Photos of strange winged creature prompt 'angel' sighting debate online

Ghostly images captured by the motion sensor camera

A small community in northern Michigan believes it has been touched by an angel after a motion-sensor camera captured a mysterious object apparently looming over a parked vehicle. People online, however, remain unconvinced.

According to the local church in East Jordan and the man whose camera detected the presence, the image clearly shows a head and wings.

"I said, 'That's an angel!' And I was just blown away," Glen Thorman, a fire chief, told local TV station 16WNDU. Thorman quickly contacted his wife and pastor to share news of the find.

Jordan Rivers Church posted the pictures on its Facebook page, saying the photos had not been altered, and sparked a debate over what the camera had really captured.

It was really clear to me the minute I looked at the photo," said Pastor Deneille Moes of Jordan Rivers Church. "I just kind of freaked out a bit. I went like, 'Whoa! That's an angel!' And I texted him back, 'That's an angel.' There wasn't any doubt in my mind that we were looking at something supernatural."

While the logical explanation for the 'figure' points towards a moth, many locals remain convinced that they've received a sign from heaven.

The Facebook post led to arguments among people who pointed to potential tricks of photography or dismissed the images as simply a fluttering insect coming close to the lens. However, other commenters said that - although they don't buy the angel explanation - they're glad some people find comfort in interpreting the shape as a benevolent being watching over them.

But what do you think the camera captured?

Reader Comments

Rowan Cocoan · 2018-05-13T02:07:32Z

This one is easy. How's about a hovering Snowy Owl. They're the largest owls in North America? (Or is it the Great Grey owl. Both are natives or our Northern Boreal Forests and relatively lightly colored (Great Grey) or, like the Snowy, simply 'White" Also, they're crepuscular and/or nocturnal, and even here, large owls will often sit on just on the top of a light pole, (above the pointing downward lights) and take advantage of the fact that ~~you~~ mice rats, et al., can't see them past the light's glare, where they look like an perfectly shaped two foot extension of the pole, (here - Barred Owls.) There? A Snowy Owl would look like an illogically cylindrical two foot high pile of snow on the pole top above the lights.

I'd prefer the answer was angels, but sorry.

As to the folks in the article, people are predisposed to see what they wish to see, and, (sadly, all too often) blind to those things that are painfully obvious. See, e.g., 'The Emperor's Clothes.'

Also, because of the colder winters, Snowy Owls have been seen as far as Texas, while in Minnesota, they're CERTAINLY more common.

R.C.