Australian UFO?

[a_unique_person]

Why won't they ever pose for a decent shot.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/23/1074732605811.html

http://www.theage.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1074732608395_2004/01/23/24n_ufo,0.jpg


http://www.theage.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1074732639136_2004/01/24/ufo_2401.jpg

[wipeout]

And why the hell is the person taking the picture more interested in pointing the camera at the crossing than the UFO? :D

[joyrex]

Originally posted by wipeout
And why the hell is the person taking the picture more interested in pointing the camera at the crossing than the UFO? :D He did not notice the UFO while he was taking the digital photo, only when the image was printed.

[geni]

Is it a bird? Well it certianly looks like one.

[Tricky]

It looks very much like a kind of street light I have seen. At some intersections they would simply attach a light and shade (which looks like an inverted bowl) to a cable stretching across the street. I haven't seen one for years in the US, but you know how backwards things are in Oz. :p

(Here's a picture of one of the old style lights. I can't find one suspended on a cable, but you get the idea)http://www.nidsci.org/news/images/anseladams.jpg

[Tricky]

here's the same picture with the light pole removed (took me about 1 minute to do this). Looks real, don't it?

[Interesting Ian]

Could be anything but I very much doubt it's an alien spacecraft.

[CWL]

Originally posted by Tricky
here's the same picture with the light pole removed (took me about 1 minute to do this). Looks real, don't it?

What do you mean "looks real". Of course it's real.

Here's another snapshot, taken just seconds later:

[a_unique_person]

Good try, Tricky, but that is not the sort of place that has those lights. If there would have been any lighthing, it would have been on the power pole on the left of the picture, but usually railway crossings like that one have no lighting at all. You are lucky to get the flashing lights.

[wipeout]

Originally posted by joyrex
He did not notice the UFO while he was taking the digital photo, only when the image was printed.

I knew they'd say that. :D

It's funny how amateurs interested in the weather and stars look at the sky and photograph it all the time and never catch these UFOs. ;)

[Goshawk]

Well, it looks like a pigeon to me, with its wings blurred in flight. Pointy head and neck on the right, flying off the picture to the right, fatter tail on the left.

[Chaos]

"He did not notice the UFO while he was taking the digital photo, only when the image was printed."

So what the hell else is he taking a photo of?

[Pyrrho]

Full size image can be downloaded from link at this site:

http://www.whittlesea.vic.gov.au/content/content.asp?cnid=1545#

There's a link to a Zip file in the upper right, under "Related Downloads".

I've had a look at this image and I don't see any evidence of manipulation such as painting out poles or cables. The area immediately surrounding the object shows no signs of tampering. This does not rule out the possibility that someone could have manipulated the image.

The EXIF data is still intact. I don't know if this can be faked or otherwise added to an existing image.

Make = EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
Model = KODAK DC240 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA
Orientation = 1
XResolution = 192/1
YResolution = 192/1
ResolutionUnit = 2
YCbCrPositioning = 1
Copyright = KODAK DC240 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA
ExifOffset = 250
Compression = 6
Orientation = 1
XResolution = 72/1
YResolution = 72/1
ResolutionUnit = 2
JPEGInterchangeFormat = 1480
JPEGInterchangeFormatLength = 3953
ExposureTime = 1/250
FNumber = 95/10
ExifVersion = 48
DateTimeOriginal = 2004:01:15 14:52:46
DateTimeDigitized = 2004:01:15 14:52:46
ComponentsConfiguration = 1
ShutterSpeedValue = 80/ 10
ApertureValue = 65/10
ExposureBiasValue = 0/ 100
MaxApertureValue = 34/10
MeteringMode = 1
LightSource = 0
Flash = 0
FocalLength = 100/10
MakerNote = 1
FlashPixVersion = 48
ColorSpace = 1
ExifImageWidth = 1280
ExifImageLength = 960
InteroperabilityOffset = 1284
ExposureIndex = 140/1
SensingMethod = 2
FileSource = 3
SceneType = 1

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Pyrrho
Full size image can be downloaded from link at this site:

http://www.whittlesea.vic.gov.au/content/content.asp?cnid=1545#

There's a link to a Zip file in the upper right, under "Related Downloads".

I've had a look at this image and I don't see any evidence of manipulation such as painting out poles or cables. The area immediately surrounding the object shows no signs of tampering. This does not rule out the possibility that someone could have manipulated the image.

The EXIF data is still intact. I don't know if this can be faked or otherwise added to an existing image.
I had a look at the enlarged photo, and it still doesn't look like a UFO. I'm thinking that Goshawk is right about it being a pigeon (and who should know pigeons better than a goshawk? ;))

The "UFO" is slightly blurred, indicating that it is moving, but it is not moving very fast, or it would be much more blurry. So if it was a UFO, it was taking a leisurely jaunt across the sky. Odd that the photographer (and others) wouldn't notice it. In contrast, birds are so common that the photographer would be quite likely to ignore them.

[Blondin]

An employee of this major municipality during his routine work as a traffic engineer took a photograph of a level railway crossing at Beveridge north of Melbourne using a digital camera.

That explains why they were taking the photo in the first place. It could be a bird or it could be a dinky-die, fair-dinkum, Ozzie "blowie" just a little closer to the camera.

Of course it doesn't really matter how many different, mundane things it could be, we don't know what it is, therefore it must be an alien spacecraft.

[Blondin]

Looks like a lesser-spotted wedge-tailed sulfur-crested red-breasted yellow-bellied bare-bummed rufus nest-wetter to me.

Quite rare, y'know. :p

[Bottle or the Gun]

It is a UFO...an Unidentified Foreign Object (original military definition). That doesn't mean it's from space.

[joyrex]

Originally posted by Chaos
So what the hell else is he taking a photo of?He could've taken the photo of the crossing just for fun. I take random pictures of locations and objects myself, because it's so easy with a digital camera.

[Zep]

There are two galahs. The one behind the camera who took the photo who thought it was a UFO, and the one in the picture that is blurred. It's far more likely it was a galah than any other bird out there. And it looks like one too.