Mysterious Shadow Caught on Camera near Falmouth, Maine

The mystery shadow seen here crossing the road’s center line. (207 Paranormal / Facebook) — The mystery shadow seen here crossing the road’s center line. *(207 Paranormal / Facebook)*

207 Paranormal, a non-profit investigative group out of Maine, posted a video to their Facebook page on September 2nd that shows a mysterious shadow captured on dash cam.

Falmouth Shadow
This was filmed in the Falmouth, Maine area a few days ago. The witness was reviewing dashcam footage to see if he had captured video of a deer that had run in front of him earlier. Well, that's no deer...
Posted by 207 Paranormal on Wednesday, September 2, 2020

According to the caption accompanying the video,

This was filmed in the Falmouth, Maine area a few days ago. The witness was reviewing dash cam footage to see if he had captured video of a deer that had run in front of him earlier. Well, that's no deer...

A few seconds into the video, what appears to be a large shadow with no immediately discernible source dashes across the road.

Viewers of the video were quick to speculate that it might represent an animal running across the road, perhaps distorted by the lighting conditions and frame rate of the camera. Popular suggestions for the type of animal included a fisher cat, dog, feral hog, and even an anomalous big cat.

But a close look at the video shows a lack of solidity in the shadow which contradicts any narrative which suggests it represents a flesh-and-blood creature. The shadow seems hazy and translucent as it appears to the left of the road at the periphery of the vehicle’s headlights, before becoming more opaque as it crosses the center line and fading somewhat on the other side of the road as it begins to move out of the illuminated area.

The shadow is clearly translucent as it passes over the fog line to the camera’s right side.

That translucency has some speculating that it could be paranormal in nature—a relatively popular explanation being that the shadow might represent a ghostly black hound.

However, there could be a more prosaic explanation, according to the Singular Fortean Society’s photograph and video analyst Emily Wayland.

“We might be seeing a relatively small object flying close to the vehicle’s headlights,” she said. “The shadow is blurry and translucent at the edges of the areas illuminated by the headlights and opaque towards the center, which is exactly what you would expect if an object were moving in front of a light source. As it moves more directly in front of the light source and more directly blocks that source, the shadow will become darker before fading away as the object moves out of its way.”

“I think this could be a bird flying in front of the vehicle,” she continued. “A relatively small object, say five or six inches, could project a shadow of several feet if it’s close to a light source, which we can assume it is in this case because it’s not visible over the hood of the vehicle.”

“It’s difficult to calculate anything more exact without knowing the size and speed of the vehicle,” she added.

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