“It is quite conceivable that nature should present us with circumstances so deeply organized that our observational and logical errors would entirely mask the pattern to be identified.” — Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia
The universe is a strange place. On the morning I received these photos, I was engaged in a conversation with my son, about the possibility of different forms of life that may exist. I discussed the possibility of interdimensional entities existing and told him that some reported sightings of creatures, such as The Mothman, Bigfoot or The Yowie, may in fact be brief glimpses into other dimensions.
I further explained that the opposite may also be true. And that these beings and sightings may not exist in physicality at all, but instead play a part in some wider phenomenon that likes to play tricks on us. Some sort of conscious information field, designed to excite, confuse and lead people down rabbit holes to keep them busy and out of the holes that contain our reptile overlords (or something like that).
The conversation was not entirely out of the norm for me, but it had been some time since I had discussed the possibility of interdimensional beings, and years since I had said the word Yowie, out loud.
Not 3 hours later, I received a message from a close friend claiming to have received a photo that showed ‘something’ in the shadows.
As far as I am told, the individual who took the photo was working at the time and heard some strange noises coming from an isolated area in the photo below. So they decided to take some pictures.
This photo is unfortunately, very compressed. I will attach the raw files to the bottom of this page, for anyone who might like to reproduce the following.
After receiving the first photo, I received another, with the area the sounds were coming from circled.
I chucked the image into GIMP (A free photo editing tool), cropped and magnified the area.
From here, I increased exposure and saturation.
A strange reddish-purple cloud became visible, and what appears to be a humanoid shape, with glowing red eyes, standing behind/in front of a tree could now be seen.
I magnified the area around the tree moreso, while increasing exposure slightly again.
The strange entity can be seen in the original photo also, by simply increasing exposure with no magnification.
Here’s a side-by-side of the original photo, and an ‘exposure increased’ version of the same.
Inverting the photo after increasing exposure shows no signs of tampering. No blending inconsistencies, no strange pixel formations, and direction of lighting is consistent throughout.
To take the analysis further, I ran the original (uncompressed) image through a series of programmatic tests; going well beyond what GIMP’s exposure and saturation adjustments would usually reveal. The goal was to examine the raw pixel data, channel by channel, and determine whether the anomaly is consistent with the surrounding image data or shows signs of manipulation.
The first thing worth noting is how clean the rest of the image is. The sky registers as absolute zero across all three colour channels (Red, Green, Blue). No noise, no stray light, no sensor artefacts. The standard deviation across the sky pixels is 0.00. It is, for the lack of a better term, a void.
This void matters because the anomalous region (the reddish-purple cloud and the entity below it) exists within this void. It is not part of a noisy, artefact-riddled image where strange shapes might appear randomly. It is a localised cluster of structured colour data, surrounded by nothing. Or in more Aussie terminology, it stands out like dog’s balls.
By separating the image into its individual Red, Green and Blue channels and boosting each independently, we glean more information.
A distinct red mass is visible above the tree line on the left side of the image. Below it, a series of small, red-dominant pixels cluster at what appears to be the “head” area of the entity. Pixel values here read around R=11, G=0, B=3-6 faint, but consistently red-dominant.
A corresponding blue mass appears in roughly the same area as the red cloud, slightly offset. This is what creates the purple appearance when the channels combine. Below it, a cluster of blue-dominant pixels (R=0, G=0, B=2-4) forms what appears to be the “body” of the entity the teal or grey shape visible in the enhanced images above.
The Green channel is notably quiet in the anomaly region compared to red and blue. The surrounding vegetation, by contrast and as you would expect. is strongly green-dominant.
And this is one of the reasons why the image is so strange. Everything in the scene that is illuminated; the grass, the trees, the shrubs, the road, they all reflect a warm colour temperature consistent with an artificial light source. When you boost the exposure, the vegetation glows yellow-green and orange, consistent, again, with the same artificial light source.
The entity/s do not follow this pattern. Both the cloud’s and the humanoid’s colour signature is cool, dominated by blue, with almost no green component. In a scene lit by a warm artificial light, an object at the tree line should reflect the same warm tones as the vegetation around it. Instead, this region presents a colour temperature that is strikingly different from its surroundings.
There are mundane explanations for this. Different materials reflect light differently, and shadow regions can skew to a cooler colour when only receiving scattered ambient light. But at night, with little natural light and the only light source being a strong, yellow, artificial one, why this particular region would appear cold/blue becomes much harder to account for.
ELA is a technique used in digital forensics to detect image manipulation. It works by re-saving the image at a known compression level and comparing the result to the original; areas that have been edited or composited will typically show different error levels than the rest of the image.
The ELA results for this image show a uniform error pattern across the entire frame. The anomaly region does not present a different compression signature from its surroundings. This is consistent with the anomaly being part of the original capture, rather than something added in post-processing.
So what the heck is it? Is it a Yowie? For those who grew up in Australia, the Yowie is a popular local cryptid, with sightings being reported somewhat regularly and carries with it a strong indigenous history.
As reported by the Sunshine Gazette
“Two birdwatchers searching for owls late one night on Fig Tree Walk at Little Yabba Creek spotted the man-like creature, covered in thick black fur, staring at them with glowing red eyes.“It was very much a tall upright shape, not stooped over at all like a gorilla,” one of the birdwatchers, who asked not to be named, said of the frightening encounter.”
Unfortunately, much like the birdwatchers, the original photographer has asked not to be named, and the location the photo was taken has been asked to be kept secret, as photos of the area are prohibited for security reasons. However, I can confidently state that I know the area well, as the location has been shared with me, and I intend to make a trip out there if I can, to check the area for any anomalies.
There is also the possibility this is a kangaroo, captured in a low light environment and ‘mutated’ due to modern camera artifacting. Artifacting refers to unexpected visual or audio distortions, errors, or anomalies that appear in digital media, gaming, or image processing, often appearing as blocky pixels, flickering lines, or strange, random colors.
There is also the presence of the strange reddish-purple cloud, almost directly above the photographed entity. Could this be related to whatever phenomena (if any) that caused the entity to appear?
I have been put in touch with the original photographer also and have reached out for comment/further information. I will provide updates on this article as I come upon them.
Until then, stay strange.
