SIGHTING: SHELLEY, IDAHO (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"I and my family were at a park in shelley, idaho to watch totality of the eclipse. right before totality, i was attempting to capture the phenomenon of bailey's beads or the diamond ring effect on the moon so i was taking a series of multiple pictures. i didn't see anything at that time. when i looked back at my pictures, i noticed an object which was gold or brown. if you think of the sun as a clock, the object first appeared around 11 o'clock, then the next picture it was about 9 o'clock, then 8 o'clock, then 7 o'clock. after this, the eclipse had reached totality and the sky was too dark to see this object through the lens. obviously, i had focused my lens on the sun, so this object is blurry. i and my family were caught up in the excitement of viewing the eclipse, so none of us actually saw this object. when i showed the pictures to the other family members who were present, no one remembered seeing it - even though we were able to take off our protective glasses at the point the pictures were taken and i had taken off the solar filter on my camera. i have some possible explanations - there were some small airplanes who were taking tourists up to see the eclipse in the sky in a neighboring city (rexburg), but again, no one witnessed nor heard an airplane in the area. it could have been a drone, but we didn't see any drones in this park - it was relatively isolated by the snake river and there were some local people, but no one in our family party noticed a drone. of course, it could be a bird, but it almost looks like the light is reflecting off of it. in the last picture i submitted, there is a light white object in the lower left which my space-obsessed son had already identified as the planet venus - and a viewer can see that the object in the previous 4 photos was not venus as it is a different color. i would really appreciate it if you can give an opinion!"