camera artifact

I thought it might be worth making a thread on easily demonstrable lens reflections in news media photos. So many of these get posted on social media as things like "UFOs over Ukraine!" or with questions such as "what are those lights in the sky?". Source...

The above photo (on the left) is being shared as evidence of "Directed Energy Weapons" starting forest fires. Of course it's just a streak of light caused by the sun (which you can see is just off the top of the image). But it's not really, as some people have said a "lens flare". It's caused by...

[EDIT] I apologize for the inconvenience. I was not aware that the Album containing the pictures was set to private. I have since rectified the situation. My Dad's girlfriend noticed a strange anomaly in this picture and believes it to be an Alien Spacecraft. I'm not even confinced it's...

So, this supposedly shows Three Lakeway Center, in Metairie, Louisiana, a 403-foot (123 m)-tall skyscraper from the other end of Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. Curvature should show a 116m drop for that distance, and the buildings around it are lower than 116m. (Google Street, from the...

A video of a lightning storm shared on Facebook appears to show a large white object flying into a cloud, which then lights up, like from an explosion. However if we flip the bottom half of the image, we can see that the "object" is exactly opposite the bright side-light of the passing car...