NUFORC Sighting 142806

Occurred: 2018-08-19 15:00 Local
Reported: 2018-08-20 08:16 Pacific
Duration: 1/4 second
No of observers: 2

Location: Taos, NM, USA

Shape: Disk

On the afternoon of August 19th at 3:00 PM, my partner and I were traveling south on Hwy 25 out of Taos. I stopped to take a picture of a tree that overlooked to the west a vast plain and the Rio Grand Gorge. I shot a bracketed 3 frame picture that represented an underexposed, properly exposed and overexposed set in less than ½ of a second.

The resulting picture shows a saucer shaped object moving upward in the left half of the photograph over the 3 frames of the ¼ second sequence. The first frame shows the object near the base of the primary limb, the second shows how far the saucer moved in less than a ¼ second, the object was not in evidence in the the 3rd frame. In my estimation it moved from its initial position to beyond the 3 frames in less than a ¼ second.

I took the picture with a 30 MP camera in a raw format, which was sensitive enough to catch what appears to be a fast moving saucer shaped object. I would like to work with someone to evaluate the angle of the craft and backstep the trajectory to its take off spot somewhere along the Taos Gorge, which may be a nest location for others.

NUFORC Note:

We spoke via telephone with the photographer, and he sounded to us to be quite sincere and sober-minded. We believe…but cannot be certain…that the tiny, disc-shaped object may be either a humming bird, or more likely, a cicada in flight. There is a faint hint of wings above and below the object. PD

Posted 2018-08-22