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**strange sighting** what was it?! fireball?

ashenlight

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AztecastroMcJ

AztecastroMcJ

Posted
Posted
surely it was a UFO?

I watched a show about NASA employees being told to doctor photos and cover things up.....

so it must be true! :-)

if its motion was erratic it suggest it was not under the sole influence of earths gravity.....

maybe the Aliens were letting off sum fireworks ! ;)

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Funboy

Funboy

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Hi to all,

Well good to see others caught sight of it last night, I am from Cheddar and a group of us were walking towards the bottom of the gorge when we saw a really bright orange mass coming from the direction of Bath heading towards Bridgewater. The object was like a massive fireball and clearly lower than the high altitude aircraft while at the same time higher than those which fly into Bristol airport.

We all clearly saw it around 21.45 with the naked eye and were able to watch it for almost 3 mins before the local buildings obscured its view.

For all of us it appeared to fall (fly) in a straight line so can't comment on the zig zag as it did not appear to from where we were looking from, it was fast though as way above it and more over towards Bristol was an aircraft heading towards the states at a guess and it took ages to go out of sight while the orange fireball was way quicker.

It's one of the largest and brightest fireballs I have had the pleasure to see.

Currently searching the internet to see if others were lucky enough to get pictures of it, I was so consumed with watching it I completely forgot about even using my phone to photograph it.

Regards

Funboy

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ashenlight

ashenlight

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Funboy, thank you for reporting that, I am so glad others saw it. From your report I am pretty convinced it was a fireball. The zigzag-ish path was apparent only in bincoulars, I should have made that clear from the start, sorry guys. It sort of hopped back and forth off its main path, as if it was fizzing so much it couldn't stay on a smooth path!

Do let us know if you come across anything on the internet, I've been searching too but alas nothing yet.

Thanks again, and welcome to SGL! ;)

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iamjulian

iamjulian

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My Dad called me to say he was watching something at about that time last night. He is in Cheshire but said it was in his southern sky and quite low, and moving slowly away from him. He didn't mention any fizzing, but said it was orange and very bright. I wonder what it was.

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Paul G. Abel

Paul G. Abel

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Hi Ashen Light,

Your description leaves me with little doubt that it was a Chinese Lantern. Last year I released six of them from my garden in Leicester- once up in the air I was stunned by how weird they were: they were essentially whitish orbs which would dart about the sky in irregular way as the wind blew them about. When the wind caught them they would brighten up rapidly (to a magnitude much greater than the ISS). They REALLY did accelerate and stop nad move about an in irratic way and because they were bright orbs against a black background, there was no way of judging how big they were or how close they were. Indeed, many locals reported them to the local paper and we had a spate of UFO sightings that night.

You'll find them released in great numbers at Chinese new year and Diwali the Hindu festival of lights. Hope this helps.

-Paul.

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Funboy

Funboy

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Hi Paul,

I sorry to say but I totally disagree, this was way to big, by our reckoning it would have be the size of at lease two airbus aircraft put end to end, the thing was massive considering its hight and speed.

To me it was either a large piece of space junk coming to earth or a meteor either way it was an amazing sight which all seven of us stop in our tracks to watch it.

The orange glow was very bright against the white stars, a real once in a lifetime experience with the naked eye, a bit like saying you saw a full eclipse, you only really ever get to see one full one without chasing around the world (country) to get the right observation point.

Considering its size I am amazed more never sore it but then it was a Friday night and most young people would have been looking into a beer glass I superpose while others would be watching TV.

What this really wants is someone from air traffic control in Bristol / Cardiff or one of the other major airports to come one here as they would surly have seen it, given its hight.

Regards

Funboy

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ashenlight

ashenlight

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I've seen chinese lanterns, plenty of times... it wasn't one of them. We have a strong Hindu community nearby and many times I've seen them over the years. We also has a large amount of them come over a few weeks ago, from a wedding. I can see how they would be mistaken for 'UFOs' but I've got to disagree and say it most definitely was not a lantern. My sister saw it too and she has witnessed lanterns aswell. It didn't even enter our heads that it could have been a lantern.. way too big and just very different. The fact that the same (or at least very similar object) was seen in the North Pennines, Cheshire and Leeds also makes me think it was something very much non-lantern like. Thank you for taking the time and trouble to put your point across, though ;)

I feel really pleased to have seen it, whatever it was.

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kniclander

kniclander

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Hi Paul,

I sorry to say but I totally disagree, this was way to big, by our reckoning it would have be the size of at lease two airbus aircraft put end to end, the thing was massive considering its hight and speed.

Funboy

I'm keeping an open mind on this one for the time being. Funboy, how did you reckon it's size and its height? Don't you need to know one to be able to tell the other? Likewise, how do you estimate the speed if you don't know how far away the thing was?

So far, the thing that I'm struggling with is that someone was able to have time to go inside to get some bins and come out and it was still there - could anything entering the earth's atmosphere move that slow? I would have thought not but I don't know as I'm no expert. What do others think?

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ashenlight

ashenlight

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someone was able to have time to go inside to get some bins and come out and it was still there

I think that 'someone' is me? ;) Probably took me about 10 seconds to get in and grab them off the kitchen counter, kniclander. I'm keeping an open mind too... it was a very strange object.

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beamish

beamish

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I can't believe this debate is still going- A fair few of us saw this on Friday night last week - we're not all novices. It was a fireball moving from the SW thru to the SE/E, traveling a fair rate of knots in a nice clear arc, bright orange and flaring not just a bit of an orange glow around it. I've seen enough satellites and planes and lanterns to know the difference. If you hadn't seen it then that's a shame but it wasn't a lantern. It may have been some debris falling back to earth from man-made satellite but the effect was the same either way !;)

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Paul G. Abel

Paul G. Abel

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Hi Funboy,

Hi Paul,

I sorry to say but I totally disagree, this was way to big, by our reckoning it would have be the size of at lease two airbus aircraft put end to end, the thing was massive considering its hight and speed.

Can I ask how you determined the size of the object in question, and its velocity? What reference points did you use? I will try and contact the relevant radar station to see if anything was reported. I'll report back tomorrow.

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