Posted: 25-Mar-2009

This object was found on the Mono Lake webcam this morning. These are initial notes from one of our volunteer photo analysts, Dan Drasin. Dan has been a videographer, documentary film maker and photographer for 35 years.

His comments:

It's not the kind of "orb" that shows up in a lot of digital photos (those are two-dimensional and therefore not really "orbs" at all -- I hate the name, but alas, it's stuck). But IF this one isn't faked it certainly seems to be a real orb (sphere).

This one, if it's really a solid object, is apparently of a pretty good size (hence, not likely to be a common weather balloon) because it seems to be out over the lake, judging by the reflections in its surface.

There's nothing in the photo to indicate absolute scale, but one can estimate things very roughly by the size of the trees, the apparent elevation of the camera above the lake, and the fact that webcams tend to have short focal-length (wide-angle) lenses. In this case, the terrain seems to confirm that in several ways.

IF those diagonal streaks represent sun rays filtering through clouds in a misty or dusty environment, then the position of the sun kick on the sphere is just about right. (These were later determined to be probable streaks on the glass front of the webcam housing. Ed.)

The object casts no visible shadow, but given its apparent height, and with so much sky light reflected from the water, that doesn't tell us much one way or another.

The photo could have been faked in at least two ways:

- The most obvious is Photoshop, but usually fakes of this kind would have the sphere looking stationary. This one, however, is either moving or phasing in or out -- something I've seen in quite a few arguably legitimate UFO photos (i.e., not grossly obvious fakes).

- If this is a real webcam photo (not one previously prepared and then emailed around on this date in order to seem legit), it could have been done by accessing the webcam site and dangling a small sphere on very fine mono(!)filament. The sphere would, or course, have had to be painted to simulate appropriate reflections.

There may be some other perfectly prosaic explanation, but I can't think of one right now. Interestingly, a friend (who, as far as I can recall, had no interest in UFOs) reported to me some years ago that she was driving south on highway 395, very near Mono Lake, when her car's engine suddenly quit. She said she rolled to a stop within about 1/4 mi of a HV transmission line, and could see a huge "round" object floating near one of the towers (whether "round" meant spherical or not I don't recall).

There was some kind of probe extended from the object to one of the lines. This lasted several harrowing minutes -- she was totally freaked out by this sight, and felt powerless because her engine wouldn't start.

And then the probe was retracted, the object whisked itself away at blinding speed, and her engine restarted itself. I've heard many stories of this kind, but that's the only one I'm personally aware of from that immediate area.

Conclusion: 95% likely a real object, probable unknown.

Anne Strieber comments: "In the over half a million letters from experiencers that I've read, I've noticed that clear orbs of this type are commonly sighted. I clearly remember reading a letter in which an observer described seeing several orbs of this type coming out of the water, just as this one appears to be."