Northern Beaches Sightings
January 2010
Aerial Light “Anomaly” in Avalon Beach
Updated Report 2010
MASSIMO TEODORANI, Ph.D.
e-mail: mteodorani@alice.it
In a previous short report of mine entitled “Are there airplanes, as seen from Avalon Beach, playing
with Mercury lights?” published on this website in 2004, together with some photo details of the
apparent UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) that have been reported in that area by Mr.
Chris Beacham, I discussed the optical spectra of the same phenomena that were taken by the same
person and then punctually sent to me for analysis. Together with a few spectra showing to be of
purely continuum type, which I dismissed due to a strong suspect that they might be due to airplanes,
at that time I concentrated my attention on line spectra that after my analysis showed to be caused by
Mercury. And in fact they were due to Mercury, as the analysis was correct indeed. At the present
time (January 2010) the photographic frames containing such Mercury spectra have been re-analyzed
by myself. Most of such spectra were taken at night time and it was therefore impossible to enhance
the photos portraying them in order to verify if the lights producing them were in the sky or not. These
lights appeared sharply above the horizon, compared to the streetlights that were much below. But a
sequence of photos that I have re-analized, where residual daylight is still present, permits to
distinguish where the horizon starts, and shows that what appeared as clouds are not clouds but rather
an elongated hill with houses seen through a quite misty weather (see Figure 1, Photo 10). Moreover
that sequence of photos, which were taken using a digital camera 1, after a more careful check, seems
to be affected by aberration of some sort possibly mixed up with atmospheric refraction effects. These
effects, though being the Mercury diagnosis correct, deceived the identification of the real aerial
object under study. This is obviously the guilt (or even the intention) of anyone. But sooner or later
these faults come out, and this is a pleasure when we want to protect rationality and the method of
Science, which is not an aristotelic dogma but a tension towards the truth that emerges from reality
that is reached by subsequent approximations, dialectics and healthy criticism and self-criticism.
But let’s now repropose entirely “Figure 1” of the previous 2004 report, then let’s discuss it through
the several photographs that are present. Image 1 shows one of the many photographs that were taken
by Chris Beacham. This photo, such as many others of this kind, is not at all a demonstration that a
real UAP is reported, in spite of the good faith of who took them (including also a lot of very patient
monitoring work in taking both photos and spectra). Exactly the same result can be obtained when an
airplane or other kind of aircraft is seen head-on with its headlights aimed at the observer. Therefore
these photos do not demonstrate at all that what is seen is a true UAP. Images 2 to 5 are enhanced
particulars of some of the photos that Mr. Beacham sent to me. These photos show apparently some
anomalies and a quite strange light disposition (images 2 and 3). Image 6 presents two snapshots that
clearly show a kind of helicopter-like aircraft that is rotating horizontally just above the water surface.
This aircraft seems, anyway, to present too many lights to be considered “normal”. Nevertheless its
shape reminds a lot a Kaman SH-2 Super Seasprite military helicopter, not an “UFO”. It might be that
Images 2 and 3 portray the same kind of aircraft seen edge on, in fact the geometric disposition of the
lights (which are veiled by some haze) is quite clear: this doesn’t mean at all that this is a “structured
The first spectra (2004) were obtained by Chris Beacham connecting a Rainbow Optics Spectroscope (ROS)
high-quality grating to a Nikon 5000 digital camera. The ROS was attached to a 2 x Nikon Tele Converter lens
(TC-E2) with the necessary adaptor, extending the normal Nikon 5000 zoom ratio. Exposure times were
normally ranging from 1 to 2 seconds. This permitted him to obtain stable and well-exposed spectra of slowly
moving targets.
1
Northern Beaches Sightings
January 2010
UFO”. Images 4 and 5 show some sort of “nebular effect” around an apparently unidentified light
source, which might be due to several prosaic causes, such as light seen through fog, haze or clouds,
or less prosaic causes such as the release of substances in the air. It might be expected that some
fellow of the “conspirational chemtrail paranoia” who occasionally see these photos will immediately
see here the “proof” of the release of some chemical substance in the atmosphere. But there is no
proof of this: scientific proofs are often difficult to obtain, while wishful thinking speculations are so
easy to create and diffuse, so that an infection inevitably propagates when critical thinking is
inexorably overbore by some kind of ill emotionality. Possible release of chemicals in the atmosphere
is sometimes a routine operation when local climate modifications are done in specific areas of the
world: this doesn’t mean that these chemicals are released to kill the human genus but only to attempt
to modify locally and transiently the climate (such as rain provoking, for instance). In addition to light
phenomena, Mr. Beacham’s DVD shows many contrail effects in the sky, and people might make
unproper connections, by arbitrarily changing “contrails” into “chemtrails” and associating together
several factors to build up a wrong mental construction with which to feed and infect uncritical
thinkers. Images 7 to 9 show isophotal contours and point spread functions of the object shown in
Image 2, where a clear structural disposition of lights is evident. Images 10 to 11 illustrate in some
way the most important photo of Figure 1. This photo looks aberrated by some optical effect, maybe
mixed up with some haze and mirage effect. Initially it appeared to show a slowly blinking light that
was descending, and its spectrum (Image 11) shows plainly Mercury emission lines (identified as: Hg
4358.35, Hg 5460.74, Hg 5769.59 and Hg 5790.65 Å). Such kind of a spectrum is totally a-typical of
an aircraft and at the same time it shows no anomalies as it should be expected by a sort of “exotic
propulsion system” (supporters of the “Vimana Mercury plasma engine” are unfortunately too
diffused still now). Time for working on these things is always very little, but the truth sooner or later
comes out. In fact a further analysis has just showed that what appeared to be clouds was not such.
They are houses on a hill seen through haze and a very distorted and highly deceiving photo.
Therefore the Mercury spectrum is due to plain streetlights (three of that specific kind) on that hill. No
mysterious Mercury spectrum is produced by those apparently “anomalous lights”. Mercury is
therefore ruled out totally. But the “deception effect” itself produced by these light events is not ruled
out at all, as I will try to explain at the end of this note.
Let’s now look at the correct spectrum of the lights that have been reported in a later phase by Mr.
Beacham. Figure 2 shows both the light and its spectrum. This is a continuum spectrum, namely a
spectrum showing no spectral lines: this was reported several times since the use of a spectroscopic
grating started. A simple research on Google will show that airplanes use mostly halogen light
illumination systems, which (except for some LED-like lights sometimes used by airplanes too)
produce a purely continuum spectrum that is typically extended from 4000 to 7500 Å. This is exactly
what is produced by the lights that Mr. Beacham has recorded, though not having a previous expertise
in spectroscopy, but rather an admirable tenacity in taking the data and learning then in time the
difficult “art” of taking spectra using a diffraction grating.
A continuum spectrum doesn’t automatically rule out any possible real aerial anomaly in the area.
Anomalous artificial objects might produce a continuum spectrum as well, or an overlap of really
anomalous phenomena might occur with a much larger number of prosaic lights. But looking at the
dynamical behaviour of light phenomena that I have seen so far occurring in that area and comparing
them with the spectrum they produce I would strongly suspect that the most probable origin of such
continuum spectrum is aircraft headlights while manoeuvring. It can be any kind of aircraft, not
necessarily passenger airplanes. Military activity of some kind (including possible flight of UAV,
UCAV or similar aerial vehicles) cannot be in principle ruled out but cannot be confirmed as well.
What can be quite well confirmed is that such aerial phenomena have been too much (deliberately?)
visible to be really considered of military origin, from which, on the contrary, some secret on new
projects is always expected to be maintained. So, what is the nature of this phenomenon?
Northern Beaches Sightings
January 2010
Figure 1. Figure taken from the previous report published in 2004. Photo 1 was taken on 15/08/2001 at
05:43 pm. Photo 10 was taken on 10/11/2003 at 05:21 pm.
Figure 2. Photo of a moving “aerial phenomenon” and its spectrum taken on 14/06/2005 at 05:51 pm.
Northern Beaches Sightings
January 2010
We should first tell what this phenomenon is not for sure. It is not a (natural and/or artificially
induced) plasma, as it is expected that a plasma heats the surrounding atmospheric medium by
triggering the excitation of Oxygen and Nitrogen spectral lines (and, in case, also lines produced by
excited Aerosol occasionally suspended in the air), but these lines are not present at all in any of the
several continuum spectra that were taken of this light phenomenon by Mr. Beacham. People who
think to find spectral lines in such spectra confuse inevitably spectral lines with simple noise
fluctuation of the continuum once the continuum is plotted on a intensity vs. wavelength graph.
Whatever their intensity spectral lines are very easily seen by eye, before the spectrum is plotted,
wavelength calibrated and the lines are properly identified: this is not the case of the spectra under
study here as no lines are visible. In principle, once extracting the camera sensor responsivity curve, it
is possible to calibrate this continuum in flux, and then after comparing it with the same operation for
airplane spectra (considering all types of illumination systems that they use), verify what are the
morphologic differences (such as slopes, or wavelength of intensity peaks for instance) in the
continuum spectra, but it seems to me that this is a too much time-consuming and possibly useless
operation, which is not at present justified, especially because the motion in the air of such objects is
not erratic such as in many UAP cases but rather quite regular, even if with some manoeuvring.
Had the spectrum showed some atmospheric spectral lines having possible alterations (such as a
Zeeman effect due to a magnetic field in the plasma, for instance) we would have met something quite
interesting scientifically (spectral lines are very precise markers of an ongoing physical process) and
quantitatively through measurement operations. But this never happened in this case, at least so far.
What astonishes a little in this case is the fact that such a “light phenomenon” behaved for some years
as if it “wanted to be visible” at all costs. Of course ordinary people don’t diagnose the nature of an
aerial object by its spectrum, but tend to be kind of “hypnotized” by the apparently “spectacular”
behaviour that is shown outside. This can produce devastating effects in the psyche of several persons
many of whom unconsciously tend to think of alien visitation (which is not impossible per se, but
certainly not in the terms wildly imposed by much of the so called “UFO literature”), and this might
be a very dangerous “social weapon” using which it is possible to manipulate psychologically entire
societies, exactly in the same way in which the alleged apparition of the Virgin Mary somewhere is
able to collect together and drive, as a remote control, enormous crowds of persons. No one can
prevent me from suspecting that someone who knows quite well this psychosocial mechanism enjoys
doing experiments of some kind (of course, not only in Avalon Beach, but also in many other world
locations, some of which I have been studying). Light artefacts of several kinds (including “Chinese
lanterns”, which are so much in fashion at these times) can be produced quite easily using several
means, including flares, halogen and/or tungsten lamps or else. It might be also some form of military
technology that is not necessarily used by the military. After ascertaining that so far nothing really
exotic occurs in Avalon Beach, I might consider the “light artifact hypothesis” something to be probed
more in-depth. Of course this investigation – for which the patience and constancy of Mr. Beacham
during these years deserves a recognition – is open to anyone who wants to look objectively at what is
going on. And different, or even antithetic, ideas are welcome, together with constructive discussions
and not sterile subtle attacks among childish “opposite factions”. It is absolutely necessary to go on
monitoring such “phenomena” (as Mr. Beacham and others did in the world) and their origin must be
sooner or later identified, even if, by my opinion nothing interesting from the physics point of view is
really present so far. I think the importance of this investigation is another one. But I will accept to be
wrong if a serious and rigorous proof of the contrary will be presented by someone who doesn’t
follow any faith other than probing the nature of reality and not attempting to transform the biggest
myth of this century into a virtual reality (iridescent soap bubbles sooner or later vanish in the air).

Aircraft Lighting: http://www.goodmart.com/products/bulb_halogen_airport_airfield_airplane.htm

Beacham C. (2004). Northern Beaches Sightings : www.surfin.com.au/nbsightings.html / also in CD ROM by the same author.