What did I see?

[YogSothoth]

Last night I was out with the scope at around 10.30pm when I saw something I’d never seen before. Just above Ursa Major and travelling from East to West, I saw what appeared to be a black smoke trail. It was maybe 10 moon diameters long (very rough estimate) and moving at about the same speed as an aircraft. The length of the smoke trail didn’t change. Within the smoke trail I saw several bright flashes from various parts of it. It lasted maybe 10 seconds and then abruptly disappeared. Not seen anything like this in all the years I’ve been observing. Any ideas? 

[Bivanus]

Da ModerShip?

[Astronomist]

aliens, without doubt. 😆

seriously though, that's really weird, I've never seen anything like that before

[YogSothoth]

Just now, Astronomist said:

aliens, without doubt. 😆

seriously though, that's really weird, I've never seen anything like that before

Me neither. I guess it was something breaking up when it hit the atmosphere. It’s just that the flashes were not just at the front, but appeared throughout the smoke trail. It was quite visible, so hopefully someone else saw it. 

[The60mmKid]

Was it your own smoke trail? 😉

[Bivanus]

16 hours ago, YogSothoth said:

I guess it was something breaking up when it hit the atmosphere. 

Quite likely. Unfortunately the LEO got rather crouded.

[Naughty Neal]

Maybe one of those Starlink lower orbiting pieces of junk ?

Edited August 24, 2023 by Naughty Neal

[AstroMuni]

If it wasnt aliens....could it have been a cloud patch and the flashes were stars poking through for brief periods of time?

[YogSothoth]

5 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

If it wasnt aliens....could it have been a cloud patch and the flashes were stars poking through for brief periods of time?

No, definitely not that. The whole smoke trail was moving and there were bright flashes within it.

[AstroMuni]

16 hours ago, YogSothoth said:

No, definitely not that. The whole smoke trail was moving and there were bright flashes within it.

Lightning perhaps?

[DirkSteele]

Back in early 2022, a powerful geomagnetic storm caused 38 Starlink satellites to de-orbit and burn up in the atmosphere. We have certainly experienced a fair share of storms this year. Perhaps you witnessed a similar occurrence. Anyone aware of any satellites being lost recently?

Image of the starlink Sats burning up.

[YogSothoth]

6 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

Lightning perhaps?

No, not lightning. It was a clear sky apart from this ‘smoke trail’, which was similar to a trail left by a passenger jet, but much shorter. The flashes were within the smoke trail.

[YogSothoth]

1 hour ago, DirkSteele said:

Back in early 2022, a powerful geomagnetic storm caused 38 Starlink satellites to de-orbit and burn up in the atmosphere. We have certainly experienced a fair share of storms this year. Perhaps you witnessed a similar occurrence. Anyone aware of any satellites being lost recently?

Image of the starlink Sats burning up.

I’m leaning towards a satellite burning up as the most likely explanation, although it didn’t really look like the above photo. It was a solid ‘smoke trail’ similar to the vapour trail left by a passenger jet, but very short. The bright flashes were coming from within the trail. The whole thing disappeared abruptly after a few seconds.

[DirkSteele]

12 hours ago, YogSothoth said:

I’m leaning towards a satellite burning up as the most likely explanation, although it didn’t really look like the above photo. It was a solid ‘smoke trail’ similar to the vapour trail left by a passenger jet, but very short. The bright flashes were coming from within the trail. The whole thing disappeared abruptly after a few seconds.

Does the disappearing include the ‘smoke trail’ as well? I would expect that element to be persistent even if the body had burnt up and the flashes stopped. I would certainly expect flashes with the smoke as bits break off and burn up.

Edited August 26, 2023 by DirkSteele
Typo

[Mr Magoo]

12 hours ago, DirkSteele said:

Back in early 2022, a powerful geomagnetic storm caused 38 Starlink satellites to de-orbit and burn up in the atmosphere.

There is hope for us yet!

 

[YogSothoth]

On 25/08/2023 at 21:30, DirkSteele said:

Does the disappearing include the ‘smoke trail’ as well? I would expect that element to be persistent even if the body had burnt up and the flashes stopped. I would certainly expect flashes with the smoke as bits break off and burn up.

Yes, the smoke trail faded fairly quickly. The whole thing only lasted around 10 seconds, maybe a bit less. It’s possible the smoke trail dissipated more slowly but wasn’t visible against the darker sky, I guess.

[Barry Fitz-Gerald]

On 23/08/2023 at 16:18, YogSothoth said:

Last night I was out with the scope at around 10.30pm when I saw something I’d never seen before. Just above Ursa Major and travelling from East to West, I saw what appeared to be a black smoke trail. It was maybe 10 moon diameters long (very rough estimate) and moving at about the same speed as an aircraft. The length of the smoke trail didn’t change. Within the smoke trail I saw several bright flashes from various parts of it. It lasted maybe 10 seconds and then abruptly disappeared. Not seen anything like this in all the years I’ve been observing. Any ideas? 

Whatever you saw sounds extremely odd - it does not fit the usual suspects of Starlink train meteors, space junk and so on, but of course might be some rare atmospheric phenomenon - a possibility that must be explored before more exotic explanations are considered. William R. Corliss catalogued many bizarre things  in his book HANDBOOK OF UNUSUAL NATURAL PHENOMENA including atmospheric ones that appear to make little sense in terms of known phenomena. Copies are hard to come by even second hand, but you can access an archive copy at https://archive.org/details/B-001-001-892

I do not like stuff put out on the net as it is usually unverifiable but the following is a cloud with lights you might like to compare with what you saw https://www.phillyvoice.com/video-sighting-ufo-really-mysterious-cloud-philly/

[saac]

Most likely exhaust from smoky aero engine, likely military. Lights from second aircraft appearing from either above or below plume would be visible. Shame you don't have a photograph may have narrowed it down a bit.  Be worth a look on Flight Radar for activity. 

Jim 

Edited August 28, 2023 by saac

[Barry Fitz-Gerald]

Yes, some jets are EXTREMELY dirty and chuck out a lot of black smoke, especially the Russian ones like the SU29's  that apperar to run on 2-stroke oil.

[YogSothoth]

On 28/08/2023 at 09:39, Barry Fitz-Gerald said:

Whatever you saw sounds extremely odd - it does not fit the usual suspects of Starlink train meteors, space junk and so on, but of course might be some rare atmospheric phenomenon - a possibility that must be explored before more exotic explanations are considered. William R. Corliss catalogued many bizarre things  in his book HANDBOOK OF UNUSUAL NATURAL PHENOMENA including atmospheric ones that appear to make little sense in terms of known phenomena. Copies are hard to come by even second hand, but you can access an archive copy at https://archive.org/details/B-001-001-892

I do not like stuff put out on the net as it is usually unverifiable but the following is a cloud with lights you might like to compare with what you saw https://www.phillyvoice.com/video-sighting-ufo-really-mysterious-cloud-philly/

OK, so you’ll have to excuse my rather bad drawing, but this is basically what I saw. It’s about the right size and shape and was moving at about the velocity of a passenger jet. The flashes looked like small explosions to me and appeared randomly within the smoke trail.

[Barry Fitz-Gerald]

On 29/08/2023 at 19:58, YogSothoth said:

OK, so you’ll have to excuse my rather bad drawing, but this is basically what I saw. It’s about the right size and shape and was moving at about the velocity of a passenger jet. The flashes looked like small explosions to me and appeared randomly within the smoke trail.

Thanks for the drawing – that is really useful.

 

Firstly, the angular size of what you saw seems quite large, which probably rules out a lot of things!

 

I checked the FligtRadar for the time of your observations, as I note that you are just south of the eastern approach to Gatwick, and aircraft would be visible passing to the north of you and heading from east to west. I guess you are pretty familiar with these and their noise anyway, and what you drew is nothing like the size a passenger plane would appear in the distance. In any case, all I could see was a stream of short haul aircraft from the continent such as 737's and similar size jets – nothing exotic or military. I did wonder whether an aircraft experiencing engine problems and smoking from one engine might be an answer, but those flashes of those light which might have indicated a fire would have probably resulted in a lot of scary videos from terrified passengers, and something in the news. As to it being a smoky military aircraft, to chuck out that much smoke it would have had its throttles up against the stops and would have been very loud – was there any noise you recall? So I think that option may be unlikely but worth considering.

 

Your description of the flashing lights reminded me of something called the 'random flashbulb effect' described by Prof. Harley D. Rutledge of Missouri State University in his 1981 book Project Identification: The first Scientific Study of UFO Phenomena (don't be put off by the term UFO) to describe sightings of randomly flashing lights that he likened to flashbulbs going off, that he and others observed during a 1973 investigation in to anomalous ariel sightings in Missouri (though not within a smoke trail as yours was). It is an interesting read (again difficult to get hold of but available to browse at https://archive.org/details/rutledge-project-identificationand) he even recruited a local Astronomy club to assist in his research, complete with their new Celesstron C8's.

 

Whatever you saw was quite unusual and I look forwards to reading any other possible explanations. Do you have a gut feeling as to what it was?

 

[saac]

My gut feeling smoky military or commercial jet aircraft; aircraft exhaust smoke for whole host of conditions the least of which is fire or throttle position.  You did say it was moving with such a velocity, most likely scenario then.  Don't be dissuade by sound, strange things happen to aircraft sound all pending on what the air mass is doing. In the vicinity of a major commercial aircraft hub, most realistically and aircraft then. Anything else is really finger in the wind speculation. 

Jim

[YogSothoth]

4 hours ago, Barry Fitz-Gerald said:

Thanks for the drawing – that is really useful.

 

Firstly, the angular size of what you saw seems quite large, which probably rules out a lot of things!

 

I checked the FligtRadar for the time of your observations, as I note that you are just south of the eastern approach to Gatwick, and aircraft would be visible passing to the north of you and heading from east to west. I guess you are pretty familiar with these and their noise anyway, and what you drew is nothing like the size a passenger plane would appear in the distance. In any case, all I could see was a stream of short haul aircraft from the continent such as 737's and similar size jets – nothing exotic or military. I did wonder whether an aircraft experiencing engine problems and smoking from one engine might be an answer, but those flashes of those light which might have indicated a fire would have probably resulted in a lot of scary videos from terrified passengers, and something in the news. As to it being a smoky military aircraft, to chuck out that much smoke it would have had its throttles up against the stops and would have been very loud – was there any noise you recall? So I think that option may be unlikely but worth considering.

 

Your description of the flashing lights reminded me of something called the 'random flashbulb effect' described by Prof. Harley D. Rutledge of Missouri State University in his 1981 book Project Identification: The first Scientific Study of UFO Phenomena (don't be put off by the term UFO) to describe sightings of randomly flashing lights that he likened to flashbulbs going off, that he and others observed during a 1973 investigation in to anomalous ariel sightings in Missouri (though not within a smoke trail as yours was). It is an interesting read (again difficult to get hold of but available to browse at https://archive.org/details/rutledge-project-identificationand) he even recruited a local Astronomy club to assist in his research, complete with their new Celesstron C8's.

 

Whatever you saw was quite unusual and I look forwards to reading any other possible explanations. Do you have a gut feeling as to what it was?

 

Lots of interesting stuff there, thanks. Like you say, I’m pretty familiar with aircraft coming and going from Gatwick and you’re right, if it was a commercial jet , it was certainly not looking too healthy. The flashes definitely looked like small explosions to me and my gut feeling would be something breaking up as it hit the atmosphere. It was certainly very strange and I’ve been looking up at the sky for 50 odd years and I’ve never seen anything like it. It’ll remain a bit of a mystery I guess, but I consider myself lucky to have seen it. It was only that I happened to be looking at M81 and M82 in Ursa Major that I saw it at all. I did see both galaxies as well, so not a bad night.

[YogSothoth]

2 hours ago, saac said:

My gut feeling smoky military or commercial jet aircraft; aircraft exhaust smoke for whole host of conditions the least of which is fire or throttle position.  You did say it was moving with such a velocity, most likely scenario then.  Don't be dissuade by sound, strange things happen to aircraft sound all pending on what the air mass is doing. In the vicinity of a major commercial aircraft hub, most realistically and aircraft then. Anything else is really finger in the wind speculation. 

Jim

I know what you mean but gut feeling is that it wasn’t a jet. I’m pretty used to seeing aircraft going in and out of Gatwick and if it was a commercial jet, then it looked like one that was about to crash. The flashes I saw certainly looked like random explosions within the smoke trail and my gut feeling would be that it was something breaking up as it hi the atmosphere. It was most definitely odd and I’m glad I was looking in the right place at the right time.

[saac]

2 minutes ago, YogSothoth said:

I know what you mean but gut feeling is that it wasn’t a jet. I’m pretty used to seeing aircraft going in and out of Gatwick and if it was a commercial jet, then it looked like one that was about to crash. The flashes I saw certainly looked like random explosions within the smoke trail and my gut feeling would be that it was something breaking up as it hi the atmosphere. It was most definitely odd and I’m glad I was looking in the right place at the right time.

Sounds like you saw a satellite or small meteor then breaking up. I still wouldn't rule out aircraft as the most obvious, senses are readily tricked especially at night and with relative motion. Like you say, pretty inconclusive as these things tend to be,  but good job spotting it. 

Jim