Phil Drake

pdrake@greatfallstribune.com

CLANCY — What at one time was believed to be a UFO has turned out to likely be H2O, a Clancy resident says.

On Nov. 4, motion detector cameras set up on the back upstairs balcony of Dr. Richard O’Connor’s home captured photos of what he believed was a UFO. They were among 280,000 photos his cameras have taken over two years.

O’Connor, who is interested in UFOs and said he had set up the cameras in the hope of capturing something flying by, tried to have the photos analyzed and got various opinions, ranging from some saying that the photo had not been manipulated to others saying it had.

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After dozens of emails from all over the country, O’Connor ran experiments on suggestions that the photo may be of a falling water drop. He said he used a turkey baster and dropped water so that the cameras could take some pictures.

“I am now convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that the Nov. 4 photo ... was, in fact, simply and only a couple of falling raindrops fortuitously (or not) captured by the Reconyx camera,” he wrote in an email Wednesday to friends. “Why all of these images of the water drops appear as flattened ovals rather than spheres I cannot explain ... This must have something to do with the acceleration of the water drops combined with the camera's shutter speed.”

“It is difficult for me to put into words just how disappointed I am about this news, especially when I consider just how many people, including myself, were truly fascinated by the Nov 4, 2015 photo as well as all the time and effort I have put into going over all of these (280,000) photos,” he wrote.

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“Probably no Nobel Prize for me. Perhaps a Darwin Award?” he asked.

His email is addressed to ‘Friends of the JAML,” which is the Jesse A. Marcel Library that is on his property. The library is in honor of O’Connor’s friend, the late Jesse Marcel, a Helena physician who, as a boy in 1947, said he had viewed UFO wreckage in Roswell, N.M.

The group meets on Tuesdays at the library to discuss UFOs and other related issues. The next meeting is 7 p.m. March 1.

“Please do not bring any tar, feathers, or pitchforks,” O’Connor wrote.