From your typical local beady-eyed (and perpetually drunk) farmer mistaking a balloon stuck to a lamp post as an alien invasion force to genuinely bizarre objects caught on film that no one seems to be able to identify, Edinburgh has had its fair share of UFO sightings, and has been said to be a UFO sighting hotspot. I am sceptical of this claim as I have never seen any such thing myself though I don't doubt the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in our galaxy.
Last year I had an experience in the city that resulted in photos that you could be forgiven for thinking was a UFO. It was an unusually clear night that night and I wanted to try and catch some photos of stars. I had read an article about 'exposing to the right' in order to capture milkyway shots from light polluted areas where normally such a shot would be impossible. So I headed down to our local park (holyrood park) to give it a try.
Well my intended shoot didn't happen. Mainly because there was an object flying in the sky pointing very bright lights all over the place.
Holy crap its a UFO .. I mean helicopter! there are 4 lights!
As you can imagine this created too much light pollution to do what I wanted, but that was ok, because this was not a UFO, it was an opportunity! Also, it was a helicopter, and they were clearly looking for someone. My first thought was they must be looking for someone who escaped from prison. Prison escapees sometimes try to hide in this park, in fact once a friend got car-jacked in that park.. a prisoner escaped, ran into the park, broke his leg.. kept running, stopped my friend's car, pulled her out.. and drove off GTA style. Leg still broken.
So I had to decide.. what is more important? Getting some long exposure shots, or common sense and personal safety. Long exposure shots of course!
I don't think he's over there guys
I was rather pleased with the results, to me it looks like a UFO encounter. The running lights from the helicopter and their search light created this fantastic effect, like they're about to abduct someone or leave a weird geometric shape pressed into the ground.
I can't imagine he climbed up there!
I was really lucky that the sky was so clear and the stars relatively protected from the city's sky pollution. Getting the starfield into the shot as well as the helicopter kinda gives it that ufo/scifi feel form me.
The truth is out there!
I do believe though that we are not alone in the Universe. There is life out there, and eventually I think we will encounter intelligence. I wonder what that will be like.
Thanks for looking
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