Hi everyone,
Not sure if this is related at all, but I have been meaning to share something that I've seen over the past few months, on three occasions as of last Saturday. Late at night, around 11 PM, as I am having my last cigarette of the day, I have seen strange looking creatures flying across the sky.
Now, there's always the possibility of them being simply nocturnal birds, but their movements and appearance are just so erratic that the times I've seen them, I have had a hard time identifying them at all.
Best way I could describe them is, thin flying pillows, they look squared and white, decently large as they're high enough in the sky to avoid tall buildings but still be noticeable and discernible, no associated sound that I could hear.
The fact that they look squared is what makes me really doubt the nocturnal bird explanation, So I thought of moths maybe? or trash being carried about by wind? but the movement is slow and on a straight line, in a single direction and not on windy nights.
The reason I thought of a large moth, is because of the way it erratically flapped and moved, It was closer to swimming than flying. But this moth would have needed to be really large to be visible at such an altitude.
As i said, it could be a form of bird I am not familiar with, although it's the first time I've seen something like this in this area after 16 years of living here and I just couldn't explain it. Another way I could describe what I saw is, imagine if you saw a manta ray up in the sky swimming about.
The first time it was a single one, then a whole group of about 5 or 6, and the last instance it was a single one again.
So, not sure what to make of it but I wanted to share and see if anyone could perhaps offer an explanation or had seen something similar.
Thanks for reading.
Hi Alejo.
Interesting account. When it comes to moths, the first one I thought of is the
Luna Moth which has a light coloured underbelly, but only has a 7" wingspan max. I did some searching and found the largest moths are ones like the
Atlas Moth (up to 9.4"), the
Hercules Moth (up to 11"), and the
White Witch (up to12"). Now these are huge moths! And the largest butterfly is the
Queen Alexandra's Birdwing (up to 12"). The Luna Moth lives in Canada and the US and can be seen as early as March in Texas but this is February. The Atlas Moth lives in South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia and Borneo, and has a very short lifespan of about 2 weeks (!). The very act of flying can kill them since they don't eat after they leave the cocoon, relying only on stored fat. They leave the cocoon, they mate, they lay eggs and die. That's it! The Hercules Moth lives in New Guinea and Australia. The White Witch lives from Uruguay to Mexico but can be seen as far north as Texas. Queen Alexandra's Birdwing is restricted to the Oro Province in eastern Papua New Guinea.
I don't know where you live but if you are in one of these areas it's possible that you saw a moth/butterfly like one of these... but I'm doubting it because of how high up they were.
... decently large as they're high enough in the sky to avoid tall buildings but still be noticeable and discernible...
Even with a 12" wingspan, after going even 20 feet up, these things are getting pretty small even in full daylight. (Wow. I didn't think I could use the word 'even' 3 time in one sentence.)
I have some other questions:
- The group of 5 or 6 that you saw, did they fly in any kind of formation?
- In all three times that you've seen them, were they all heading in the same direction (all flying north or east, etc.)?
- Did you notice if they had a tail or head?
- Could you give me a rough estimate as to how high up they were? You wrote: "high enough to avoid tall buildings". How tall of building? A 3 story building? A 10 story building?
- Where do you live? As in, do you live in the country, town, city?
- How much ambient light was around to illuminate them, because it sounds as if you're only see them at night? I live in Canada and right now it's dark by 6pm.
- What was the weather like? Was there snow on the ground? Moon?
- Could you draw an outline sketch of what they looked like? Because a "white, squared, thin, flat pillow, erratically flapping, traveling in a slow, straight line, closer to swimming than flying like a Manta Ray" makes me think of a white/off-white 3-foot square piece of 1-inch thick memory foam, with the sides "waving" like a Persian Carpet Flatworm:
Just trying to get a clearer picture of what they looked like because if these are not 3rd density creatures then what struck me first off was that the creatures known as Rods are basically cylinders with wings, my creatures that I saw are very triangular, and now your creatures which are "squared". And it struck me how basic the shapes are.
Anyways,
Cheers!
Haha
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