Tommy Woodard took this digital photograph in Provo Canyon, Utah Tuesday shooting still pictures for a possible film location, At the time, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but zoom in, he says, and the purple glow of a saucer hovering at an angle above the tree line is seen. He believes the photo represents an unidentified flying object. A skeptical reaction from the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle -- Peter said he thought the object looked like a bird. .....huh? ....
...what bird book is he looking at?
Tommy Woodard showed his now famous photograph, to us at the 6/05/04
To the naked eye, Tommy Woodard's digital photograph appears to be nothing more than a pretty picture of trees in Provo Canyon.
To the naked eye, Tommy Woodard's digital photograph appears to be nothing more than a pretty picture of trees in Provo Canyon.
But zoom in, he says, and the purple glow of a saucer hovering at an angle above the tree line starts to take shape.
Woodard, 22, a photo librarian with the Utah Film Commission, took the photo that he believes represents an unidentified flying object.
He was in the canyon Tuesday shooting still pictures for a possible film location, and began taking pictures for himself on his way out.
At the time, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary in his photograph. But later, after noticing a black speck in the frame, he zoomed in and "the closer I got, the more impressed I got by it," he said Thursday.
"I was kind of skeptical but it's pretty obvious when you zoom in," said the self-described "sci-fi" fan, whose friends and colleagues are similarly impressed.
Woodard said he's a "believer" because the recent photograph is not his first encounter with mysterious flying objects. Once, playing baseball at the age of 10, he saw three blurry gray spheres rotating in the sky. Within a moment, they were gone.
Woodard contacted officials at Hill Air Force Base to ask if any planes were flying in the canyon area Tuesday but hasn't heard back yet. "They kind of laughed, you know," he said.
Hill Air Force Base spokeswoman Lt. Caroline Wellman told The Associated Press on Thursday she is awaiting response from the 388th Fighter Wing whether any of their F-16 jets were above Provo Canyon Tuesday.
Another skeptical reaction to the digital photograph came from a representative of the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle -- he said thought the sphere looked like a bird.
"A bird?" asked Woodard in disbelief. "Come on -- I don't know how he could think it's a bird!"
Woodard discounted the theory that the image could be nothing more than a speck of dust on his film. Of the hundred photos he shot Tuesday, none contained a similar mark, he said.
The Provo Canyon photograph is not the first reported UFO sighting this year to immediately get debunkers.
In March, the Mexican air force captured images of bright blurs in the sky using infrared equipment. The videotape aired on television for the first time last week, with one scientist saying the objects could have been caused by gases in the atmosphere.
Yea, kudos to the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle. We have a plethora of saucer shaped birds in this state. Must be a new breed of seagull I don't know about. A bird that has adapted to eating disposable Dixie plates used at mass Utah family picnics. They must be eating purple neon bulbs from some downtown businesses too. Or maybe it is a temperature inversion that is reflecting the image of a low rider with purple neon lights under the chassis. So, do we rename the National UFO Reporting Center to be known as the National UFO Debunking Center instead? I guess it could be a lot of things, but a bird is the last thing that came to mind when I saw the picture. That is almost as ridiculous as the Mexico lights filmed by a Mexican Airforce surveillance plane recently being blamed on meteors. Don't know too many meteors that swoop in and encircle an aircraft, then fly off in formation. Unbelievable, but everyone IS entitled to their own opinion, I guess.
UFO Photographed in Provo Canyon puts Hill Air Force Base on the spot..
Tommy Woodard took this digital photograph in Provo Canyon, Utah Tuesday shooting still pictures for a possible film location, At the time, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but zoom in, he says, and the purple glow of a saucer hovering at an angle above the tree line is seen. He believes the photo represents an unidentified flying object.
Woodard contacted officials at Hill Air Force Base to ask if any planes were flying in the canyon area Tuesday but hasn't heard back yet. He also turned in the photo to HAFB and now military officials are trying to figure out what it is.
A skeptical reaction to the digital photograph came from a representative of the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle -- he said thought the sphere looked like a bird.
UUFOH wants to obtain a high res version of Tommy Woodard's digital photograph,
Taking pictures of the beautiful Utah countryside is part of Tommy Woodard's job with the Utah Film Commission. Recently, though, he captured something on film that's worthy of the silver screen. That something just might be a UFO.
At a distance, it's just a speck. But when you zoom in, things get interesting.
"When I was shooting the picture, I didn't see the object," Woodard said. "In relation to the ridge, it was tilted at an angle right above the tree line."
As the photo librarian for the Utah Film Commission, Woodard shoots any location filmmakers might want to see. He shot about 100 pictures the day he caught the startling images of what might be a UFO.
"In all my pictures, I've never seen anything like this," he said.
The picture that caused quite a commotion around the office came from Provo Canyon.
"I didn't get out of the car when I took the specific shot," Woodard recalled. "I just leaned up to the car window, took the shot and kept driving.
"I had around 20 people giving me their opinions. We've all come up with the same conclusion."
We asked Jim Dilettoso to analyze the photo, look for "fingerprints of a hoax," as he called them. Here in Phoenix, Dilettoso has spent years doing profession investigations of so-called UFO pictures. Some of the pictures he's looked at have turned out to be fakes.
"There are remote-control helicopters, really good ones ... blimps, could be that," he said. "It's a good place to go play with all those things."
Dilettoso said the ratio of the object's length to its width and its coloring match the profile of a classic UFO. The differing textures of the top and bottom edges probably mean that it's in flight. What's more, the digital picture shows no evidence of tampering.
"Bottom line: It's not a fake," Dilettoso said. "I can't find any evidence that it was digitally faked."
Still, he's not ready to say this is a flying saucer from another planet.
"Now just because it's a 20- to 30-foot object, a couple hundred feet away, doesn't mean it's an alien spacecraft," he said. "We then have a flying, hovering disc-shaped object that goes into the category of unknown aircraft because we don't have an aircraft on Earth that can hover like that."
"We had some people say that it might be a bird," Woodard said. "But how can that be a bird?"
Woodard said that no matter what it is, he's glad he was in the right place in the right time to capture it on film.
"This just looks incredibly like the pictures that you've seen on TV before," he said. "It's unidentified, it's flying, and it's an object."
Dilettoso also is just about to complete his analysis of videotape the Mexican air force recorded. That tape shows 11 mysterious balls of light, objects some are calling UFOs. (Click here for more.) Watch for more on that story later this week.
lAnalyst Jim Dilettoso points out unique features of the object.
