Seen anything odd in the sky?

[Manok101]

Just wondering, I've been wondering if anyone has seen anything they couldn't explain easily in the sky at night? I personally have not, other than two bright lights that could be chinese lanterns. What about you?

[Celeste]

Not yet (early days for us) but I did manage a rather close up shot of a planes backside

[The Sailor]

Thought I seen a break in the clouds but may be wrong

[Talitha]

The oddest things i've ever seen were a tethered satellite and an Auroral arc.

[pbyrne]

I suppose the oddest thing I've seen was a group of five lights flying in formation, they formed a pentagon shape, they were spotted with the naked eye and I assumed that they were some form of airforce flight, not the Irish airforce, as I don't think we have five planes in the fleet. I put it down to the RAF or the US airforce flying over Irish airspace.

And no, I don't think they were UFOs.

[fatwoul]

Not long ago, my local newspaper printed - on the front page, no less - a photo of a "UFO" that a reader had taken. It was simply a halogen bulb reflected in the window the reader was looking through. It wasn't April 1st. I was astounded how it had got through so many different people without anybody saying "Uh, that's a lightbulb."

To me, the stupidity/gullibility of so many people in succession was one of the strangest phenomena I've ever seen, and I didn't have to look to the sky to see it.

[Toadeh]

I saw aliens, they beamed me up........

[Ouroboros]

The other night I saw two quite faint and diffuse objects of a slightly orange hue. They were obviously flying together because they made slight changes in direction together. I only saw them for a few seconds, and for few moments I was puzzled as to what they were. Then the penny dropped. They were almost certainly two large and probably white birds diffusely reflected in street light.

[geoff_k]

Not seen anything strange myself but I remember this news story amused me at the time:

BBC NEWS | Wales | Police say UFO was just the Moon

Geoff

[AndyG63]

I've sky-watched since the the mid-seventies, and have seen nothing that couldn't be explained. Why is alien abductions always happen to someone else? )

(The Tornado jet flying across the Moon's disk as I watched one evening was quite a surprise, however.)

Andy

[Worzsel]

The oddest things i've ever seen were a tethered satellite and an Auroral arc.

Ooo what's a tethered satellite ?

I saw some satellite formation flying but can't find out what they were. I presume they were secret satellites though as opposed to anything weird...

[LukeSkywatcher]

Ive seen some strange things over the years. Most of which i can now kind of rationally explain somewhat (chinese lanterns,Iridium flares,satellites etc). However i STILL have a couple of things i have seen (and others saw too) that i just cant put a rational explanation to.

[SeedyF]

Thought I seen a break in the clouds but may be wrong

Yeah - course you did. Toadeh's claims are more believable

[Tantalus]

Nothing spooky, but last summer I saw a fireball that I can't properly categorise.

(From my notes), On July 22nd 2009, whilst out observing, I spotted what I can best describe as a ball of fire travelling almost horizontally, about 25 degrees above the horizon. It resembled a burning football, with orange flames, trailing thick black smoke, and appeared to be travelling away from me. It disappeared or burnt up after a couple of seconds, and was unlike any meteor I've ever seen. I even thought it might possibly have been part of an aircraft, and scanned the news for several days after to see if any incidents were reported in the region, but nothing...

I've kept it in my notes but I'm still not sure if it's astro-related.

[Tim]

There was something weird last night flying across Orion as I was imaging it. Too slow to be a plane, too bright for a satellite, too straight to be a chinese lantern. It took about 4.5 mins to cross the fov of view of my MN190 and QHY8 camera.

A tumbling satellite puts on a good show though, looks like it is blinking. Only ever seen one.

[Chris H]

Once saw a bird with one wing, it was flying round in circles

[callisto]

I've seen a lot of strange things whilst night fishing on the north east coast

[Glider]

I was once thermaling my glider in stonking lift and a bird shot up past me. I didn't feel too bad as I figured he was doing it for a living and I was only doing it for fun. Then a T32c0 carrier bag shot by like I was standing still.

Another time I was flying cross country and a stange, slowly rotating disc passed me. Luckily it was connected to the top a an AWACs.

[Deneb]

Two ufo's having a race, & one doing a 45 degree angle while in flight...

Nadeem..

[laser_jock99]

My parents independantly saw the same UFO as reported in County Times last month

- UFOs sighted over road to Llanidloes

My parents actually rang me up to say they had seen some "strange lightning flashes outside the window" at the same time as the motorist in the was up heading their way. Strange stuff- two corroborating wittnesses to wierd lights?

As for myself I've spent many, many hours outside at night, either stargazing or nightfishing and not seen anything that could not be explained. Iridium flares have taken me by surprise- but I know what they are now!

[Talitha]

Ooo what's a tethered satellite ?

Two small satellites connected by a long tether, there's a picture of one here. Under the image, part of the caption says "Note that only a small part of the 4 km tether is shown deployed." The tether is l-o-n-g.

It was spotted accidentally with the 11x70s a number of years ago while i was scanning the eastern horizon. It was a white vertical line slowly drifting from south to north, and it took about 5 minutes to travel 135 azimuth degrees before it was lost in the treeline across the road.

I've no idea how far up it was in real altitude, but from my vantage point it was quite low to the horizon.. IIRC about 20 degrees. The binoculars were on the tripod, so it was easy to stay on the object and get a good view of it. It couldn't be seen naked-eye but was very clear in the binos, and i was surprised to see how long it was. The binos have an fov of 3.6 degrees, and the line was very noticable.. not just a small little line.

It was quite fascinating, and from what i understand you can look it up in Heavens-Above. If i find the directions how to do it, i'll post them.

[SeedyF]

Nothing spooky, but last summer I saw a fireball that I can't properly categorise.

(From my notes), On July 22nd 2009, whilst out observing, I spotted what I can best describe as a ball of fire travelling almost horizontally, about 25 degrees above the horizon. It resembled a burning football, with orange flames, trailing thick black smoke, and appeared to be travelling away from me. It disappeared or burnt up after a couple of seconds, and was unlike any meteor I've ever seen. I even thought it might possibly have been part of an aircraft, and scanned the news for several days after to see if any incidents were reported in the region, but nothing... :icon_scrat

I've kept it in my notes but I'm still not sure if it's astro-related.

I cant tell if this is serious or a wind up

[Shibby]

Oddest thing I've seen is what must have been a satellite/debris burning up, it was bright white "fizzling" and actually seemed to wobble in its path, which led me to believe it was tumbling. I've also seen an orange fireball, not dissimilar to what Tantalus saw (no smoke though) essentially like a normal meteor but brighter and orange. You feel like you blink and you miss them, then start to doubt yourself; too much coffee?

[acey]

On two occasions I've seen a fuel dump from a rocket. The appearance is a small glowing patch in the sky, rather like a comet, except that it moves noticeably against the background stars. First I saw was in the early seventies and it was reported all over UK as a UFO. Second was a couple of years ago, seen by many people in U.S. though not so many here. It certainly gave me a surprise when I first noticed it though I soon figured out what it was.

Plus countless aurorae, Iridiums, double satellite formations, Chinese lanterns, meteors, military flares, odd-looking aircraft lights, stars that suddenly seem to disappear because a small unseen cloud has hidden them, one or two weather balloons - and the optical illusion of stars apparently moving when they're not.

My son saw a triple meteor, something I've never seen (I was looking at the wrong bit of sky at the time). And my father swears that as a young man he saw what looked like a satellite moving across the sky, then suddenly doing a 90-degree turn and speeding away. He also claimed to be able to see Jupiter's moons naked eye (without occluding the planet's disc) and I never quite believed that one either.

[ponytale]

in the 1980's in perth australia , my family and i and about 30 other people were on the veiwing terrace at perth airport waiting for a 747 to land ( it had my brother and his family on it) as the plane came in for its approach a fire engine and emergency vehicles rushed out on to the runway and the plane aborted its approach ,all of us on the roof terrace were looking around the sky to see what might be happening expecting another plane or something else in the sky as the ground was clear in all directions except for the emergency vehicles, then we all saw a light whizzing around the airport areadoing amazing manouvres dead stops, 90 degree turns , zig zags and very high speed accelerations , as quick as it came it it flew upward and away at a steep angle and disapeared, we were all totally astounded, when my brother eventually landed he said they anounced that an unkown aircraft had encroached their airspace and had to abort their first landing, one thing we know for sure it was not an (aircraft) it defied all rational explanation and nothing more was reported in the local press or radio, i still remember it like it was yesterday and i am sure i always will , ufo yes , E>T> who knows , but there have been many such reports of the same phenomena since then all over the world, perhaps one day i will know ? Tony. that is why my youtube name is ( ihaveseenaufo)