TheBanyanTree: Midnight Mystery

[Mike Pingleton]

Tom, I see a sphinx moth.  Once your camera activates, its frame-capture
rate is just a trifle faster than the moth's flight speed.  When the moth
flies in a straight line, the image captures appear to be joined together
into a really odd looking creature.  You'll notice that when the moth's
direction is erratic, the effect is not there.

Creepy cool!

-Mike



On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Tom Smith <trsmith44 at cox.net> wrote:

> I didn't see it until 5 days after its visit.  That's when I
> got around to scanning the 15 second videos captured by a
> Bushnell Trophy Camera and noted the date time stamp.  The
> Trophy Camera is a wildlife photographer's dream.  Always alert
> and ready, this battery-powered camera stays up day and night,
> foul weather and fair, and shoots color or infrared images of
> anything detectable that moves.  40 minutes after midnight on
> November 19, 2013, something moved within its field of vision.
> Fast.  So fast that it appears semi-transparent. It wasn't the
> usual dog, cat, skunk, cottontail, bird, moth or lizard.  No clue
> what to call it.  I can only attempt to describe it as a nimble
> flexible foot-long stick with 6 pairs of wings, warmer and
> faster than its surroundings.
>
> I don't believe in UFOs, as in alien machines.  My instincts
> tell me this is a natural native life form, out hunting, and
> common, but rarely seen.  I can't believe I'm the only one who
> has ever seen one of these.  Thanks to Flickr and the Internet,
> I shouldn't be the only one to see this one.  What is it?
>
> Video with adjacent frame captures at:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/9482738@N07/11040734994/
>