THINK ABOUTIT UFO SIGHTINGS REPORT

2014: The MacArthur Park Telescope Anomaly, Los Angeles

Just after 1:00 a.m. on January 26, 2014, two amateur observers in MacArthur Park spent roughly ten minutes tracking a dark, oddly-shaped object marked with reddish spots or window-like features through a telescope, one person following it in the viewfinder while a second aimed a separate camera into the eyepiece to record it. The resulting footage, later posted to YouTube, is presented by its creators as the clearest video they’ve captured of an unidentified object. What the footage actually shows, and how many people beyond the two-person recording team genuinely observed it independently, are considerably less settled than the framing suggests.

Date: January 26, 2014

Sighting Time: 1:00 a.m.

Day/Night: Night. This site’s legacy field data listed “Daytime,” which directly contradicts the recorded 1:00 a.m. sighting time and the case’s own NL (Nocturnal Light) classification; corrected here.

Location: MacArthur Park, Los Angeles, California

Urban or Rural: Urban (public park with open lawn)

No. of Entity(s): Not Applicable

Entity Type: Not Applicable. This site’s legacy field data read “None reported / Possible EBE (Extraterrestrial Biological Entity),” an internally contradictory entry; since no entity was reported anywhere in the witness’s own account, this field is corrected to Not Applicable.

Entity Description: Not Applicable

Hynek Classification: NL — Nocturnal Light. A point or extended luminous source observed at night.

Duration: Approximately 10 minutes

No. of Object(s): 1

Description of the Object(s): An anomaly of odd, indeterminate body shape, dark or indeterminate in overall color, with red windows or spots visible on its surface in the recorded footage; captured via a telescope with a second camera recording the eyepiece view (an “afocal” recording technique), as well as on unspecified secondary cameras

Shape of Object(s): Irregular/anomalous, no conventional aircraft shape described

Size of Object(s): Undocumented

Color of Object(s): Dark/indeterminate body with red windows or spots

Distance to Object(s): Estimated 500 to 1,000 feet

Height & Speed: Undocumented

Number of Witnesses: 2 confirmed by the account itself (the reporting witness and a second operator, named inconsistently in the source material as both “Jay Lee” and “Hans”); this site’s legacy field data listed 30 witnesses, a figure not supported anywhere in the witness’s own narrative, which describes only a two-person telescope-and-camera operation

Special Features/Characteristics: Recording required two people working together: one tracking the object through the telescope’s viewfinder, the other operating a separate camera aimed into the eyepiece and coordinating focus and framing by voice; the reporting witness states the object was also captured on unspecified additional cameras that night; the witness explicitly states uncertainty as to whether the object is mechanical or biological in nature

Case Status: Insufficient Data — an afocal telescope recording (a technique prone to chromatic aberration, motion blur, and tracking artifacts when following a distant object with a handheld or amateur setup), an unsupported witness count, an internally inconsistent naming of the second observer, and no independent technical analysis of the footage documented

Source: Reported to Think AboutIt

Summary/Description: This unidentified aerial phenomenon was documented on a telescope by two observers in MacArthur Park, Los Angeles, on January 26, 2014, at approximately 1:00 a.m. Recording required one person tracking the object through the telescope’s viewfinder while a second operated a camera aimed into the eyepiece. The resulting roughly ten-minute video shows a dark, oddly-shaped object with red spots or window-like features at an estimated distance of 500 to 1,000 feet. The witness states the object was also captured on other unspecified cameras that night and remains unidentified, whether mechanical or biological in origin.

Related Cases: None documented

Full Report

This Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon was documented on a telescope by Jay Lee and myself; it was on January 26, 2014 in MacArthur Park. It’s a two-man job to record with a telescope, and not an easy one either: one person has to track the object on the viewfinder, then the person manning the camera has to notify him when it is in frame and focus the image.

This anomaly is to date my favorite, by far, in the features it displays and how clear an image we were able to record of it. We have no idea if it is mechanical or biological, but the one thing that is certain is that this UFO is still, to this day, unexplained. Some refer to it as an EBE, UAP, AAP, or even OVNI. This object was also captured on multiple cameras that day, so it isn’t just the telescope footage of it; however, the telescope did get the best look at it.

RESEARCHER’S NOTES

MacArthur Park, 2014 — What Afocal Telescope Video Can and Can’t Show

• The recording method itself is prone to producing ambiguous, artifact-heavy footage. Filming a telescope’s eyepiece with a separate handheld or tripod-mounted camera, known as afocal recording, is a common amateur astronomy technique, but it is well documented to introduce chromatic aberration (color fringing, which can produce false “red spot” artifacts), motion blur from tracking a moving object by hand, and focus hunting, especially when following something fast or distant at night with two people coordinating verbally in real time. None of this means the footage shows nothing real, but it does mean the described “red windows or spots” should be weighed against the strong possibility that they are optical artifacts of the recording method itself rather than confirmed surface features of the object.
• The claimed 30 witnesses is not supported by the account’s own narrative. The witness’s description names only two people involved in tracking and recording the object. No mention is made anywhere in the account of a crowd, other park visitors independently observing the object, or any additional named witnesses. This entry treats the confirmed witness count as 2 and flags the 30-witness figure in the legacy field data as unsupported by the source material itself.
• The second observer is named inconsistently within the same short account. The witness first credits “Jay Lee and myself” with the recording, then later refers to a person named “Hans” performing the viewfinder-tracking role without clarifying whether this is the same person under a different name, a third person, or a transcription inconsistency. This has not been resolved in the sources reviewed for this entry.
• No independent technical review of the footage has been documented. No frame-by-frame analysis, comparison against known aircraft or celestial objects visible from MacArthur Park at that time, or third-party video forensics has been located for this entry; the case rests entirely on the recording itself and its creators’ own characterization of it.
• The witness’s own uncertainty is worth preserving. The account explicitly states the observers do not know whether the object is mechanical or biological, a notably restrained conclusion compared to some other self-published telescope-footage cases, and one this entry credits as appropriately cautious given the limits of the recording itself.

Two people spent ten careful minutes past 1 a.m. wrestling a telescope and a handheld camera into agreement long enough to record something dark and oddly marked crossing the night sky over MacArthur Park. What the footage actually captured, an unusual object or the well-documented visual artifacts of afocal telescope videography, remains untested. The claim of thirty independent witnesses does not appear anywhere in the two-person account itself.

“We have no idea if it is mechanical or biological, but the one thing that is certain is that this UFO is still, to this day, unexplained.”

— witness account, MacArthur Park, Los Angeles, January 26, 2014