It is possible that the the hot pixel or stuck pixel is there the whole time but the noise cancelling and edge sharpening software covers it up through an algorithm that works on evaluating the values of the pixels around it. The camera software has to decide if the hot pixel is an image feature that needs sharpening (increasing local contrast) or whether it is noise that needs to be blurred and averaged out with the surrounding pixel values. That's why I say when there is no contrast (flat black) it has little comparisons to make so it might periodically play with the threshold value or other values trying to get the best noise cancelling / sharpening threshold for the picture. During that period when it is "re-evaluating" the standards it is using for noise cancelling or sharpening it might temporarily uncover the hot pixel and then cover it back up. I don't know for sure because I worked with still shots and Photoshop rather than movies, but a lot of the principles carry over, and yes the link you provided was an excellent explanation.
I have done some night photography before with long exposures of the sky on a Nikon D80. When looking at the raw image the noise and hot pixels were awful! The hot pixels were in all different colors. I could turn all the hot pixels white by turning up the color noise cancelling feature.
Another problem with my night shots was that the CCD sensor got really hot after being on for a few minutes causing whispy magenta discoloration in places... especially around the edges and corners.
Whether this is the actual explanation for the "eyes" in experiment 5, I can't say for sure, but I would still lean towards it being an artifact of the image processing. Digital cameras don't work very well in complete dark and the flat black background will make it very easy for any artifact in the image capture or processing to show up.
There's probably dozens of hot pixels that the software is covering up most of the time. My Nikon D80 had dozens and got more as it got older. Photoshop has a feature that will memorize where the hot pixels and dust on the sensor are and then automatically cover that up. I'm sure cell cameras have this automated as well.
So it is probably just that a different hot pixel escaped the noise cancelling software on different occasions.
If these are hot pixels being temporarily revealed, I would think they should occur at a random but fairly average rate (as long as the light conditions remain constant). You could record several hours of (control) video and count the hot pixels (very tedious!) and determine the rate at which they are appearing. Then do the experiments and see if the rate of occurrence is statistically significantly different (determine the average and standard deviation). This would take a lot of time especially if the rate is very low, but I think it would be the only reliable way in this case to tell if something interesting or mundane is happening here.
Also, you could gather as many screenshots of the flashes and overlay them on top of each other and see if any are in the exact same location. That to me would be solid proof it is a hot pixel... (why would aliens pick on just one pixel??? :) )
Thank you for this. I really appreciate you taking the time to put it together. This is all new information to me and maybe it can explain a few of them, Im totally open to that, but it doesn't completely satisfy me. Mainly because I have now seen these thing in person with my own eyes, which I have no way to provide any evidence for, so I don't expect that to mean really anything to anyone. Plus I'm not the only person who has reported seeing these things, its actually quite common with people who try this type of thing.
Also, this is not the only experience I've had with this whole thing. I've had more that are way more strange than this, but again I have no evidence to present, and I don't think they are appropriate for this forum. The only reason I shared this one is because of my attempt to try and understand it as scientifically as I can, and maybe I can have a interesting and productive conversation about it. Or maybe some people who would want to try and replicate what I did just to see what happens.
Why would aliens pick one pixel? I'm not 100% its a pixel (just my opinion) and I basically asked them to respond via my camera. I know that sounds completely silly, but if If we entertain the fact that we might be communicating with another intelligent something, its not to radical of an idea that they would oblige. I can only speculate.
Thanks again for your info :)