'Dark' video shows difficulty of UFO capture

Night time photography is tough. And being nervous at the same time because you think you've just spotted a UFO doesn't help.

The following video takes a lot of patience. A Virginia woman spotted what appeared to be a triangular object in the sky March 29 - something solid with three points of light moving across the sky. She is one of the brave few who had the time to actually get a video camera out and shoot while the object was still in view.

But what the eye sees in the night time sky and what the camera captures can be two totally different creatures.

I cut out the beginning of the video because, as she states, there is a lot of black screen. But take a look for yourself and see if you can see the three points of light. The video quality is somewhat dumbed down for this presentation, and is better if you watch it at the MUFON.COM site. Apologies again for the long stretches of totally black screen - the story is better than the video quality here, and I hope you make it over to MUFON.com to see the better, original video. (Okay, my wife swears the entire video is black screen, but I've seen the lights and the triangle.)

The woman's testimony follows, as reported in the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) database.

Virginia, March 29, 2009 -  I saw three lights in triangle formation. They flew across the sky and then were stationary and in formation.

I went to sleep early, and woke up a few hours later, I looled at me cell phone and if was 10:35PM. My dog needed to go out, so I put on my shoes and went with him to the garden. When I looked up I saw a small point of light that I thought was a star.

The point of light flashed, and then I saw two other lights on either side of it. They began to move in the sky from left to right in triangle formation. I thought it was the underside of a plane, but there was no sound and the wingspan would have been too long for a normal plane. I watched it for a few seconds, and realised this was not a normal plane.
I ran back inside and found my digital camera (Sony Cybershot)and ran back out to the garden.

When I was back outside they were still there. I took a video for about a minute without using zoom on the camera. Because it was dark out, I could not see what was being captured on the camera screen very clearly. When they continued to move, I went up the stairs that lead to the balcony, and adjusted the zoom on the camera.

The lights remained stationary but changing formation. After I filmed it, I went inside and woke up my grandmother. When we went back outside they were still there, and she was able to observe them for about a minute before they became too dim to see.

There was no sound in the sky when I first saw them, towards the end of the video, I could hear a plane coming, and two planes flew overhead towards Dulles Airport. The lights continued to move into distance until they were no longer visible.

The first half of the video the lights are almost too small to detect, they are in the centre of the screen towards the left. The yellow lights on the bottom of screen at times is a porch lamp from a neighbour's house.

The next day, I read a report that many people had seen lights in the sky over MD, DC, and VA due to space debris from a Russian Rocket that broke the earth's atmosphere. People reported seeing fireballs, and red and green lights. The lights I saw were white, round and flew sideways and in intelligent formation. I did not see any colours or fireballs, and nothing fell to the ground.

BRIEFLY:   Catch 'Quirky' Professor Wiseman - author of The Luck Factor - with what might be the best ghostly image ever produced - a tourist who shot a Scotish castle and discovered someone who shouldn't be there. Beyond that, check out his books and work in the paranormal. He's "Indiana Jones" cool.

For those Armchair Ghost Hunters - here's a list of some of the best live web cams in search of ghostly activity. My favorite is the Nickerbocker Hotel in Pennsylvania with live cam and sound. Say hello to Peg.

And for those of you who like to dive into the field - Chicago's Ghost Research Society is going to Waverly Hills Sanitarium in Louisville, Kentucky, and you're invited. Meet Charlie and Tina Mattingly - who saved an incredible property and produce these interesting paranormal adventures.