Strange satellites

[shieldmaiden]

Hello everyone;

I am new here but not too new to watching the skies.

I joined this site for answers to some things that are in the skies that I am not sure of what they are and since you all seem to know what you are talking about I decided to take a leap and ask your opionions.

This summer my fiance and I did a lot of sky watching; I think it took off from the UFO we seen while on our way home late one evening out in the country from our town we live in. That sighting isn't the reason I am here.

We had been seeing this late Summer to early Fall "satellites" that hover and stay in one position without moving for more than 25/30 minutes. The one I will decribe here happened this Summer in our back yard while we went out to stargaze. When I sat down in my chair on the patio I looked to my right and there was a very bright star that I hadn't noticed before on other nights watching the skies. I told my fiance that that "star" was sure bright and he agreed and we watched it for a bit then went to doing our skywatching. About 25 minutes later I was watching the star again and mentioned it to my fiance again and at that time while we both were watching it, it made a huge flash of white light and horizontally took off to the east. It then stopped and hovered for a few minutes than flashed bright again and than took off again. Again it stopped and a few moments later it "blinked" out.

We were stunned. We both never heard of a satellite that could hover in one spot and then move that fast just to hover again. It was very low in the sky and we could see that it wasn't a plane or helicopter of any kind and just figured it was a sophisticated type of satellite that can hover and go at great speeds and stop at will.

I've been reading here on this site where some of you mention "flare" satellites. Is this what my fiance and I have been seeing?

We haven't only seen this one, but many this Summer and Fall, some during our camping trips to the mountains and some at home in the backyard.

I have other sightings I would like to discuss but would like to start with this one please.

Any information you have would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much.

[mallorcasaint]

Satellites in Geosynchronous orbit will appear motionless to a ground observer. UFO's are just objects which have not yet been identified.

[Andy_E]

As above, could be coupled with a satellite flare?

[Cornelius Varley]

I am sure you will find that there is a rational explanation to what you saw. Please refrain from talking about UFO sightings as these post will be deleted.

[Sir-Henry]

Just a guess (ish) but any such object seen low to the horizon might be explained as a mirage caused by shifting atmospheric conditions. The clue is in the flash just as the phenomenon rapidly moves to another position. Don't forget that you could be looking through anything up to 100 miles of air at such low elevations with all the turbulence between you and it plus another several tens of miles if it is actually below the horizon.

[shieldmaiden]

Thanks to all of you. Although what your all saying may be the reason for this phenomenal it still is a bit different from what each of you discribed.

And, Peter, I did not say it was a UFO sighting; so I am sorry you misread my post. The only referrence I said about a UFO was that my fiance and I have been more into stargazing since we seen a Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) which I understand is used for a variety of titles for lack of a better word to put to what a person might see in the sky; IE; plane, helicopter, blimp...etc.

Thanks to you all for your quick responce to my post.

[The_PSY3NTIST]

Saw something similar last week. Thought it was a flare at first but it was way too slow and much too bright. I saw a mag -8 Flare not long ago and it was easy 3 times as bright as that and with an orange tint to it. This was looking north and it reappeared in the west. Who knows but like has been said above... There's always a rational explanation so I just enjoyed viewing whatever it was