In 1952 the Palomar Observatory was taking surveys of the night sky and one photo in particular was a bit odd. Three distinct very bright ‘stars’ were visible, but only on that one 50 minute exposure plate/photo. These three stars were about 2 lightyears apart of each others and much brighter than what you would expect from and error/flaw.
A plate flaw can be used as an explanation, but the chance that flaws show up as three practically identical very bright stars is highly improbable.
Another explanation is gravitational lensing, but you’ll need a black hole ten times the mass of the Milky Way black hole to get this effect. Also highly improbable.
The observatory is located near the New Mexico desert where nuclear weapons were being tested, so radioactive dust could have contaminated the plate, but the dust showing up as three distinct bright stars in only one spot is also improbable.
It is also possible that artificial metallic objects reflected sunlight and showed up as bright stars. Sounds kind of improbable as well. Right?
Here’s the thing though: around that same time there were several UFO sightings in Washington DC, both on radar and visual. On July 19th several slow-moving objects were spotted on radar and several air traffic controllers and pilots spotted bright hovering lights that suddenly shot away at high speeds exceeding 7,000 mph.
To this day the photo of the three ‘stars’ is still unexplained. If anyone’s interested, here’s a podcast about the photo and events in Washington. Here’s an article, and here’s a paper. I listened to the podcast yesterday (I highly recommend Event Horizon!) and hadn’t seen the photos before so I wanted to post them here. It’s odd that in the month three very bright objects show up on a night sky survey there’s also mass sightings in Washington DC. Might be a coincidence but it’s odd nonetheless. It could very well be that what we’re seeing are artificial objects far away in space, perhaps on their way to our lovely planet. Who knows…
submitted by /u/SomerenV
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