NUFORC Sighting 131446

Occurred: 2016-11-21 23:35 Local
Reported: 2016-11-24 15:52 Pacific
Duration: 4 seconds
No of observers: 0

Location: Key Colony Beach, FL, USA

Shape: Light


I awoke to an event alert from my Nest camera during a time that I was asleep on the night of 11/21/2016. When I reviewed the footage, I saw what appeared to be lights outside that lit up and cast shadows on my front door’s window in an unusual way.

The door that the lights appeared through is on the second floor facing the North, towards a street in Key Colony Beach, Florida, that has a speed limit of 25 MPH (West Ocean Drive) directly across from a restaurant named the Key Colony Inn, with four palm trees in close proximity (within 20 feet) of it.

Anyway, I showed the footage to a few of my colleagues at work. The most viable explanation that any of them provided was a search light from a helicopter. We have had a lot of Cubans making landfall, via water on crude rafts, in an attempt to establish citizenship in the USA recently, so, it made sense, and I dismissed it as such.

However, after work, I reviewed the footage on the larger screen of my computer, turned up the volume, and then slowed it down to see frame-by-frame detail. Upon doing so, it appeared to me as though it was unlikely this was from a helicopter. For one, there was no audible noise, other than a low continuous white noise from a box fan, that was set to low, on the other side of the kitchen wall in the foreground of the video.

Second of all, there seemed to be four light source locations in the three seconds or so that it lasted, and those lights did not seem to sweep from side to side; rather, they seemed to be moving, primarily from right to left (East to West) based on how the shadows of the palm trees and railing outside were cast on the window of the door. Not to mention the lights did not seem to be originating from high enough to support the helicopter theory.

I have also tried to dismiss this as electricity arcing from the power lines to palm trees that are in the general direction of the light sources in the video (about 100 feet from the door), as they are very close to the power lines; however, I would think that an arc this bright should make a noise. Please correct me if I am wrong.

The first light source, based on the height of the railing in relation to the shadow that was cast on the door, as well as the palm frond that is most likely casting a shadow on the door, seems to have originated from the parking lot of the condominium complex to the West of the one that I live in, or slightly closer, but in line with that parking lot. It also looks as though there was two light sources, one dimmer and slightly lower than the other, as the top of the concrete railing, that is outside the door, has a double shadow.

The second and third light sources seen seem to be traveling primarily from East to West, very rapidly at one point, based on the sudden change of the railing shadow position from one frame to the next, yet it is a bit more confusing, as far as source position and direction of travel; however, I believe it is actually two light sources that come close together, as it is nearly void of a palm tree shadow after a few frames, and at that time it is casting an overlapping shadow of the diamond shapes present in the concrete railing.

The fourth light source is only visible for about four frames (two frames of bright light); however, the light source seems to be a little more visible in the window.

I am not an expert at assessing light sources by examining shadows. However, it would appear as though all of the lights came from the same area, and not very far from my apartment, as I took photographs from outside to see where a source would need to be to cast shadows from the various palm trees on the window of the door.

I’ll be emailing the video clip, as well as the photographs of the area outside the door, to include a photo that shows the view seen from inside the door, looking out, as well as a snip from Google Earth that shows the location of my apartment with a blue dot.

I’ve been scratching my head for a couple of days now, and decided to reach out to the experts to help try to make sense of this event.

Thank you for any input you can provide about this matter.

Posted 2016-12-05

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