, we might expect the Wyoming MUFON director to retrospectively try and write down these details.
Like, roughly where he was- he wouldn't need to give a street address, but "east of Green River, looking at something that appeared to be over Scotts Bottom Road" doesn't help much.

Mayor McCheese and The Grimace are aliens?!!

TBH I guessed the left one was some sort of burger promotional thing, but I'm not familiar with either!
-Love a good burger, guess I don't get the opportunity to visit burger restaurants often enough.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

TBH I guessed the left one was some sort of burger promotional thing, but I'm not familiar with either!
-Love a good burger, guess I don't get the opportunity to visit burger restaurants often enough.

They sat in a kind of playground attached to a long ago McDonald's restaurant. Circa 1975. They're gone now because... too dangerous!

Left: Officer Big Mac
Right: The Grimace

I'm guessing someone rescued them and set them up. You could get a pretty penny for them on eBay.

Spoiler: Trivia Contest - How many can you name?

How many can you name?

Spoiler: The gang

Top - L to R: Mayor McCheese (H.R. Puffenstuff ripoff), Ronald, The Grimace (steals milkshakes), Officer Big Mac (the chief of police for McDonalds Land)

Bottom - L to R: Captain Crook (steals Filet O'Fish sandwiches), The Hamburgler (steals hamburgers), I Don't Remember, The Fry Kids aka Goblins (because they gobble fries)

I'm old, and I have a Rainman type memory

 

[john.phil]

this is a multi-generation video

Indeed it is multigenerational, processed at least 7 times:

~40min raw -> 39s version with digital zoom applied (counts as 2) -> social media -> downloaded version -> stabilised version (counts as 2)

Still, the cloud shows up in both his Facebook and YouTube versions in 4K from 00:30s (+4th gen).

 

[Duke]

Thank you for this. It's consistent with a small fire or perhaps one piece of heavy equipment.

Before going on, I'll answer a question:


I was just following the logic. Beckwith is frustratingly vague on just about every point. He never said he saw it oscillate naked eye, nor did he say he did not see it oscillate naked eye. An unwary reader could take his firm statement, "The camera wasn't moving. (The object) was oscillating back and forth in a very steady rhythm," as meaning he saw it oscillate both naked eye and on the video. After all, you should be able to see that kind of movement naked eye, even with the smaller apparent size.

Why did I say this?

Just following the logic... which I'm forced to do since Beckwith is vague about just about everything.

The movement we see on the video is almost certainly due to a known glitch with this family of Sony cameras. Therefore Beckwith saw this movement on the video only. You'd suspect that he would be troubled by the fact that he didn't see that movement naked eye. So I was expressing a bit of surprise.



Following the logic again. That's what everything points to. Once again, we're being forced to untangle this vague report.


Why it might be a single piece of heavy equipment:
Don't get too fixated on an amber beacon. The amber nature of the light may because we're seeing light reflected off the yellow paint of the machine.

In this scenario, the white light may be a directional light on the machine, as seen in the above video.

Why it might be a fire:
The amber light is consistent
It is described as flaring up and disappearing... more than once. In fact there's more than one sighting. This could be interpreted as the fire dying out and more wood being added on... then dying down again. Pretty consistent with a campfire. "Mist" has been been mentioned in the above post, but isn't it more likely to be smoke.

Just as with the heavy equipment scenario, there's a role for direct light and reflected light. The campfire is the direct light. There's also reflected light off the ground, bushes, etc. The shape we see in the video is consistent with seeing a campfire surrounded by the reflected light of the campfire.

I'm favoring the fire scenario, but with all the vagueness... it's just a notion.

Ok, it's your opinion Beckwith didn't see the oscillation in real time with the naked eye. So we still don't know, and unless he (or one of the other witnesses) is more forthcoming, we may never know.

Wouldn't surprise me if multiple witnesses answered that oscillation question differently, maybe as a function of where they were relative to whatever it was and when they saw it. Remember, at least two other people (besides Beckwith and friend) reported having seen it (see #19 above), one of them 190 km from Green River (location/direction not provided) and/or nearly 8 hours earlier. One of those witnesses also claimed to have videoed it as well. Of course they could be trolling Beckwith, as was speculated with campfire guy Shelton

Would be interesting to see Beckwith's actual report to MUFON. If the guy is worth anything as an investigator, many of the missing elements we've identified here should be included. Not interesting enough for me to join MUFON to get beyond their pay wall, however. Also just checked, nothing showing on the NUFORC's site for 9/10 March in Wyoming.

Has anyone else here addressed the claim (see #19 above) the object "simply faded out" relative to the various theories put forth (amber light bar, fire, etc.) so far? I've never seen a light bar fade out, they are either on or off. I've also put out many a campfire, but not sure what that looks like from some distance away.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Or it just dies down after the wood is all burned up. Out, out, brief campfire!

 

[Duke]

Or it just dies down after the wood is all burned up. Out, out, brief campfire!

Possibly, but wouldn't it have to be "campfires" (plural) since Beckwith's friend saw it before he got there the first time? One of the other witnesses claimed to have seen it almost 8 hrs earlier as well. There also would have been a "fade in" with a campfire. No mention from any witness how it appeared.

 

[Ann K]

I'm old, and I have a Rainman type memory

Two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onion on a sesame seed bun. (1960s - 1970 ad, sung.)

Unfortunately the patties are getting smaller and smaller...

 

[deirdre]

Possibly, but wouldn't it have to be "campfires" (plural) since Beckwith's friend saw it before he got there the first time? One of the other witnesses claimed to have seen it almost 8 hrs earlier as well. There also would have been a "fade in" with a campfire. No mention from any witness how it appeared.

just looked at google maps. theres one of those giant train stations there. when i lived near the train tracks, a light used to stay on a long time at night which i always found odd, as although there was a small "loading company?" nearby, i always wondered why the light stayed on so long. trains in connecticut arent that long. but i know when i went cross country once we got stuck waiting for a train to pass and it sure felt like half an hour..we couldnt believe it! it was a long, long, long, long ass train!

the light i saw was orangish (im having a hard time remembering if it "flashed" back and forth like the train crossing lights do and it was not red like crossing lights, as it was so long ago..but i'm thinking it might have as i'm not sure a steady light would have irritated me so much in the middle of the night. (not 100% what was causing the light as i was too far and too many trees)

anyway could the nearby train tracks have something to do with it.

 

[NorCal Dave]

-Scotts Bottom Road= orange line. Annoyingly I didn't include a scale (tired!)
The blue line= railroad. Maybe Beckwith saw lights on a maintenance wagon/ used by a maintenance crew

Yes, there is a railroad near some of Scott's Bottom Rd. as well as I80, so multiple sources for possible flashing yellow safety lights.

I thought 3:30am seemed a bit late (early) for a campfire, but the description of it appearing, then going away and then reappearing sometime later to be filmed before fading out could fit. Some guys went out and started a fire on a cold night. It doesn't look there's a lot of wood laying around this area, so after the fire died down instead of heading home someone made a beer and wood run back to town and stoked it back up for a bit.

Here is a topo map of the area. Scott's Bottom Rd. starts near the railroad and I80, then follows the river before climbing up into the hills, but not necessarily on top of them. Something like a fire in the hills could maybe appear to be "above" the road. There are off-road trails all over:

Again, the report is just too vague to really work with, so on to more important things.

WAY off topic, but:

-Love a good burger, guess I don't get the opportunity to visit burger restaurants often enough.

As far as the 2 characters and burgers, you're not missing much. They were from '70-'80s era ads for McDonalds, which is in much of the world now I think. As Z.W. Wolf pointed out above, I mistook officer Big Mack for Mayor McCheese.

 

[JMartJr]

anyway could the nearby train tracks have something to do with it.

Maybe. It would be logical for railroad repair/construction equipment to feature the same sort of lights and yellow vehicles as the construction stuff discussed above. And then there is THIS little fellow, which may never have caught on, but there would be other remote controlled or motorized successors of the old railroad hand-cart.

Image source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure...-WINTER-2019-FIELD-TESTING-The_fig3_352229957

That particular one was, if I understand it right, testing using lasers mounted on a RC rail cart to measure how smooth and polished the upper surface of the rails had become. But in any case, it sports a nice set of amber "don't run into me or let me run into you" lights.

Lost the link to these, but two more examples:

 

[deirdre]

Maybe. It would be logical for railroad repair/construction equipment to feature the same sort of lights and yellow vehicles as the construction stuff discussed above. And then there is THIS little fellow, which may never have caught on, but there would be other remote controlled or motorized successors of the old railroad hand-cart.
View attachment 66796
Image source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure...-WINTER-2019-FIELD-TESTING-The_fig3_352229957

That particular one was, if I understand it right, testing using lasers mounted on a RC rail cart to measure how smooth and polished the upper surface of the rails had become. But in any case, it sports a nice set of amber "don't run into me or let me run into you" lights.

Lost the link to these, but two more examples:

View attachment 66797View attachment 66798

hmm that makes sense. my neighbor down the road (who was closer to tracks as to road curve) said it was the train parked..but now i cant remember if i heard an idling train or not. its really true that train noise becomes like contrails, where you dont really notice or remember them unless you have a specific need to.

 

[deirdre]

relooking i might be assuming orange due to the glow. yellow is definitely a train signal color. (not saying the ufo is train related, just thinking out loud)

7:38
of the the important things that came
out of his study was something that a
phenomenon that he identified called red
shift and red shift is a phenomenon
where when light travels through the
atmosphere and there's any dust or dirt
or other particles or gases or anything
in the atmosphere basically uh the light
spectrum will shift towards the red end
of the spectrum

 

[John J.]

Left: Officer Big Mac
Right: The Grimace

WAY off topic, but:
As far as the 2 characters and burgers, you're not missing much. They were from '70-'80s era ads for McDonalds

Yeah, I only remember Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar.

 

[jdog]

We know for certain that fires sometimes occur on the surface of the Earth. Fires or other glowing phenomena that appear in mid-air are less likely, but we can't rule them out in this case - unless we can determine whether or not the light that Beckwith filmed for 30+ minutes was actually on the ground, or in the air.

Since the light seems to have remained in one position for 30+ minutes, that suggests very strongly that the light was actually on the ground, or at the very least attached to the ground by a rigid structure that did not move for 30+ minutes. I think that strongly suggests that this is not an aerial phenomenon, such as a drone, earthlight, or an alien spacecraft.

The curious 'back-and-forth' oscillation seems to be a badly-adjusted image stabilization feature on the camera, as demonstrated by @Z.W. Wolf . The other factor that seems to be relevant is that we only have the first 39 seconds of a 30+ minute clip; I assume that nothing interesting happens in the rest of the 30+ minutes, otherwise we would no doubt have to sit through it all.

FWIW, for SLR cameras with active lens stabilization (actual physical stabilization in the lens), you are warned to only use stabilization when shooting handheld; you get 2-3 extra stops of exposure. You're warned to turn off stabilization if you put the camera on a tripod, as the stabilization mechanism can induce shake. Not sure how it works with the camera used here and any stabilization algorithms it might be using.

 

[john.phil]

you are warned to only use stabilization when shooting handheld; you get 2-3 extra stops of exposure. You're warned to turn off stabilization if you put the camera on a tripod, as the stabilization mechanism can induce shake. Not sure how it works with the camera used here

In the specific case of the Sony Alpha 7R IV, there is noticeable image oscillation (see post #22).