Having just arrived in Kauai the previous Friday evening, we were excited to start our vacation by going to Tunnels Beach: it was rumored to have the best snorkeling in Kauai. Although we were not able to get into the water due to a white shark sighting shortly before we arrived, we did investigate the tunnels, which were ancient caves created by lava flows.

Once we had our fill of the caves/tunnels, we proceeded to the beach directly across the street. It was approximately 1-2 PM, and the weather was partly cloudy.

We walked toward the beach and I pulled out my brand new JVC HD Everio Full HD video camera, which also took high resolution pictures and started snapping away at my fiance who was walking in front of me on the beach. I wanted to take some pictures of her with the waves behind her and set the camera to an auto “sport” mode shutter speed which had continuous shooting capabilities.

So as I had her pose here and there, I got in a little bit closer to her and took three continuous shots. In between snaps of the shutter, I noticed what looked like a black dot on the LCD screen I was using to frame her with the waves behind her. It only seemed to appear for a brief second right when I heard the shutter close on the camera. I immediately looked behind her and all around her to make sure it wasn't some sort of insect or a bird in the sky. I told her what had happened and showed her the picture. She also looked around and couldn'’t tell what it was.

Kauai is known as the garden island: as such it is the “only” Hawaiian island that does NOT allow water skiing, jet skis, or even parasailing in most areas. We just happened to be in a very secluded area where there wasn'’t anything behind her when I took the shot. The shots you see here are the three consecutive frames I took.

In them you can see the wave cresting behind her as they were all taken within a second all at once. The anomaly appears in only the middle frame, and then it'’s just gone.

Now while I don'’t want to claim it is anything because I didn'’t see it with my own eyes, I don'’t know what it could be. I would invite anyone to look at the photo, untouched. It is still bewildering to me and see if you can make sense of it.

Location: Kauai, Hi Tunnels Beach

James Chavez (Photographer)

Julia Slusar (pictured)

Camera, JVC Everio Full HD camera

Resolution is 1980 X 1080i

Sport Setting on the shutter

Auto mode

Stored internally on a 60 gig HDD

MUFON Submitter 10592