Home CCTV Caught An Odd Light

[Carse]

This isn't an 'It Happened To Me' but an 'It Happened To Her'...

I spent Christmas day with my sister and, as she knows I am a fan of the paranormal she showed me a video recorded on the Ring CCTV camera at her house. The camera recorded the clip automatically because it detected motion. She saved it because she was mystified and I got her to send it to me so I could share it here:

(it's too big to attach to this post so I've had to upload it as an unlisted video on Youtube)

The original clip shows a well defined rectangular beam of light moving along the garden steps like it's being shone from above then a very bright light comes into view in the sky in the right hand corner of the image, moving diagonally from left to right. I've also slowed it down in Windows Video Editor so you can see the beam moving across the step more clearly.

Without doxxing her, the house is located in quite a remote bit of countryside in the north of Scotland. It was empty at the time so there were no first hand witnesses.

When I watched the video at first I thought it might have be a helicopter but there's no sound - you can just about hear the sleet falling - and it would have to be flying low in poor weather to show up in the camera's field of vision. I also thought of a drone (I have a DJI Mavic drone myself, which has a user-switchable bright white LED light underneath) but it's definitely not drone flying weather and it's a pretty isolated location, so I don't know why someone would be flying a drone out there at 6am in the dark. It's hard to tell if the light is close or far away but my instinct is it must be pretty low to project such a tightly defined shape on the ground.

To give a bit of context I've also attached a screenshot from Google Streetview showing the house with the camera circled.



Any ideas or thoughts would be most welcome!

 

[Sid]

This isn't an 'It Happened To Me' but an 'It Happened To Her'...

I spent Christmas day with my sister and, as she knows I am a fan of the paranormal she showed me a video recorded on the Ring CCTV camera at her house. The camera recorded the clip automatically because it detected motion. She saved it because she was mystified and I got her to send it to me so I could share it here:

(it's too big to attach to this post so I've had to upload it as an unlisted video on Youtube)

The original clip shows a well defined rectangular beam of light moving along the garden steps like it's being shone from above then a very bright light comes into view in the sky in the right hand corner of the image, moving diagonally from left to right. I've also slowed it down in Windows Video Editor so you can see the beam moving across the step more clearly.

Without doxxing her, the house is located in quite a remote bit of countryside in the north of Scotland. It was empty at the time so there were no first hand witnesses.

When I watched the video at first I thought it might have be a helicopter but there's no sound - you can just about hear the sleet falling - and it would have to be flying low in poor weather to show up in the camera's field of vision. I also thought of a drone (I have a DJI Mavic drone myself, which has a user-switchable bright white LED light underneath) but it's definitely not drone flying weather and it's a pretty isolated location, so I don't know why someone would be flying a drone out there at 6am in the dark. It's hard to tell if the light is close or far away but my instinct is it must be pretty low to project such a tightly defined shape on the ground.

To give a bit of context I've also attached a screenshot from Google Streetview showing the house with the camera circled.

View attachment 61909

Any ideas or thoughts would be most welcome!

Appears to me to be an ice droplet and a crystalised snow form catching the light (being closest to the light) and sliding across the front of the camera lens by the wind?

 

[brownmane]

I'm assuming that it is not car headlights being refracted by the sleet only because if it was, this would be a common occurrence. But the road behind and around would normally cause me to ask if this is the what it is. It does remind me of how car lights can show up and move across a room even though the street may not be directly near.

 

[Salmonellus]

Another possibility is that it's a bolide. The fact that the source appears to cross the sky in the upper corner is suggestive. I've seen one dramatic bolide that looked rather like that.

Of course, bolides are visible across a wide area and you would expect other reports from people in the vicinity.

 

[maximus otter]

This isn't an 'It Happened To Me' but an 'It Happened To Her'...

I spent Christmas day with my sister and, as she knows I am a fan of the paranormal she showed me a video recorded on the Ring CCTV camera at her house. The camera recorded the clip automatically because it detected motion. She saved it because she was mystified and I got her to send it to me so I could share it here:

(it's too big to attach to this post so I've had to upload it as an unlisted video on Youtube)

The original clip shows a well defined rectangular beam of light moving along the garden steps like it's being shone from above then a very bright light comes into view in the sky in the right hand corner of the image, moving diagonally from left to right. I've also slowed it down in Windows Video Editor so you can see the beam moving across the step more clearly.

Without doxxing her, the house is located in quite a remote bit of countryside in the north of Scotland. It was empty at the time so there were no first hand witnesses.

When I watched the video at first I thought it might have be a helicopter but there's no sound - you can just about hear the sleet falling - and it would have to be flying low in poor weather to show up in the camera's field of vision. I also thought of a drone (I have a DJI Mavic drone myself, which has a user-switchable bright white LED light underneath) but it's definitely not drone flying weather and it's a pretty isolated location, so I don't know why someone would be flying a drone out there at 6am in the dark. It's hard to tell if the light is close or far away but my instinct is it must be pretty low to project such a tightly defined shape on the ground.

To give a bit of context I've also attached a screenshot from Google Streetview showing the house with the camera circled.

View attachment 61909

Any ideas or thoughts would be most welcome!

Geminid or Ursid meteor?

A precise time & date might assist research.

maximus otter

 

[Carse]

Appears to me to be an ice droplet and a crystalised snow form catching the light (being closest to the light) and sliding across the front of the camera lens by the wind?
View attachment 61910

That's an interesting idea, and certainly seems reasonable. I had wondered if it might have something to do with the sleet reflecting the IR light but to me it looks much more like an external light source. I'm not sure where the light is positioned in relation to the camera lens so I don't know how much scope there is for ice crystals to reflect it.

I'm assuming that it is not car headlights being refracted by the sleet only because if it was, this would be a common occurrence. But the road behind and around would normally cause me to ask if this is the what it is. It does remind me of how car lights can show up and move across a room even though the street may not be directly near.

From the few other recordings my sister showed me, cars on the public road don't seem to trigger the motion detection but I did watch one where the cat walking past had triggered it with a car passing in the background and the light source was much smaller and lower down in the frame - I've attached a screenshot showing where the car appeared.

Geminid or Ursid meteor?

A precise time & date might assist research.

maximus otter

The speed and motion across the sky does remind me of a large bolide I once saw but if it is a meteor then the rectangular beam of light is rather puzzling. The date and time is embedded in the bottom left of the video. It was the 15th of December 2022 at 06:03 GMT. Without giving any personal information away, very roughly within a few miles of 57°39'N 2°05'W

 

[maximus otter]

That's an interesting idea, and certainly seems reasonable. I had wondered if it might have something to do with the sleet reflecting the IR light but to me it looks much more like an external light source. I'm not sure where the light is positioned in relation to the camera lens so I don't know how much scope there is for ice crystals to reflect it.



From the few other recordings my sister showed me, cars on the public road don't seem to trigger the motion detection but I did watch one where the cat walking past had triggered it with a car passing in the background and the light source was much smaller and lower down in the frame - I've attached a screenshot showing where the car appeared.

View attachment 61926



The speed and motion across the sky does remind me of a large bolide I once saw but if it is a meteor then the rectangular beam of light is rather puzzling. The date and time is embedded in the bottom left of the video. It was the 15th of December 2022 at 06:03 GMT. Without giving any personal information away, very roughly within a few miles of 57°39'N 2°05'W

No fireballs reported from that date/time by UK Meteor Network.

maximus otter

 

[Carse]

No fireballs reported from that date/time by UK Meteor Network.

maximus otter

That's a cool site, I hadn't come across it before. I shall bookmark that!

 

[Sid]

That's an interesting idea, and certainly seems reasonable. I had wondered if it might have something to do with the sleet reflecting the IR light but to me it looks much more like an external light source. I'm not sure where the light is positioned in relation to the camera lens so I don't know how much scope there is for ice crystals to reflect it.



From the few other recordings my sister showed me, cars on the public road don't seem to trigger the motion detection but I did watch one where the cat walking past had triggered it with a car passing in the background and the light source was much smaller and lower down in the frame - I've attached a screenshot showing where the car appeared.

View attachment 61926



The speed and motion across the sky does remind me of a large bolide I once saw but if it is a meteor then the rectangular beam of light is rather puzzling. The date and time is embedded in the bottom left of the video. It was the 15th of December 2022 at 06:03 GMT. Without giving any personal information away, very roughly within a few miles of 57°39'N 2°05'W

Just as an extra thought about where the light is coming from. . . snow, and especially ice are light collecting and emitting things in themselves I would imagine. Thinking of them as being little diamonds collected together and you get the picture ~ "so-to-speak!"

 

[Bigphoot2]

I suspect it may be ice or moisture on the lens. I have a Ring Doorbell Camera and have seen lots of odd effects when rain hits the lens.