I pull CCTV 498 most nights now, RIV 60 eastbound, past Gilman Springs Road, and before anybody says it's just a Caltrans feed like that settles anything, yes I know its public, yes anyone can load it, that doesnt mean anyone is actually watching it at the same six or seven minutes every night the way I am. Six nights out of the last nine I caught headlights on that curve, same curve, same bend of brush on the right edge of frame, and six times I pulled the image into the editor and measured the space between the two lights pixel for pixel against the lane markers, which are a known width, painted to a state spec, so its not a guess. Sixty two inches. Six times, identicle every time, and I new the number was going to hold before I even opened the ruler tool because Ive been doing this long enough now to feel it coming.

Sixty two inches isnt a sedan and its not the pickup my neighbor drives either, I measured that one off a daylight shot for comparison because I wanted to rule it out before I said anything here. The spacing doesnt change month to month unless somebody swaps the vehicle, and this one hasnt moved once in nine days, not by an inch, and it shows up on that curve within eleven minutes of the same clock time every single night it shows up at all, 8:51, 8:56, once at 9:02 which breaks my own pattern and I am not going to pretend it doesnt... doesnt matter, I wrote it down anyway. 8:51 again last night. SIXTY TWO AGAIN. and I almost didnt log it because at some point six times stops being data and starts being an alarm going off in a house youre not in yet.

My porch light went out again Tuesday, different bulb than last time, I keep buying the wrong wattage at the hardware store and the kid at the register keeps not saying anything about it even though I know he remembers me by now. Anyway. The lane markers on 60 east are ten feet, Caltrans standard, I looked it up so the math isnt mine, the math is the states, I just did the dividing. Somebody could tell me this is a shift schedule, a delivery route, a guy who leaves for work the same time every night, and if that's the "boring explanation" you want to reach for, fine, go reach for it, I already flagged the timestamp on camera two fifty seven for the same kind of thing and got the same shrug that time too, I am done arguing it with people who havent pulled the feed once. I have pulled it thirty one times. Thirty one.

Pulling it again tonight at 8:51. Writing the number down before I look this time instead of after, so nobody can say I found sixty two because I went looking for sixty two.

UPDATE 9/9:

Pulled a second camera off the same corridor after somebody in my inbox said one curve wasnt a pattern, it was a commute, so fine, a second camera. CCTV 486, same district, RIV 60, westbound this time not eastbound, Pedley onramp, PM 4.407 or 4.4, doesnt matter, close enough. This ones so far out of focus the lane markers dont even resolve as lines anymore, just a soft grey smear, no ruler tool is measuring anything off a frame like that and Im not going to pretend it can. But two lights sit in that smear at the same rough gap as 498 does. Same rough gap. SAME. I can see it without doing the pixel math this time, which should bother me more than it does, because not needing the math is exactly the thing I keep telling other people not to do.

486 to 498 is twelve apart. Not twenty, like the two camera numbers somebody keeps bringing up to me in the replies like Ive never heard of that thread, twelve, and Im not going to force twelve into meaning something just because twenty meant something over there, the numbers dont have to match each other to both be real. What twelve means is the corridor is longer than I had it. I had one curve. now I have a curve and an onramp four miles off in the wrong direction with the same shape of light sitting on both of them, at close enough to the same hour that close enough stops being a word I get to use casually.

Laptop died mid capture last night, thirty one percent to zero in under ten minutes, which the manufacturer would call a defect and I would call a pattern except Ive got too many patterns open this week already and Im not putting the laptop in the folder yet. Anyway. 486 drops off the public archive by midnight most nights, faster than 498 does, so Im screenshoting the second it loads now instead of waiting to be sure.

Two cameras. same corridor. same shape of light. coincidence. no.