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Are photos of UFO in the outskirts of Los Angeles photoshopped? Internet says 'looks like reflection of light'

With every photo, the UFO appeared to have changed positions slightly, tilting and moving to a new spot in the sky

On January 23, an unidentified object was seen flying in the skies on the outskirts of Los Angeles, California. In some pictures exclusively obtained by TMZ from an eyewitness who was in a car, heading south on the 101 Freeway just outside of Thousand Oaks, a silvery object was seen flying in the skies with a trail of lights behind it. 

The outlet learned that the unnamed witness was on her phone when she saw the UFO hovering in the sky, flying in the same direction she was heading. As soon as she noticed the strange object, she proceeded to three click consecutive photos as quickly as she could. With every photo, the UFO appeared to have changed positions slightly, tilting and moving to a new spot in the sky. The witness said that the UFO was only visible for a few seconds before it vanished into thin air.

The story attracted a lot of attention on social media. "Weird spike in #UFO sightings in and around LA over the past 24hrs, w/ claims of people seeing everything from the TR-3B and flying disks to multiple objects traveling in formation. @TMZ even posted about one. Any of you see anything out of place overhead?" one of them wrote, while another said, "What better place then here? What better time than now?"

Most were skeptical in believing that it was an actual UFO spotted by the witness. One wrote, "It looks kinda like a reflection of light from inside the vehicle." Another commented, "This is so obviously the reflection of the car light in the windshield!!!!!!" One more quipped, "I hope no beams from this UFO start wildfires." Another remarked, "It’s probably @elonmusk’s with a beach banner reading.......DOGESTONK!" The next tweeted, "Just as easy as the tmz 'trademark/watermark/photomark/credentials' are placed on the photo...so is photoshopping the 'ufo' in place. If this is LA and they got it...wheres the other ppls evidence?"

With so much speculation surrounding the existence of extraterrestrials, TMZ obviously anticipated that a number of its readers would not blindly believe the photos published by them. As a result, they did their due diligence in verifying whether the pictures in question were photoshopped in anyway. "We were skeptical — thinking these could've been tweaked in Photoshop — so we had one of our art gurus take a closer look to see what she thought. Turns out, our own photoshop wiz seems to agree... these don't look like fakes," the outlet reported. 

It added: "Our graphic artist tried an experiment with stock images of 'glowing discs,' 'UFO's' and 'flying saucers' ... to see if the images could be manipulated in a similar fashion as the tipster's photos. She concluded it would be hard to cut/paste these images with the exact angles of the tipster's images. So, these photos do appear to be legit ... or at the very least, probably not photoshopped." 

TMZ did not reveal the name of the graphic artist who verified the photos. However, further credibility was added to the authenticity of the photos when the outlet failed to track down any other snap that looked exactly the same after having thoroughly searched for the same. It did, however, leave the photos open to interpretation, concluding that in the end, it "depends on what you want to believe".