NUFORC Sighting 128125

Occurred: 2016-06-27 19:30 Local
Reported: 2016-06-28 23:34 Pacific
Duration: Second
No of observers: 1

Location: Bow, WA, USA

Shape: Cylinder

Photograph of an unidentified large cylindrical object in the air.

This photograph was taken last evening at my house near Bow during a test session with my Leica R lenses and a new Sony A7 Mark II camera.

I was shooting at the open blue sky at f/11 to see whether the imperfections on my images were caused primarily by dust motes on the camera sensor or in the lenses.

This particular shot was taken with a 35mm f/2.0 Leica R focused at infinity and stopped down to f/11.

I saved the images to my laptop, then pulled up each one and put it in Paint so I could examine it closely, and then draw circles around each "dust mote" to see if they remained in the same place (sensor) or only showed up on a particular lens.

I was examining each magnified photo,seeing that I had also photographed some distant birds flying quite high, and came across what looks to be some sort of large and long metallic cylinder, obviously shining in the sun. You can see that the side facing the sun (right and west) is reflecting the light while the other side (left and east) is in shadow conforming with the sun being lower on the horizon tot he right (west).

I did not actually see this object but only discovered that I had unintentionally taken a picture of it after the fact.

As I finished marking the slide, I noticed what looks to perhaps be a second cylindrical object, far less clearly defined but it looks the same (lower left).

The primary object would have been too high to make out with the naked eye.

The object does not appear in any of the other lens shots so it is likely that it was moving.

I cannot figure out what this might be. Checked for the ISS but it had gone by much earlier here and besides would not likely show up with a 35mm wide angle lens.

I am thinking that if this is an item inside the lens, it would also be out of focus and there would not be sunlight shining on it.

Cannot think of any obvious explanation for what this might be.

Incidentally, I have been an ornithologist for 50 years so am a very experienced observer of items in the sky.

Posted 2016-07-08