Are there fairies in the woods near Green Bay, Wisconsin? A woman named Lisa wrote me to ask whether such mystical entities could explain the trail cam photo below that appears to show a 3-D light form surrounded by things that look like partial orbs reflecting light from beneath them.
Whether fairies exist in any form is not something I claim to know, I believe this particular photo is about camera lenses, water droplets and light refraction. But it’s a good photo to study for analysis of these types of photos, which I receive from people every now and then.
The photo was taken July 19, 2011 by an acquaintance of Lisa’s on private property. There was no apparent triggering event (motion or heat) shown on the camera. (In my personal experience, small animals often can trigger the motion sensor yet remain outside the edges of the photo.) Both the smaller objects and the larger, central form seem to be repeated and maintain the same positional angles in relation to one another. To me, that suggests a possible, natural light refraction…but of what? There is one, small bright spot near the bottom of the photo and a couple of other pinpoints of light in the lower trees but the light objects display a complex depth of field.
The best conclusion in my opinion is that the forms were caused by water droplets, perhaps dew, on the trail cam lens. Lisa has sent these to other places and the only suggestion so far is that they look like mold spores. That sounds unlikely to me. She wrote:
I am hoping that you will be captivated by these pictures also. I am looking forward to hearing what you think of them.AGAIN..they are the honest & truest thing! No tricks or special equipment used! Please feel free to have a photo expert evaluate them.”
Well, I’d like to add here that, as I asked for people to comment before I weighed in with my own thoughts, I did hear from such an expert, a MUFON member who has studied these types of photos for many years and who affirmed the almost certain association with light and water droplets, although he explained it much more eloquently. I will quote him in part: “As to the illumination of only the edges of the water droplets that face the origin of the flash, I’m not going to comment on that further. However, note how the surrounding “orbs” all appear to be “facing” the center. Were they fully illuminated, you would also see that their shaped becomes more “lensatic” as they are distorted near the edges. This is only to be expected as this is a “flat” image taken by a semi-spherical optical lens.”
Let me also add again that this neither proves nor disproves the existence of fairies. Still, we have a beautiful photo to look at that is no less visually entrancing just because it was created by explainable events and materials. And I, for one, am glad that Lisa shared it with all of us.
