Camera trap in Chile detects strange lights blazing through the wilderness. Researchers are scrambling to explain them.

On Jan. 21, at 12:22 a.m. local time, in the silence and darkness of Chile's Patagonia region, a camera trap used to monitor wildlife for a project run by the University of Magallanes (UMAG) captured, in 2 seconds, three photographs showing intense lights moving downward.

Everyone was baffled.

"On a camera located at the edge of a meadow, quite far from any public road and focused on a flat horizon, some lights appeared that we cannot explain," biologist Alejandro Kusch said in a UMAG podcast in August. "Apparently, these lights, which are initially distant, approach and remain in front of the camera, dazzling it, in a movement that appears to be descending."

Kusch is one of the leaders of the Public Baseline project, which uses 65 camera traps distributed between continental Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, on the southern tip of Chile, to record terrestrial animals, particularly felines. Since the project began in November 2023, at least 365,000 images and videos have been collected; however, only these three photographs show this phenomenon.

UMAG shared the images with a variety of organizations, from Chile's General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (SEFAA)to the La Serena UFO Museum, and to several people who analyze anomalous aerial phenomena.

Potential explanations ranged from an arachnid coming very close to the camera lens to that of a "plasmoid," a short-lived form of plasma rarely observed in nature that may be behind phenomena such as ball lightning. However, all specialists agreed: for now, there is no conclusive explanation.

This sighting is unique because it was recorded within the framework of a scientific project, said Rodrigo Bravo, a researcher with the Environmental Studies Group (GEA) at UMAG and a member of the Public Baseline project. That means there is no possibility of fraud or manipulation, as the camera traps operate under rigorous protocols and are equipped with an infrared system, motion sensor, and other features that would preclude people tampering with them, he argued.

"This is not the first time these phenomena have been described in the area, but it is the first time they have been recorded in this way," Bravo told Live Science.

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A series of images captured by UMAG’s camera trap. The entire sequence took 2 seconds to record.

The sequence of the recording captured by UMAG’s camera trap.

The sequence of the recording captured by UMAG’s camera trap.

Bad lights

The local Mapuche people traditionally speak of "bad lights," which they believe are spirits that appear in the fields. This raises the possibility that the camera traps are finally capturing a phenomenon that has long been recognized in the region.

But even if these strange flashes are the "bad lights" the Mapuche speak of, what are they?

One possibility is that the lights are unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), possibly from a mysterious flying object. Some declassified Pentagon files on UAP show similar characteristics, Bravo added. Generally poor-quality 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 address that possibility, UMAG sent photos and video to Freddy Alexis, who discusses UFOs and other unknown phenomena on his TV programs on UCVTV, the station of the Catholic University of Valparaíso.

Alexis wrote two reports on his findings, which included trajectory, spectrographic, and relief analyses of the photographs and videos. In the second report, he wrote that only a single "luminous stimulus" is visible, not two, and that the other "lights" are internal lens reflections.

According to Alexis, the primary light may be a plasmoid, or a bubble of incandescent ionized gas that is confined by Earth's local magnetic field, and that can remain stable for a few seconds. The most familiar atmospheric example is ball lightning, usually associated with storms. But that is where his explanation hits a wall. "It was summer, with 48  degrees Fahrenheit [8 degrees Celsius], and there were no electrical storms," Alexis told Live Science. "There were no atmospheric conditions for a storm, so it is very unlikely that ball lightning could have formed."

But more exotic plasmoids have been proposed under special conditions, such as transient, localized changes in Earth's magnetic field.

Still, Alexis noted that there may be other, poorly understood atmospheric plasmoids, similar to the "mysterious lights" of Hessdalen, Norway. Like the Magallanes phenomenon, these lights defy conventional explanations and could involve plasma structures that are still poorly understood.

In one of his reports, Alexis also calculated that, assuming this was a distant, flying object, it would have been moving at a speed of 590 mph (947 km/h), or roughly 0.7 times the speed of sound. Alexis suggested that the lights might not be a flying object, but some plasmoids can move at high speeds, he added.

A strange creature

In a separate report, technicians from La Serena UFO Museum suggested that a spider or moth may have inadvertently tripped the camera's sensor. That's because in the first photo, what appears to be an insect or arachnid can be seen along one edge of the image. However, the insect does not appear in the subsequent photos.

While one possibility is that the insect triggered the camera, this would only explain why the photo was taken, not why a bright, blob-like light appears, said

Cristian Riffo, director of the La Serena UFO Museum, who was also consulted for the UMAG report.

Riffo noted that the camera traps are designed to minimize false positives caused by insects, lasers or other stimuli. He thinks the rapid sequence of photos, in which the light appears to move toward the camera, is baffling and hard to explain.

"It could be two different phenomena: one natural, which triggered the camera, and the other, a light phenomenon, which remains unexplained," Riffo told Live Science.

Museum researchers analyzed before and after photographs taken by the same camera, during the day and at night, in the presence of wildlife and under different atmospheric conditions, and reviewed the manufacturer's manuals to rule out technical failures. So far, "they have not found an explanation," Riffo said.

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

Bravo added that the monitoring project in the area is scheduled to continue for up to 10 more years, and more camera traps are planned, raising hopes that this strange phenomenon may be captured again.

"The scientists involved are eager to know what this was. This is also science: it's about discovering what happens in nature," Bravo said.

Meanwhile, the mystery remains, and so scientists and those interested in anomalous aerial phenomena are working together to understand it.