Why I Am Publishing This
I want to be clear about what this article is and what it is not.
It is not a claim that I have proof of parallel realities. It is not an attempt to convince anyone of a particular conclusion. It is a documented record of something that happened on the evening of 12 August 2026 in Tottington, Bury, Greater Manchester — something that I observed, photographed and could not explain. I am publishing it because the evidence is verifiable, the metadata is intact, and I believe that evidence which can be scrutinised scientifically should be put into the public domain rather than kept private.
I know this sits outside classical science. I am publishing it anyway, because the alternative — keeping documented anomalies private because they are inconvenient — does not seem like the right response to something genuinely strange.
The original image files, including full EXIF metadata with GPS coordinates and timestamps, are available for download below. Anyone who wants to examine them is welcome to do so.
The Eclipse: What Should Have Happened
A partial solar eclipse was visible from the United Kingdom on Wednesday, 12 August 2026. From Bury, Greater Manchester, the key timings were as follows:
| Event | Time (BST) |
|---|---|
| First Contact | 6:13 pm |
| Maximum Eclipse (92.5% obscuration) | 7:10 pm |
| Last Contact | 8:03 pm |
Sources: Time and Date and Royal Museums Greenwich.
At 92.5% obscuration, the Moon should have covered the vast majority of the solar disk. The reduction in light should have been obvious to the naked eye. The Sun should have appeared as a narrow crescent. This is not a subtle event.
What I Observed and Recorded
I had set my iPad up, zoomed in on the Sun with the exposure reduced to give a clear, focused image of the solar disk. From approximately 6:15 pm until 7:20 pm, I took a number of photographs. All are fully timestamped and contain GPS geolocation data in the EXIF metadata, placing them at 53.6143° N, 2.3393° W — Tottington, Bury.
At no point did I observe the Moon covering any part of the Sun. At 7:10 pm — the moment of maximum eclipse, when 92.5% of the solar disk should have been obscured — I photographed a full, unobstructed circular solar disk. The image is below. My mum and Phil, standing alongside me looking at the same sky, also observed nothing unusual.
At that same moment, I could hear a neighbour a few metres away excitedly describing to a passer-by exactly what he was seeing: the Moon covering part of the Sun.
We were in the same location. We were looking at the same sky. We were not seeing the same thing.
18:56 BST — Tottington, Bury (53.6143° N, 2.3393° W). At this moment, the eclipse should have been clearly visible. EXIF metadata intact.
AI Analysis of the Photograph
I subsequently submitted the photograph for analysis by Grok. The following is a summary of that analysis.
The EXIF metadata was confirmed as consistent with an unaltered image taken at the recorded location and time. The image shows a bright, essentially full circular solar disk, plus a separate small cyan crescent feature. The AI identified the cyan feature as consistent with lens flare or internal reflection rather than the silhouette of the Moon.
At the recorded time, the Sun should have appeared as a substantial crescent with approximately 92.5% of its disk obscured.
The AI’s conclusion: the metadata confirms the photograph was taken in Tottington, Bury, during the partial solar eclipse. The image itself does not provide visual evidence of the eclipse.
What Others Recorded at the Same Time
Amateur footage posted online in the hours following the event shows the eclipse as it would have been expected to appear. The following short videos were taken by members of the public elsewhere in the UK:
The conditions being observed and reported at the time are also documented in the following posts:
This was not a case of cloud cover obscuring the eclipse for some observers. The conditions at the time were consistent across the reports. Others, including my neighbour standing metres away, clearly observed the eclipse. We did not.
A Hypothesis — Nothing More
I want to be precise about what I am and am not claiming here.
What has been observed is this: for some people in the same location at the same time, the eclipse happened. For others — myself, my mum and Phil — it did not. Both groups have access to evidence. The evidence from both sides is in conflict with the other.
This bears a structural resemblance to what is sometimes called the Mandela Effect — groups of people with conflicting memories of the same event. The traditional Mandela Effect relies entirely on personal testimony, which makes it inherently difficult to investigate scientifically. What makes this incident different, if it is what it appears to be, is that both sides have documentary evidence that can in principle be examined, dated and verified independently.
My hypothesis — and I offer it only as a hypothesis — is that two realities may have been present simultaneously in the same location, overlapping sufficiently that observers in immediate proximity experienced different events. If that is the case, it would represent something that has not previously been documented with verifiable physical evidence on both sides.
I recognise that this goes well beyond what classical physics currently accounts for. I am not asking anyone to accept it. I am asking anyone who is interested to look at the evidence and apply whatever scrutiny they consider appropriate.
Download the Original Files
The original images, including full EXIF metadata with GPS coordinates, timestamps and camera data, are available for download. Anyone who wishes to examine them — to verify the metadata, analyse the images independently, or attempt to reproduce the conditions — is welcome to do so.
↓ Download original eclipse photographs (ZIP)
If you examine the files and reach a conclusion — in any direction — I would be interested to hear it. The contact details for FS HOT are in the footer below.