A camera trap in Chile has captured strange lights flashing in the wild. Researchers are trying to explain them.

Unexplained lights captured on a wildlife camera in Patagonia puzzled researchers in January. (Photo: Rodrigo Bravo Garrido)

On January 21 at 00:22 local time, in the silence and darkness of Chile's Patagonia region, a camera trap used to monitor wildlife as part of a University of Magellan (UMAG) project captured three photographs in two seconds showing bright lights moving downwards.

Everyone was confused.

“On a camera placed at the edge of a meadow, quite far from public roads, and focused on a flat horizon, some lights appeared that we cannot explain,” biologist Alejandro Kusch told the UMAG podcast in August. “Apparently, these lights, initially far away, come closer and stay in front of the camera, blinding it, moving as if downwards.”

You may like

Ghostly 'spiral' Perseid meteor photobombs over several US states – and experts aren't sure what's causing them
Strange Radio Signals That Defy Physics Discovered Under Antarctica
Scientists May Have Discovered a New Powerful Space Object: 'It Doesn't Fit into Any Known Category'

But even if these strange flashes are the “bad lights” that the Mapuche talk about, what are they?

One possibility is that the lights are unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), possibly belonging to a mysterious flying object. Some declassified Pentagon UAP files show similar characteristics, Bravo added. Generally, the low quality of the data means that most UAP sightings cannot be confirmed or explained, but common explanations include foreign spy drones and “airborne clutter” such as birds and weather balloons.

To test this possibility, UMAG sent photographs and videos to Freddy Alexis, who discusses UFOs and other unknown phenomena on his television programs on UCVTV, the channel of the Catholic University of Valparaiso.

Alexis wrote two reports on his findings, including trajectory, spectrographic, and relief analysis of the photographs and video. In the second report, he wrote that only one “light stimulus” was visible, not two, and that the other “light spots” were internal reflections of the lenses.

The primary light source, Alexis says, could be a plasmoid, or bubble of hot, ionized gas, held in place by Earth’s local magnetic field and able to remain stable for a few seconds. The most common atmospheric example is ball lightning, which is typically associated with thunderstorms. But that’s where his explanation runs into a snag. “It was summer, 46 degrees Fahrenheit, and there were no thunderstorms,” Alexis tells Live Science. “There were no atmospheric conditions for thunderstorms, so ball lightning is extremely unlikely.”

A photograph that captured a rare phenomenon – ball lightning. Ball lightning usually appears during thunderstorms, but on the day the recording was made, the weather was clear.

However, it has been suggested that more exotic plasmoids may arise under special conditions, such as short-term local changes in the Earth's magnetic field.

However, Alexis noted that there may be other, poorly understood atmospheric plasmoids, similar to the Hessdalen “mystery lights” in Norway. Like the Magellan phenomenon, these lights defy conventional explanations and may involve plasma structures that are still poorly understood.

In one of his reports, Alexis also calculated that, assuming it was a distant flying object, it was moving at 947 km/h, which is about 0.7 times the speed of sound. Alexis suggested that the lights may not be a flying object, but some plasmoids can move at high speeds, he added.

Strange creature

In a separate report, the La Serena UFO Museum suggested that a spider or moth may have accidentally hit the camera sensor. This is because in the first photo, something resembling an insect or arachnid can be seen at the edge of the image. However, in subsequent photos, the insect is not visible.

While one possibility is that the insect activated the camera, that would only explain why the photo was taken, not why the bright, spot-like light appears, he said.

Christian Riffaud, director of the UFO Museum in La Serena, who was also consulted on the UMAG report.

Riffault noted that camera traps are designed to minimize false alarms caused by insects, lasers and other irritants. He found the rapid succession of photos in which light appeared to move toward the camera puzzling and difficult to explain.

“It could have been two different phenomena: one natural phenomenon that was caught on camera, and one light phenomenon that remains unexplained,” Riffault told Live Science.

A shot from the same wildlife camera where the lights appeared, but during the day. There are no man-made structures nearby other than the fence.

Museum researchers analyzed before and after photographs taken with the same camera during the day and at night, in the presence of wild animals and in different atmospheric conditions, and reviewed the manufacturer's manuals to rule out technical glitches. So far, “they have found no explanation,” Riffault said.

For this reason, researchers from the La Serena UFO Museum are planning to conduct their own fieldwork in the area to collect additional data and analyze other local parameters such as terrain, lighting conditions and environmental factors.