One of those strange 'moving object' experiences.

[ollypenrice]

A few nights ago I went outside to find a semi-cloudy sky and noticed a bright light in a hazy patch, west of south. I saw it very clearly move directly downwards at a jerky, variable speed so I wondered what it was. As the sky cleared it stopped moving and turned into a perfectly normal, stationary star - which is what it was all along, of course.

I don't recall seeing this illusion before but it told me a lot about why people think they see moving objects. I suppose the clouds create the illusion but can't be sure. It was very striking and I'd have sworn I saw a downward trajectory.

Olly

[Elp]

I've seen a meteor which was almost horizontal but it moved in a stepped fashion as it was "descending". It must have stepped at least four or five times down as it was moving across the sky, lasted only around 2 seconds. Couldn't have been anything else as I was in the middle of nowhere and it appeared and disappeared as quick as a meteor.

[Leo S]

I often find myself visually observing under less than ideal conditions (which is basically the right environment for optical illusions to occur), and a star will seemingly be moving, that is until I get my bearings, which is when my brain has worked out that it's not the star moving, but usually either clouds or a satellite which are/is moving. With few reference points/visual cues it can be hard to tell what is moving and what is not, but our brains usually make sense of it eventually.

I think in Elp's case, it sounds like he may have experienced some form of the autokinetic effect. In my experience objects don't have to be stationary for the autokinetic effect to be perceived. I don't think this effect is very well studied, but one theory was that it's caused by micro-eye movements.

[Elp]

No, it was definitely a flying object. I saw at least four meteors that night with my own vision.

[Leo S]

16 minutes ago, Elp said:

No, it was definitely a flying object. I saw at least four meteors that night with my own vision.

That is what I'm saying - the autokinetic effect CAN also occur with moving objects.

[michael8554]

You're in a train carriage alongside another carriage. 

The other carriage starts to depart.

The visual illusion is that your carriage is moving.

Michael

[Carbon Brush]

I have seen stars moving among intermittent cloud.
And been in train carriages where the platform moves backwards.
All without alcohol or mind altering substances🤥
How our brains in correctly process images from our eyes sometimes makes me wonder how we get around without falling over🤣

[lunator]

I have experienced the 'migratory Star syndrome' (I've just made that up 😁) . It always occurs then there is a fair amount of cloud around and it is moving at a fairly quick pace but also some decent sized gaps. It does seem to be the brain decides the clouds are either not moving or moving more slowly than they actually are so the star HAS to moving to compensate. The illusion disappears quick if you just stare at the star for a few seconds.

[Steve Ward]

2 hours ago, michael8554 said:

You're in a train carriage alongside another carriage. 

The other carriage starts to depart.

The visual illusion is that your carriage is moving.

Michael

It can catch you out waiting at traffic lights too if the car in the off-side lane creeps forward a touch making it seem that you are rolling backwards.

[ollypenrice]

Last night I went outside again had exactly the same experience, with the same star. This has set me pondering about whether the effect might not be directly caused by the cloud, but by some process going on in the brain. I don't get the effect when I go out into a clear sky but perhaps something needs to settle in the brain when it observes a single star isolated by cloud. Something to do with orientation? I will try to find out whether I still get the effect if I'm dark adapted before looking up.

Olly

[maw lod qan]

3 hours ago, Steve Ward said:

It can catch you out waiting at traffic lights too if the car in the off-side lane creeps forward a touch making it seem that you are rolling backwards.

Absolutely! Immediately I press on the brake pedal harder!

[Mr Spock]

I find moving star effects clear up once you lay off the sauce 

Well, it did for me... 

[lunator]

7 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Last night I went outside again had exactly the same experience, with the same star. This has set me pondering about whether the effect might not be directly caused by the cloud, but by some process going on in the brain. I don't get the effect when I go out into a clear sky but perhaps something needs to settle in the brain when it observes a single star isolated by cloud. Something to do with orientation? I will try to find out whether I still get the effect if I'm dark adapted before looking up.

Olly

Hi Olly

I have been out tonight with the ST80. Some patchy cloud was moving South at a fairly high speed. I found when I looked directly at the Moon the cloud was clearly moving. When I looked directly between the Moon and Jupiter I could see both of them 'moving' in parallel due North 😁.

Cheers

Ian

[Leo S]

8 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Last night I went outside again had exactly the same experience, with the same star. This has set me pondering about whether the effect might not be directly caused by the cloud, but by some process going on in the brain. I don't get the effect when I go out into a clear sky but perhaps something needs to settle in the brain when it observes a single star isolated by cloud. Something to do with orientation? I will try to find out whether I still get the effect if I'm dark adapted before looking up.

Olly

It's more about having reference points. When it's cloudy there are few - cloud at night tends to be (more) featureless. The opposite is true if the sky is clear, and there are many reference points (stars), which the brain interprets as the motionless-background. You basically have an unbroken (or near unbroken) series of visual cues which your brain uses to decide what is moving, and what is not. Against this background of stars it's much easier to see what is moving and what is not, but take away those reference points, and that is a recipe for confusion for your brain, momentarily at least.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Leo S
typo

[ollypenrice]

9 hours ago, lunator said:

Hi Olly

I have been out tonight with the ST80. Some patchy cloud was moving South at a fairly high speed. I found when I looked directly at the Moon the cloud was clearly moving. When I looked directly between the Moon and Jupiter I could see both of them 'moving' in parallel due North 😁.

Cheers

Ian

Exactly what I did, with the same consequences!

Olly

[jjohnson3803]

I recently noticed that with Venus and clouds.  To add to the confusion, I often see commercial aircraft with their landing lights on coming from the same direction so somethimes the object is moving too.

 

[Bugdozer]

On 24/11/2023 at 08:27, michael8554 said:

You're in a train carriage alongside another carriage. 

The other carriage starts to depart.

The visual illusion is that your carriage is moving.

Michael

This can involve other senses than just vision. I once started up my car, thought I had put it in gear, and pressed the accelerator to move forward. However, the car wasn't actually in gear, so it didn't move at all. But the interesting thing was because I was expecting to feel acceleration as I pressed the pedal, but didn't actually feel it, my body interpreted that as a completely inverse acceleration, i.e. I physically felt as if I was rolling backwards for a second, despite no visual change. It was freaky. 

Returning to what Olly saw, certain medications can cause this type of visual effect in some people. One I was on caused point sources like stars to actually leave trails at times. 

[scotty1]

On 23/11/2023 at 18:39, Elp said:

I've seen a meteor which was almost horizontal but it moved in a stepped fashion as it was "descending". It must have stepped at least four or five times down as it was moving across the sky, lasted only around 2 seconds. Couldn't have been anything else as I was in the middle of nowhere and it appeared and disappeared as quick as a meteor.

I've seen a bright earth grazer meteor heading towards me from the SW a few years back. It was twilight and the meteor flared up in short bursts as it tracked. The meteor was visible for about three seconds, between the bright flare ups, the meteor became dim, so it appeared to have a stepped track, brightening and almost disappearing. 

[Elp]

8 minutes ago, scotty1 said:

I've seen a bright earth grazer meteor heading towards me from the SW a few years back. It was twilight and the meteor flared up in short bursts as it tracked. The meteor was visible for about three seconds, between the bright flare ups, the meteor became dim, so it appeared to have a stepped track, brightening and almost disappearing. 

This was what it was like, almost as of it were actually within our atmosphere and imagining it coming to rest somewhere.

[carastro]

Many years ago (about 50) when we were first married.  Hubby and l were decorating our bedroom so there were no curtains up and it was evening and dark.   This is in Petts Wood SE London.  
 

Suddenly we saw a very bright ball of light dropping downwards.  Then shortly before it “landed” it turned into a still bright upside down Y shape.  Then just before it disappeared a second ball of bright light appeared a little to the left of it.  This followed the same routine - dropping slowly and turning into an upside down Y shape before “landing”. 
 

We have always wondered what it was.  It is roughly where Jubilee Park is now.  There used to be some sort of premises there years ago that the public were not allowed to enter but we can’t remember what it was called now.  
 

Anyone got an explanation? 
 

A couple if helicopters landing would fit the speed but these came down vertically and why would a helicopters be lit up in this way with brightly lit “landing legs? “
 

Ah ha? After some googling (remember they didn’t have internet 50 years ago) l found the name of the company which could partially explain things.   Aquila MoD Testing Facility.  So can any of you still explain what we saw.  

Edited December 2, 2023 by carastro

[Leo S]

9 hours ago, carastro said:

Many years ago (about 50) when we were first married.  Hubby and l were decorating our bedroom so there were no curtains up and it was evening and dark.   This is in Petts Wood SE London.  
 

Suddenly we saw a very bright ball of light dropping downwards.  Then shortly before it “landed” it turned into a still bright upside down Y shape.  Then just before it disappeared a second ball of bright light appeared a little to the left of it.  This followed the same routine - dropping slowly and turning into an upside down Y shape before “landing”. 
 

We have always wondered what it was.  It is roughly where Jubilee Park is now.  There used to be some sort of premises there years ago that the public were not allowed to enter but we can’t remember what it was called now.  
 

Anyone got an explanation? 
 

A couple if helicopters landing would fit the speed but these came down vertically and why would a helicopters be lit up in this way with brightly lit “landing legs? “
 

Ah ha? After some googling (remember they didn’t have internet 50 years ago) l found the name of the company which could partially explain things.   Aquila MoD Testing Facility.  So can any of you still explain what we saw.  

Possibly testing VTOL? Just before landing, the props on some planes tilt upwards so they can land like helicopters.

[carastro]

There is no runway there it is too small.  But whatever it was the full upside down Y shape was as brightly lit and "burning" as the ball of light was.  As if the ball of light changed shape.  

Hmmm, this is the closest I have seen to it on that page you linked though can;t remember now if it was green.

Edited December 2, 2023 by carastro

[carastro]

Seeing at is was the MoD Testing Facility. that would certainly make sense, spooked me out for years.  I did wonder whether it was something to do with Aquila but just could not fathom out what.   In particular as this was really a residential area.   So did they have these sort of crafts in the 1970s?

Thanks for that.

Hubby saw it too so it wasn't me going mad.    

Edited December 2, 2023 by carastro

[Leo S]

Sorry, should have explained further: VTOL stands for Vertical Take Off and Landing. So no runway required.

I'm not sure exactly when VTOL first appeared but they have been around a while. Hopefully someone else here could chime in.

[Elp]

Looking into it the XFY XFV Lockheed jets were around in the 50s so could have been a development leading to the SC1 but as far as I know only Harrier were the UK serving VTOL type aircraft until the Eurofighter, BUT, a jet makes a colossal amount of noise. 

Edited December 2, 2023 by Elp