Any Idea What I Just Saw?

[BeckyBewildered]

But satellites MOVE, do they not? The ones I see are MOVING, solid, stay-on lights - faint, but obviously discernible, moving objects - that's the way I know they're satellites. They don't blink, they stay on. They don't make any sound - they just sail obliviously across the dark heavens. This thing I saw sat in one place, and if it moved at all, it only moved a couple of degrees northward in a half-hour of observation. It pulsed a bright light at 9 or 10-second intervals while I could see it - no more, no less - that's what caught my eye in the first place, that it blinked brilliantly and did not move. To my knowledge, satellites must move rapidly in order to stay in orbit. Now, Custer County, Colorado (and the San Luis Valley, west of Custer County) is supposed to be the home of "mystery lights" that hover over the ground - "swamp gas" or the spook equivalent thereof. I have never witnessed that phenomenon, nor do I believe in alien spaceships or ghosts. This thing I saw was apparently outside our atmosphere and did not move fast enough to appear to be a satellite. ... Which was the meteor shower I witnessed? I'm packing to move across-country and don't know where my meteor-shower chart is.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Satellites do move. The higher they are, the slower they move. Geostationary sats move not at all, though the background stars do move at 1 degree every minutes as they rise and set.

There are 4 low level active meteor showers right now;

AUR: The Aurigids; they peaked Sept 1
SPE: September Perseids, a low level shower during most of September.
NUE: nu-Eridanids...a newly dsiscovered very low level shower
ANT: Antihelion meteors (This time of year they used to be called the Southers Piscids)
Also there are the evr present sporadic meteors that come from anywhere in the sky, heading in any direction.

MW

 

[ZenFuryBuddha]

i witnessed this event as well - here it is as i witnessed it. i do not know degrees and all that stuff, so the best i can explain it. approx 3 am i couldnt sleep due to back pain, and decided to take my dog out and have a cigarette. i live in a tiny rural community, so the night sky is excellent for viewing. orion was up in the east at maybe 45 degrees up from the horizon? again total guess there. i always look at the night sky, and am very used to seeing satellites, iss, blah blah, live an hour or so from offutt afb and omaha intnl airport, so am also very accustomed to all manner of air craft. i have seen countless meteor showers, and have done more than average viewing thru binoculars and up to 9" telescopes. i am used to the night sky gang, and this quite simply matched absolutely nothing i have ever witnessed, and i have been out every night since at all hours trying to find it again, and cannot. it started out simply still. i noticed a flash in the sky out of the corner of my eye about as bright as venus. once i located where it came from, every 9 seconds, and it was certainly precisely timed, a very bright flash occurred. much brighter than any aircraft at the normal altitudes you see around here, which is just about all of them (the skies are so clear you can easily spot the afterburners when offutt scrambles play time practice runs). anyways, it was about the same height above the horizon as orions belt, but over the hour and a half i watched in complete awe and a little confusion, it went from sitting still in the sky, to only traversing one grouping of stars over that time, but once moving was noticeably doing so at an extremely high altitude and very constant pace, all the while pulsing every 9 seconds. it was no satellite, i say this with at least 20 years of night sky watching. back pain keeps you up many a night. i dont know what this was, but damn i want to.

 

[Jaydenbz2]

On many nights I have seen strange 'light flashes', they occur from the horizon to the top of the sky, somewhere near the SW I think, Anyhow, on the nights I see no clouds where the 'light flashes' occur.The light flashes seem to be flourescent blue.On the nights of the flashes I notice that the stars turn red around the area, they appear distorted to a degree.Also, I look at the clouds, I can see areas in them as if wind has blown around a seemly circular object or shape, like cresent shaped clouds, please explain, as I can not.

Another Weird thing I have seen is some sort of strange plane, It was narrow, has 2 wings at the back and 2 shorter wings toward the front, the front seems to bend down and the plane flew very fast, It was at low altitude, still in the troposphere.It zipped from East to west in about 30 seconds.Are these new US Aircraft, they seem like they have no aerodynamic capabilities yet it flew so fast, must be a new engine, or maybe it was not human in design.

 

[adrenalynn]

Welcome to SDC!


Where exactly are you geographically?

Where exactly were you looking to see these flashes?

At what time exactly are you observing them?

You have to help us help you.

 

[MeteorWayne]

i witnessed this event as well - here it is as i witnessed it. i do not know degrees and all that stuff, so the best i can explain it. approx 3 am i couldnt sleep due to back pain, and decided to take my dog out and have a cigarette. i live in a tiny rural community, so the night sky is excellent for viewing. orion was up in the east at maybe 45 degrees up from the horizon? again total guess there. i always look at the night sky, and am very used to seeing satellites, iss, blah blah, live an hour or so from offutt afb and omaha intnl airport, so am also very accustomed to all manner of air craft. i have seen countless meteor showers, and have done more than average viewing thru binoculars and up to 9" telescopes. i am used to the night sky gang, and this quite simply matched absolutely nothing i have ever witnessed, and i have been out every night since at all hours trying to find it again, and cannot. it started out simply still. i noticed a flash in the sky out of the corner of my eye about as bright as venus. once i located where it came from, every 9 seconds, and it was certainly precisely timed, a very bright flash occurred. much brighter than any aircraft at the normal altitudes you see around here, which is just about all of them (the skies are so clear you can easily spot the afterburners when offutt scrambles play time practice runs). anyways, it was about the same height above the horizon as orions belt, but over the hour and a half i watched in complete awe and a little confusion, it went from sitting still in the sky, to only traversing one grouping of stars over that time, but once moving was noticeably doing so at an extremely high altitude and very constant pace, all the while pulsing every 9 seconds. it was no satellite, i say this with at least 20 years of night sky watching. back pain keeps you up many a night. i dont know what this was, but damn i want to.

So you watched continuously for 1 1/2 hours with a bad back while walking the dog? Were you standing up, or in a lawn chair (believe it or not, that's important) What constellation did the flashes appear in?

Orion was from 10-25 degrees above the horizon at 3 AM from Omaha, NE; the center of the belt was 18 degrees above the horizon. Was it to the left or right of the belt? How far to the left or right when you first spotted it, and 1 1/2 hours later?

So you've never seen flaring satellites, flashing satellites, varying satellites? Most sats are the same brightness crossing the sky, but 10-15% are not. Some move very fast, some move very slow, and geostationary satellites don't move at all, while the starfied moves behind them!

My guess is a satellite, but without more specifics about where it was in the sky, it's kind of guesswork. I know you don't want to hear that; no one ever does...

 

[Jaydenbz2]

@Adrenalynn, Hi and thanks for the welcome.

I am located in Sydney, NSW, Australia

I witness these events from about ENE to ESE at about 7:30 at night til about 9:30/10.

An army base is located near my house but their is zero noise with the flashes, maybe they are sprites.