Can anyone help me figure this out?

[notme]

So you think its altitude from the horizon was about 60 degrees or so?
[That would eliminate a motorcycle light.]

The lack of noticeable color makes me think it wasn't a meteoroid coming toward you, but I wouldn't rule it out.

Was Venus is the Western or Eastern sky? [Meteoroids are noticeably brighter when coming from the West due to Earths orbital speed and rotation rate. The altitude is important to this extra luminosity.]

I wouldn't rule out a flare as not all flares are the same. A plane is also a somewhat reasonable explanation, especially if an air strip is nearby.

Yeah it was about that. 60 or 70 degrees from what I can remember, and due to the location wouldn't have been any kind of vehicle.

I honestly couldn't tell you, haha. If I did notice Venus that night I soon forgot all about it once I saw this thing. That's interesting though.

We do sometimes get military aircraft flying over, but they're quite low and noisy and hard to miss. The closest air strip is about 15 or so miles away but I'm not sure if it even gets used anymore. I didn't notice any planes that could have dropped any flares and they're usually easy to spot as I live in the country with very little light pollution

 

[Artistscientist]

Hello everyone, I was hoping someone might be able to help me figure out something odd I saw one night a few years ago?

There are a couple of explanations that came to mind, but they don't really seem to fit what I saw, so maybe someone who knows more about this kind of stuff than me could help...

I was out walking my sisters dog around 10 or 11pm on a clear night, and there's a tree that she likes to stop and sniff around for a while (the dog, not my sister), and I'll usually stare up at the stars when they're out. So there I was, looking up at what I thought was Venus since it was quite a bit brighter and bigger than all the other stars, when I noticed it was getting bigger. I probably thought it was my eyes focusing on it or something, but it got even bigger... and bigger... until it was (my memory's slightly hazy on exactly how big it got) between half to the full size of the moon. It then proceeded to shrink down to its former size before shrinking even further into nothingness. It all lasted about 30-60 seconds, was very smooth in it's transition, and was kind of like a long pulse. It didn't change shape at all, it was a perfect circle. I can't recall whether the brightness changed as it grew in size or whether it stayed uniform, but it was certainly as bright as a full moon whilst it was at that size. There wasn't any noise either.

I've been perplexed ever since, and often thought about asking people in some kind of forum what they think it could have been, so here I am asking if any of you know what the hell I saw! My first thought was supernova, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong for various reasons. Then I thought maybe a meteorite, but I've seen plenty of those in videos and they're nothing at all like that was, so I'm at a loss. I live in rural England, if that helps?

Thanks to anyone who might be able to shed any light on this damn thing.

I have watched a similar event, but it turned out to be a large aircraft that was descending into Albuquerque directly toward me, so that there was seemingly little movement, but this did not last a long time. I would not throw out your supernova idea because, yes there are a lot of telescopes looking out there, but it's a very large sky and astronomers do miss things all the time. I also like the idea that a geosynchronous satellite may have slowly turned it's reflective surface past you. There are many interesting large items in orbit that we do not know about.

 

[notme]

I have watched a similar event, but it turned out to be a large aircraft that was descending into Albuquerque directly toward me, so that there was seemingly little movement, but this did not last a long time. I would not throw out your supernova idea because, yes there are a lot of telescopes looking out there, but it's a very large sky and astronomers do miss things all the time. I also like the idea that a geosynchronous satellite may have slowly turned it's reflective surface past you. There are many interesting large items in orbit that we do not know about.

Thanks for your input. I'm fairly certain it wasn't any kind of aircraft because of how it looked, and I'm quite used to seeing them. I could also tell that it was much further away than that. The geosynchronous satellite idea does sound very good though and would explain why it wasn't moving. Would it produce a light THAT big though? I mean it was at least half the size of the moon, and maybe a bit bigger. If so I think that could be the answer

 

[Manuel Antolín]

Hello everyone, I was hoping someone might be able to help me figure out something odd I saw one night a few years ago?

There are a couple of explanations that came to mind, but they don't really seem to fit what I saw, so maybe someone who knows more about this kind of stuff than me could help...

I was out walking my sisters dog around 10 or 11pm on a clear night, and there's a tree that she likes to stop and sniff around for a while (the dog, not my sister), and I'll usually stare up at the stars when they're out. So there I was, looking up at what I thought was Venus since it was quite a bit brighter and bigger than all the other stars, when I noticed it was getting bigger. I probably thought it was my eyes focusing on it or something, but it got even bigger... and bigger... until it was (my memory's slightly hazy on exactly how big it got) between half to the full size of the moon. It then proceeded to shrink down to its former size before shrinking even further into nothingness. It all lasted about 30-60 seconds, was very smooth in it's transition, and was kind of like a long pulse. It didn't change shape at all, it was a perfect circle. I can't recall whether the brightness changed as it grew in size or whether it stayed uniform, but it was certainly as bright as a full moon whilst it was at that size. There wasn't any noise either.

I've been perplexed ever since, and often thought about asking people in some kind of forum what they think it could have been, so here I am asking if any of you know what the hell I saw! My first thought was supernova, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong for various reasons. Then I thought maybe a meteorite, but I've seen plenty of those in videos and they're nothing at all like that was, so I'm at a loss. I live in rural England, if that helps?

Thanks to anyone who might be able to shed any light on this damn thing.

Hello, it could have been a meteorite coming in the exact direction to you, and burning fully in its way through the athmosphere.
It could explain sometthing.
This exceptionally rare, but possible.

 

[notme]

Hello, it could have been a meteorite coming in the exact direction to you, and burning fully in its way through the athmosphere.
It could explain sometthing.
This exceptionally rare, but possible.

I'm not so sure due to the way it looked, but it could have been. Thanks for your reply

 

[Helio]

We do sometimes get military aircraft flying over, but they're quite low and noisy and hard to miss. The closest air strip is about 15 or so miles away but I'm not sure if it even gets used anymore. I didn't notice any planes that could have dropped any flares and they're usually easy to spot as I live in the country with very little light pollution

It seems possible, at least to me, that a slow downward turn of an airplane toward that runway with landing lights on could match your description. If this is a flight training base, odds are even greater for such a sight as 15 miles would be about the right for a turn point for touch-and-go flights.

Supernovae peak brightness periods last for many hours. Stationary satellites don’t have high impact encounters and they are too far too be bright, much less with a slow increase in brightness if impacted.

 

[notme]

It seems possible, at least to me, that a slow downward turn of an airplane toward that runway with landing lights on could match your description. If this is a flight training base, odds are even greater for such a sight as 15 miles would be about the right for a turn point for touch-and-go flights.

Supernovae peak brightness periods last for many hours. Stationary satellites don’t have high impact encounters and they are too far too be bright, much less with a slow increase in brightness if impacted.

You could well be right. I don't think it was that, given what it looked like, but you never know. I think there's probably some subtlety or nuance to what it looked like that's hard to describe which could be throwing people off. I wish I'd had the hindsight to film it, if I even had my phone with me at the time.

 

[Clovis]

Hello everyone, I was hoping someone might be able to help me figure out something odd I saw one night a few years ago?

There are a couple of explanations that came to mind, but they don't really seem to fit what I saw, so maybe someone who knows more about this kind of stuff than me could help...

I was out walking my sisters dog around 10 or 11pm on a clear night, and there's a tree that she likes to stop and sniff around for a while (the dog, not my sister), and I'll usually stare up at the stars when they're out. So there I was, looking up at what I thought was Venus since it was quite a bit brighter and bigger than all the other stars, when I noticed it was getting bigger. I probably thought it was my eyes focusing on it or something, but it got even bigger... and bigger... until it was (my memory's slightly hazy on exactly how big it got) between half to the full size of the moon. It then proceeded to shrink down to its former size before shrinking even further into nothingness. It all lasted about 30-60 seconds, was very smooth in it's transition, and was kind of like a long pulse. It didn't change shape at all, it was a perfect circle. I can't recall whether the brightness changed as it grew in size or whether it stayed uniform, but it was certainly as bright as a full moon whilst it was at that size. There wasn't any noise either.

I've been perplexed ever since, and often thought about asking people in some kind of forum what they think it could have been, so here I am asking if any of you know what the hell I saw! My first thought was supernova, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong for various reasons. Then I thought maybe a meteorite, but I've seen plenty of those in videos and they're nothing at all like that was, so I'm at a loss. I live in rural England, if that helps?

Thanks to anyone who might be able to shed any light on this damn thing.

Atmospheric anomaly.

 

[Artistscientist]

You are in England, correct? If so, you are at bottom of the atmosphere and the ocean is all around you. Your air would contain lots of humidity, salt dust, and maybe other particulate matter. A beam of sunlight if reflected off a large array from space would spread out quite a bit, thus appearing in your soupy air to be much larger than the original reflecting surface. There is a long shot explanation that is more supernatural, however I hesitate to chat about this openly. What I can say is that there is more going on in the universe immediately around us than humanity will ever understand.

 

[notme]

Atmospheric anomaly.

You're not wrong.

 

[notme]

You are in England, correct? If so, you are at bottom of the atmosphere and the ocean is all around you. Your air would contain lots of humidity, salt dust, and maybe other particulate matter. A beam of sunlight if reflected off a large array from space would spread out quite a bit, thus appearing in your soupy air to be much larger than the original reflecting surface. There is a long shot explanation that is more supernatural, however I hesitate to chat about this openly. What I can say is that there is more going on in the universe immediately around us than humanity will ever understand.

Yeah, merry ol' England. I think you may have solved my little mystery. Though I'll probably still wonder about it for years to come just because of how odd it was. Then again the fun part of any mystery is the not knowing.

You're probably wise not to talk about it, haha. I tend to agree with you, though. Although I do think everything's natural, even if we don't yet have an explanation for it, and I like to be optimistic and think that we could understand pretty much anything given enough time and information. Who knows though... Could you possibly be referring to things that have been in the media quite a lot lately?

 

[1greenie1]

Hello everyone, I was hoping someone might be able to help me figure out something odd I saw one night a few years ago?

There are a couple of explanations that came to mind, but they don't really seem to fit what I saw, so maybe someone who knows more about this kind of stuff than me could help...

I was out walking my sisters dog around 10 or 11pm on a clear night, and there's a tree that she likes to stop and sniff around for a while (the dog, not my sister), and I'll usually stare up at the stars when they're out. So there I was, looking up at what I thought was Venus since it was quite a bit brighter and bigger than all the other stars, when I noticed it was getting bigger. I probably thought it was my eyes focusing on it or something, but it got even bigger... and bigger... until it was (my memory's slightly hazy on exactly how big it got) between half to the full size of the moon. It then proceeded to shrink down to its former size before shrinking even further into nothingness. It all lasted about 30-60 seconds, was very smooth in it's transition, and was kind of like a long pulse. It didn't change shape at all, it was a perfect circle. I can't recall whether the brightness changed as it grew in size or whether it stayed uniform, but it was certainly as bright as a full moon whilst it was at that size. There wasn't any noise either.

I've been perplexed ever since, and often thought about asking people in some kind of forum what they think it could have been, so here I am asking if any of you know what the hell I saw! My first thought was supernova, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong for various reasons. Then I thought maybe a meteorite, but I've seen plenty of those in videos and they're nothing at all like that was, so I'm at a loss. I live in rural England, if that helps?

Thanks to anyone who might be able to shed any light on this damn thing.

I have a suggestion or two. One is plausible, the other is pretty far out there. I live near a military helicopter training air base and regularly see them flying around at all hours. Their front lights look like they are sitting still when approaching and they are also quite difficult to hear if a breeze is going in the right direction. If a rescue/police helicopter has a Sunfire search light attached and they're hovering while slowly sweeping the light from one side to the other, at a distance it may look like what you've described.
The other is not so plausible but I have heard of a phenomenon like ball lightning doing something similar by coming into existence, hanging around for a short time (sometimes growing bigger and brighter then smaller and dimmer, sometimes appearing at just one magnitude) and then vanishing again. You can get them very high up in the atmosphere but are almost impossible to see without proper equipment.

 

[notme]

I have a suggestion or two. One is plausible, the other is pretty far out there. I live near a military helicopter training air base and regularly see them flying around at all hours. Their front lights look like they are sitting still when approaching and they are also quite difficult to hear if a breeze is going in the right direction. If a rescue/police helicopter has a Sunfire search light attached and they're hovering while slowly sweeping the light from one side to the other, at a distance it may look like what you've described.
The other is not so plausible but I have heard of a phenomenon like ball lightning doing something similar by coming into existence, hanging around for a short time (sometimes growing bigger and brighter then smaller and dimmer, sometimes appearing at just one magnitude) and then vanishing again. You can get them very high up in the atmosphere but are almost impossible to see without proper equipment.

Thanks for the suggestions. Because of where it was in the sky I don't think it was a helicopter. It was also a really peaceful night so I probably would have heard it. We get a a fair few helicopters flying around here - in fact I heard one a few hours ago - and I can usually hear them quite well. Although you never know.

I had considered ball lightening, but doesn't it usually accompany stormyish weather, or at least clouds? That was my understanding but I don't really know. There wasn't a cloud in the sky that night. I actually thought it had gone behind a cloud when it vanished but then realised there weren't any. It could well have been something like that though

 

[Ricardo Vincente]

Although It was 11pm at night I think it was a mirage. Probably it was heat leaving the earth that night which may cause a sheet of water to give that illusion.

 

[Eatmyrubber1969]

Hello everyone, I was hoping someone might be able to help me figure out something odd I saw one night a few years ago?

There are a couple of explanations that came to mind, but they don't really seem to fit what I saw, so maybe someone who knows more about this kind of stuff than me could help...

I was out walking my sisters dog around 10 or 11pm on a clear night, and there's a tree that she likes to stop and sniff around for a while (the dog, not my sister), and I'll usually stare up at the stars when they're out. So there I was, looking up at what I thought was Venus since it was quite a bit brighter and bigger than all the other stars, when I noticed it was getting bigger. I probably thought it was my eyes focusing on it or something, but it got even bigger... and bigger... until it was (my memory's slightly hazy on exactly how big it got) between half to the full size of the moon. It then proceeded to shrink down to its former size before shrinking even further into nothingness. It all lasted about 30-60 seconds, was very smooth in it's transition, and was kind of like a long pulse. It didn't change shape at all, it was a perfect circle. I can't recall whether the brightness changed as it grew in size or whether it stayed uniform, but it was certainly as bright as a full moon whilst it was at that size. There wasn't any noise either.

I've been perplexed ever since, and often thought about asking people in some kind of forum what they think it could have been, so here I am asking if any of you know what the hell I saw! My first thought was supernova, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong for various reasons. Then I thought maybe a meteorite, but I've seen plenty of those in videos and they're nothing at all like that was, so I'm at a loss. I live in rural England, if that helps?

Thanks to anyone who might be able to shed any light on this damn thing.

UFO

 

[IG2007]

UFO

Ay, I was just waiting for someone to post this.

Anyway, my theory could have been a supernova, if a supernova didn't last for months; my theory could have been ball lightning, but we don't really know how they happen and it was not a storm; my theory could have been earthquake lightning, if you didn't live in England; my theory could also have been UFOs, but why would a UFO do that?

My theory is that, it was an Iridium Flare from a geosynchronous satellite. Otherwise, gotta ask Sherlock, but ay, 221B is closed right now.

 

[notme]

Although It was 11pm at night I think it was a mirage. Probably it was heat leaving the earth that night which may cause a sheet of water to give that illusion.

It's certainly possible. Thanks for the reply

 

[notme]

UFO

Haha, technically yes

 

[notme]

Ay, I was just waiting for someone to post this.

Anyway, my theory could have been a supernova, if a supernova didn't last for months; my theory could have been ball lightning, but we don't really know how they happen and it was not a storm; my theory could have been earthquake lightning, if you didn't live in England; my theory could also have been UFOs, but why would a UFO do that?

My theory is that, it was an Iridium Flare from a geosynchronous satellite. Otherwise, gotta ask Sherlock, but ay, 221B is closed right now.

I think you're probably right. I didn't ever consider a geosynchronous satellite, but I think that's probably what it was. I can finally lay that mystery to bed

 

[IG2007]

I think you're probably right. I didn't ever consider a geosynchronous satellite, but I think that's probably what it was. I can finally lay that mystery to bed

Yeah, unless some green guy with a blue skull comes to you and tells you that it was he/she/it who did it, well, I think that's the most plausible theory.

 

[notme]

Yeah, unless some green guy with a blue skull comes to you and tells you that it was he/she/it who did it, well, I think that's the most plausible theory.

Yeah, I tend not to worry about pro bono proctologists from other star systems showing up unannounced in my bedroom, although I did see something a bit more "alien" flying around once. That one's a bit harder to explain and I didn't think this was the best place to bring that particular sighting up, haha

Thanks for the help though, I'm glad I finally have an answer

 

[Clovis]

Sailors out on the open ocean have seen the very same thing. Out where there was no light pollution. They had a lot of differant names for it. An omen, guiding light, witches moon, things like that.

 

[notme]

Sailors out on the open ocean have seen the very same thing. Out where there was no light pollution. They had a lot of differant names for it. An omen, guiding light, witches moon, things like that.

Oh yeah, I've heard stories of things like that

 

[vincenzosassone]

I believe a supernova would last days or weeks as opposed to seconds or minutes. I’ve also seen aircraft seem to be motionless as it was moving directly at me, it’s headlight becoming brighter, then turn and seemingly disappear as the light turned away.

I don't think so. A few nights ago I was watching the sky with my family and an aircraft appears. It was very fast instead. When he went to the constellation of lira though, it disappeared, as you said
Anyway, I don't think it could be an aircraft since such an explosion that swell and then shrink can't be changed for something like that.

 

[Wolfshadw]

I've seen aircraft lights stay "motionless" and grow for as much as seven minutes. If it weren't for the angle of view (only 20° to 30° from overhead) the OP reports, I would suspect it was an aircraft. My view was only about 15° above the horizon.

-Wolf sends