CITY:
REGION:
COUNTRY:
DATE:

Reston
Virginia
USA
January 20, 2015

I was going through photos I had taken in Lightroom when I came across two that had elements I hadn't seen when I'd been taking them. To be clear: I did not see the objects until the day after the event. At the time the images were captured I did not see anything I thought was unusual or abnormal. A description of the time of the event follows. I was at a construction site right by the Whelie-Reston east metro station taking photos for a project. As it was getting pretty cold out, I decided to make my next photos the last before heading out. I set up my camera on a tripod for a long exposure of the highway figuring it might make an interesting shot. My camera settings for both photos were ISO 200 f/11 at a 30 second exposure, the second picture was taken approximately one minute after the first. During the this time I did not see any unusual lights or hear any unusual sounds. I suspect that the brightness of area I was in didn't allow my eyes to adjust to be able to see the relatively subtle green lights in the dark sky. Notes: At in a 30 second exposure, lights that don't hold still will leave "light trails" in the final picture, just as the cars did, these objects however don't appear to have left any, leading me to think they either were only momentarily present, or they were completely still for the duration of the exposure. The camera was facing roughly south, the white lights and antenna visible on the right are most likely from the Hughes Middle school/South Lakes high school, which lie in that direction. I checked for meteor showers in the area, and there was one that was visible in the area on the two days prior, but again: moving lights such as meteors would have left streaks/light trails in the photo, which is not the case. On the second photo in particular, a vague circular outline can be made out around some of the lights, suggesting the light is being emitted by these circular objects. I am not sure what the yellow light trails are/were left by, but they look unrelated to the green lights as those appear to be in formation