NUFORC Sighting 119488

Occurred: 2015-03-15 23:30 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2015-06-11 18:15 Pacific
Duration: 30 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Marquette, MI, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Left a trail

Photographed mysterious light over Lake Superior.

I am a night photographer, and on this particular night was taking long exposure photographs at the beach on the shore of Lake Superior with a friend.

We noticed a very bright light hanging motionless and low in the sky over the woods way down the beach, about a mile or two away. I figured it to be a planet, and continued with my shot.

When I looked at my exposures on the computer later that night, I noticed that the object had registered a circular, ostensibly autonomous light trail (instead of a clearly defined line that a planet would make as the earth rotates). That is, it moved (or the camera moved) during what amounted to a 4 minute exposure.

I am fairly confident that the camera did NOT move, as it was firmly planted into the sand and the shutter controlled with a remote release. Also, there were lights from a few small cabins on the other end of the shore directly below the unidentified object which registered clean and with no evidence of camera shake or movement.

When I examined other images of the same scene, the light appears registering different motion but is extremely bright, bright enough to emit a "starburst" effect around the object during the long exposure.

Posted 2015-06-15