Ghosts, UFOs, Aliens or Operator Error?

[Jeff D. Welker]

Jeff,

Were the same spots/flares on all three images the same location and size/shape?

A small movement from your first 9 shots to the last three shots could be just enough to place your lens at a position and angle that the flare was created.

With so many lights in direct view, and at many different angles, it may not be easy to get rid of all flares.

Or people can just finally accept that there are aliens among us, messing up your photos.  Sell the photos to The Enquirererererererer.

Same spots/flares and same locations and same size/shape.

You could be right about the slight position shift making a difference.

Pasley was wearing shorts and behaved like an alien; so maybe that was a contributing factor 

[Joe Copalman]

Were your other shots (the "Santa" shot, etc) crops of shots that had all these other light sources in them, or are they more or less as-shot?  I have a few shots from our Desert Splash night shoot that were killed by one single light all the way across the runway at SDL. 

The others were crops of this basic view.

Yeah, the repositioning sounds like the most obvious culprit.  Even just a slight adjustment can result in light from one or more sources hitting your lens differently.

Were your exposure settings identical for these shots?

[Jay Beckman]

Something that is still bothering me is why these "UFOs" showed up on the last three images and not the first 9. I did make a very minor (less than 3 feet) change in tripod/camera location; however, I don't recall anything different during those exposures than the others (i.e. cars driving behind me, Pasley spitting on the lens, etc.)

Maybe "they" weren't ready for you to see them in the first six? 

[Jeff D. Welker]

Maybe "they" weren't ready for you to see them in the first six? 

Finally, another believer - thank you Jay