On January 21st, at 12:22am local time, in the silence and darkness of the Patagonia region of Chile, the camera trap used to monitor wildlife for a project run by Magalan University (UMAG) took three photos obtained in 2 seconds.
Everyone was confused.
“The camera at the edge of the meadow showed some unexplainable light as it focuses on the flat horizon quite far from the road,” biologist Alejandro Cush said in an August UMAG podcast. “It appears to me that at first they are far away and approaching the camera.
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Kush is one of the leaders of the public baseline project to record terrestrial animals, particularly cats, using 65 camera traps distributed between the continents Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, located at the southern tip of Chile. Since the project was launched in November 2023, at least 365,000 images and videos have been collected. However, only these three photos show this phenomenon.
UMAG shared images with various organizations, from the Civil Aviation Authority (SEFAA) in Chile to the La Serena UFO Museum, and several people analyzing the unusual aviation phenomenon.
A potential explanation is the “plasmoid” description from Arachnid, very close to the camera lens, to the form of plasma shapes that are rarely observed in nature, which may be behind phenomena such as ball lightning. But all the experts agreed. For now, there is no definitive explanation.
Rodrigo Bravo, a researcher at UMAG’s Environmental Research Group (GEA) and a member of the Public Baseline Project, said the sighting is unique as it was documented within the framework of the science project. This means that camera traps operate under strict protocols and are equipped with infrared systems, motion sensors and other features that prevent people from tampering with them, so there is no possibility of fraud or operation.
“This is not the first time these phenomena have been explained in the region, but this is the first time that they have been recorded like this,” Bravo told Live Science.
Related: There are no aliens in NASA’s debut UFO report, but big questions remain
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Bad light
Local Mapuche people have traditionally spoken about “bad light.” I believe it is the spirit that appears in the fields. This increases the likelihood that camera traps are ultimately capturing a phenomenon that has long been recognized in the region.
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But even if these strange flashes of light are Mapuche’s “bad lights”, what are they?
One possibility is that the light is an unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) from a mysterious flying object. Some of the UAP’s sensitive Pentagon files exhibit similar properties, Bravo added. Generally, poor quality data means that most UAP sightings cannot be seen or explained, but general explanations include “air messes” such as foreign spy drones and birds and weather.
To address that possibility, UMAG sent photos and videos to Freddie Alexis. Freddie Alexis discusses UFOs and other unknown phenomena on a television programme for UCVTV, the station at Valparaiso’s Catholic University.
Alexis wrote two reports on his findings, including photo and video trajectories, spectrographs and relief analysis. In the second report, he wrote that only a single “luminescent stimulus” appears not two, and that the other “lights” are internal lens reflexes.
According to Alexis, the main light is a plasmoid, or a bubble of incandescent ionized gas trapped by the Earth’s local magnetic field, which may remain stable for a few seconds. The most familiar example of the atmosphere is ball lightning, usually associated with storms. But that’s where his explanation hits the wall. “It was summer and it was 48 degrees Fahrenheit. [8 degrees Celsius]and there was no electric storm, Alexis told Live Science.
However, more exotic plasmoids have been proposed, such as temporary local changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.
Still, Alexis pointed out that there may be other, ununderstandable atmospheric plasmoids similar to the Norwegian Hesdaren’s “mystical light.” Like the Magalan phenomenon, these lights are contrary to conventional explanations and may contain plasma structures that are not yet well understood.
In one of his reports, Alexis also calculated that, assuming this is a far flying object, it was moving at a speed of 590 mph (947 km/h), or at a speed of about 0.7 times the speed of sound. Alexis suggested that the lights may not be flying objects, but he added that some plasmoids could move at high speeds.
Strange creatures
In another report, engineers at the La Serena UFO Museum suggested that a spider or moth may have inadvertently tripped the camera’s sensors. This is because in the first photo what appears to be insects or arcnids can be seen along one edge of the image. However, insects will not be shown in subsequent photos.
One possibility is that the insect caused the camera, but this only explains why the photo was taken, not why a bright chunk of light appears;
Cristian Riffo, director of the La Serena UFO Museum, was also consulted about the UMAG report.
Riffo noted that the camera traps are designed to minimize false positives caused by insects, lasers, or other stimuli. He finds the fast sequence of photographs, in which light appears to be moving towards the camera, confusing and difficult to explain.
“It could be two different phenomena: one that causes cameras and the other is a light phenomenon that remains unexplained,” Lifo told Live Science.
Museum researchers analyzed photos taken with the same camera before and after. The manufacturer’s manual was reviewed to rule out technical failures during the day and at night, in the presence of wildlife, and under various atmospheric conditions. So far, “they haven’t found an explanation,” Lifo said.
For this reason, researchers at the La Serena UFO Museum plan to carry out their own on-site fieldwork in the region to analyze other local parameters such as topography, lighting conditions, and environmental factors.
Bravo added that surveillance projects in the region are expected to continue for another decade, with more camera traps planned and hope that this strange phenomenon will be captured again.
“The scientists involved want to know what this is. It’s also science. It’s about discovering what happens in nature,” Bravo said.
Meanwhile, the mystery remains, so scientists and those interested in unusual aviation phenomena work together to understand it.
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