Weird Sighting Yesterday

[Deleted member 8431]

Hi everyone!

Just want to share a weird experience that happened yesterday. It also reminded me of another very similar experience that happened in 2008.

Yesterday at nighttime, I was smoking a cigarette outside looking at the clear full-of-star sky. I live in the mountains and it's a very rural area so no traffic, street lights, etc. I'm always mind blown at the majesty of the universe. The milky way makes my soul literally vibrate.

So anyways, enough with poetry. So at one point, I looked north/north-west and saw a very bright body. About as bright as Venus. Then, I noticed that this body was moving. It was moving VERY fast considering it's very far distance. It seemed to go straight at first but I noticed by refering to other stars that it seemed to ''wave'' a bit. It was going south/south-west and at some point when it was pointing west, it fainted and dissapeared. It wasen't a cloud as the sky was clear and anyways, it never reappeared.

Same thing had happened with a friend in 2008 in other area. A very bright body that came out of nowhere, went straight, we ran after it and it vanished to our amazement soon after.

What are the options?

- Plane: Nope. Too bright, to fast, too quiet and no flashes

- Atmosphere penetrating body: Nope. Didn't disentegrate, didn't fall, moved straight at constant speed, no tail

- Sattelite: Maybe. I have seen them before though and they are usually much much smaller and much much slower. Also they don't disseapeare like this one did.

- Space Station: Most probable anwser in my opinion. Only the disseapearing factor makes me wonder as I have already seen it in the past and it did not and went past the horizon. Perhaps it just went out of the sun's radiating zone straight in the earth's shadow thus why it vanished. If that is possible, I would most likely go for this one.

- UFO: Not much likely in my opinion but I can't rule it out.

So what do you think?

 

[ocean59]

Could be random space junk falling. My understanding is that there are literally thousands of pieces of junk floating around up there.

 

[Richs]

Hi JayMark,
I had a similar experience several years ago. It was definitely a solid body of some sort reflecting sunlight at a very high altitude and obviously moving very fast. It was also traveling generally Westward. It suddenly blinked off instantaneously, as if someone had just turned off a light switch. Satellites only 'fade out' when traveling West to East, which is away from the Sun. This also takes several seconds from when the object begins to fade till it is totally dark and invisible. So, it is not possible that the object I saw had simply gone into Earth's shadow as it was traveling toward the source of light and not away from it. What it actually was I can only conjecture, but it certainly did something which is not normally possible.

 

[Deleted member 8431]

Could be random space junk falling. My understanding is that there are literally thousands of pieces of junk floating around up there.

I could but I highly doubt so.

It wasen't falling at all but rather moving in the sky as if it was orbiting the earth. That's why I think maybe a sattelite or space station.

But again, I have seen many many sattelites in my life and they are usually very small dots in the sky and don't move as fast. What I saw was pure white and very very bright. About as much as Venus is on a clear sky maybe even a bit more.

 

[Deleted member 8431]

Hi JayMark,
I had a similar experience several years ago. It was definitely a solid body of some sort reflecting sunlight at a very high altitude and obviously moving very fast. It was also traveling generally Westward. It suddenly blinked off instantaneously, as if someone had just turned off a light switch. Satellites only 'fade out' when traveling West to East, which is away from the Sun. This also takes several seconds from when the object begins to fade till it is totally dark and invisible. So, it is not possible that the object I saw had simply gone into Earth's shadow as it was traveling toward the source of light and not away from it. What it actually was I can only conjecture, but it certainly did something which is not normally possible.

Hi Richard S,

Very bright, very fast indeed as well for me. Second time I see that.

I have seen (I think) the space station as well years ago but it was actually brighter that what I saw days ago and never vanished (just went from horizon to horizon). That's why I'm hesitant a bit but still more to beleive it was it again seen in a diffrent context perhaps involving the earth's shadow as well this time.

Good point there is that what I saw indeed fainted and didn't vanished in the blink of an eye. So it points again towards a sattelite/space station. Sattelite is less probable in my opinion because of excessive speed and brightness as opposed to the many sattelites I have seen in the sky already.

So I guess it was the ol' space station again. I stay open to other possibilities as well.

Thank you guys for replying.

 

[ocean59]

Could be random space junk falling. My understanding is that there are literally thousands of pieces of junk floating around up there.

I could but I highly doubt so.

It wasen't falling at all but rather moving in the sky as if it was orbiting the earth. That's why I think maybe a sattelite or space station.

Well, all that space junk is indeed orbiting the earth. If it were all 'falling' we'd need some pretty strong umbrellas (bad joke). :)

My only point was that such random pieces of machines beginning to enter the atmosphere could appear in any number of ways. Perhaps it begins to burn up, or glow, temporarily, and then appears to suddenly stop. Perhaps they are in orbit, but begin to succumb to gravity, and slowly become visible as they descend, still in orbit. This would give the appearance of 'left to right' motion, and many other possibilities.

I think the same possibility could also apply to Richard S.'s situation, based on what was described.

I don't know for sure, of course, but I haven't heard any reason yet to so strongly discount such a possibility. I mean, there are thousands and thousands of these things we've left floating up there, of different size, shape, and velocity, and composed of all sorts of 'space-age' materials. Who knows?

 

[Deleted member 8431]

Could be random space junk falling. My understanding is that there are literally thousands of pieces of junk floating around up there.

I could but I highly doubt so.

It wasen't falling at all but rather moving in the sky as if it was orbiting the earth. That's why I think maybe a sattelite or space station.

Well, all that space junk is indeed orbiting the earth. If it were all 'falling' we'd need some pretty strong umbrellas (bad joke). :)

My only point was that such random pieces of machines beginning to enter the atmosphere could appear in any number of ways. Perhaps it begins to burn up, or glow, temporarily, and then appears to suddenly stop. Perhaps they are in orbit, but begin to succumb to gravity, and slowly become visible as they descend, still in orbit. This would give the appearance of 'left to right' motion, and many other possibilities.

I think the same possibility could also apply to Richard S.'s situation, based on what was described.

I don't know for sure, of course, but I haven't heard any reason yet to so strongly discount such a possibility. I mean, there are thousands and thousands of these things we've left floating up there, of different size, shape, and velocity, and composed of all sorts of 'space-age' materials. Who knows?

Ok.

That makes sense to say the least.

I was just confused because you said ''could be random space junk falling'' so that's why I replied that it wasen't 'falling' but rather orbiting.

But if orbiting debris can be seen like you mention (I wasen't aware that it could), then it's another possible explaination.

What makes me wonder is how bright it was though. Wouldn't an orbiting debris be so far off the earth (and so small) that we could hardly seen them? What I saw was so bright that I thought it was either far and huge (like space station) or closer and smaller.

I love to wonder about these things. Learning is fun.

:)