{"id":1172,"date":"2017-11-01T21:32:56","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T02:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2017\/11\/01\/171101_gamecamufo\/"},"modified":"2022-04-05T16:51:43","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T21:51:43","slug":"171101_gamecamufo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2017\/11\/01\/171101_gamecamufo\/","title":{"rendered":"Stranger Things in the Back Yard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t had much activity on the game camera lately, <i>possibly<\/i> due to the fact that the batteries were dead. Once I figured that out, I replaced them and set the camera on a step on our back porch, facing out into the yard.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When I downloaded the images this morning, there was our neighborhood skunk, taking his usual stroll from one side of the yard to the other. A possum also made an appearance &#8212; and somehow managed to bump into the camera while meandering around. These things were interesting, but not too exciting.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But the last clip was a whole other thing. It started out in a boring fashion; I couldn&#8217;t even discern what had triggered the camera. But about 15 seconds in, something&#8230;weird&#8230;occurred.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In this case, a thousand video frames are worth a hundred words, so take a look for yourself.<\/p>\n<div><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/240929821\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>So, any ideas about that that last flurry of activity might have been? I&#8217;ve watched it a couple of dozen times and I still have nothing but a cockamamie theory. Don&#8217;t laugh, but here it is:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/gamecamufo.jpg\" alt=\"Captioned game camera photo\"><\/p>\n<p>We do have owls in the neighborhood, and the wings on this UFO <i>could<\/i> belong to one of them. What I can&#8217;t tell for sure is whether what looks like dangling feet belong to a second creature (in the claws of the first one), or if they&#8217;re very poorly photographed bird&#8217;s feet.<\/p>\n<p>If the former theory is correct, the question then becomes &#8212; what did the owl capture? If we were in West Texas, I&#8217;d quickly guess a rabbit, but we&#8217;ve never seen one in these parts. It&#8217;s a mystery, for sure.<\/p>\n<p>I understand <i>The X Files<\/i> is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox.com\/the-x-files\/article\/about-the-show-59b6c4a03a12a200209afb88#article-59b6c5079cfc960020d441d2\">returning to television<\/a>. If they&#8217;re in need of an episode plot, this is a good place to start. The truth is out there&#8230;perhaps in our back yard.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ccc;\" src=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/gamecamufo_cropped.jpg\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t had much activity on the game camera lately, possibly due to the fact that the batteries were dead. Once I figured that out, I replaced them and set the camera on a step on our back porch, facing out into the yard.&nbsp; When I downloaded the images this morning, there was our neighborhood&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2017\/11\/01\/171101_gamecamufo\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Stranger Things in the Back Yard<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-texas-hill-country","category-wildlife-birds","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9552,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions\/9552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}