Light over Petersburgh, NY

The report, as filed

I did not observe this in real time. Photos were caught on a wildlife camera.See attached photos.These are 4 of 5 photos on wildlife cam. • Photo 1: Numerous lights appear to be shining down from some central source in the air above our west lawn at 1:28 AM. Some low-level diffuse light seen to be lighting the lawn as well in later photos. It was a moonless night, and at this time of night if there was a moon shadow it would be from south to north at this time of year. Streaks do not appear to be snow falling as there are no branches above the lawn and snow on the nearby branches is not disturbed, so there was no air turbulence as from a helicopter (snow was powdery). Camera faces east. • Photo 2: Next photo at 2:53 AM, over an hour later, now shows increased diffuse light across the west lawn illuminating the west side of our house. Tree shadows suggest the light source is airborne and just above the tree crowns on the west side of the camera to be able to throw a long shadow of the tree across the lawn (shadow is west to east). • Photo 3: Next photo at 2:53 AM, still within that same minute, shows no change in diffuse light intensity. It does show a change in a single light beam coming down. It may be from point under an aerial object above the lawn. Would the aerial object need to be large to cast a tree shadow from the edge of the lawn and generate the “beams of light” from the north, noting the angle of the “light beam”? • Photo 4 at 3:33 AM over 30 min later: now the aerial object / source of the light shifts to the north or northwest slightly (note the tree shadow shift on the lawn and a shadow line on the side of the house going onto deck) but remains very close to the tree tops given the tree shadow stretches across the entire lawn. Questions … it is not clear how the camera would be activated as normal light does not activate camera. And why are there no pools of light on the snow? There is no line of sight to fly a drone at night, and trees surround this area. A helicopter this dangerously low would have blown dry, powdery snow off the branches in the photos.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #179728). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.