A retouched version of the original photograph shown below was published by the Los Angeles Times newspaper on Feb. 26, 1942. It shows an object illuminated from the ground by a number of searchlights. The object was being fired upon by anti-aircraft artillery since it was assumed to be an enemy aircraft. The original photograph recovered from the Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive at UCLA was published recently on-line by Scott Harrison. In an analysis of this photograph, Dr. Bruce Macabbee demonstrates that a light beam from the left appears to bend as it passes by the object. This trajectory is marked by a dotted line in the reduced-size image below. He suggests that the ray of light is reflected from the surface of the object.
An alternative explanation is proposed here. There is evidence that light is refracted when it passes through the space near a UFO. Such refraction could account for the deflection of the light beam seen in the image. In particular, a torus often seen near UFOs in photographs is thought to be visible precisely because it defines a region of space having different optical properties. See here (Figure 4), here, and here.
The object was cropped from the original picture and enhanced using equalization. Both versions of the cropped image are shown below. Notice that the enhanced image shows two half-toroidal shapes projecting above the object. These shapes are positioned where the light beam bends, so this region of space may have refracted the light beam as suggested above. As well as refracting the light, the tori also reflected incident light toward the camera since they are visible in the enhanced image.
Original photograph
| Bent light beam marked | Cropped object | Enhanced object |
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