What have i seen?

Bjorn Bored.

Ok here goes maybe someone can help me.

Last Fri 3rd Sept about 10 pm and again Last night Sat 11th Sept about 9.40 pm I saw the exact same thing.

Description,

A Large orange fiery glowing round shaped object traversing the entire sky.

No tail. Going a little faster than an aircraft,but defintely not an aircraft.

Low level. watched for about 1 min. Not a "shooting star" too slow.

larger to the naked eye than Venus ,but nowhere near as big as the moon

when overead,I am perplexed but happy to have witnessed it,anyone else see it???

Calibos

IBTcL

...In Before the Chinese Lantern

Calibos

Twas a Chinese Lantern you saw...

Calibos

BTW mods. When are we getting the orange/Red light in the Sky Chinese Lantern subforum?

Bjorn Bored.

wasnt a chinese lantern, i know what they look like so no. apart from anything it travelled dead straight in an almost perfect horizontal fashion.

alan4cult

I'm looking out my window now and seeing the same thing the OP describes. Looking SE I see it very low, glowing orange/red, moving but maybe not. It's definitely not a Chinese Lantern as it's been there a good hour now.

What is it?

Cul a cnoic

Seen the same myself a few weeks back, http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055941591

Smyth

What did I see last night? 4:22am. 2 objects 10 minutes apart. Similar brightness and size to a star moving in a straight constant line for about 15 seconds across the sky and then disappearing. Crystal clear sky. Same direction. Same speed. :eek:

Cú Giobach

Smyth wrote: »

What did I see last night? 4:22am. 2 objects 10 minutes apart. Similar brightness and size to a star moving in a straight constant line for about 15 seconds across the sky and then disappearing. Crystal clear sky. Same direction. Same speed. :eek:

Satellites. A heck of a lot pass over every night.

Dante

I saw something like that a few weeks back, presumed it was a Chinese lantern even though it didn't really look like one.

Smyth

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Satellites. A heck of a lot pass over every night.

edit*
Would the intermittent brightness be due to it's reflection off the sun? How long do they usually stay visible?

Cul a cnoic

Smyth wrote: »

What did I see last night? 4:22am. 2 objects 10 minutes apart. Similar brightness and size to a star moving in a straight constant line for about 15 seconds across the sky and then disappearing. Crystal clear sky. Same direction. Same speed. :eek:

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Satellites. A heck of a lot pass over every night.

Smyth wrote: »

edit*
The intermittent brightness would be due to it's reflection? Ah. Thanks.

Use www.heavens-above.com and select your location and you can see what satellites will be passing over your location.

Cú Giobach

Smyth wrote: »

Are satellites that visible and that bright? Would they not stay constantly visible? or do they only light up intermittently?

Satellites range in brightness from brighter than the brightest star eg the ISS
to below naked eye visibility, and everything in between.
Just a quick check shows me that tonight from where I live it should be possible to see 35 passing tonight, just between 11 and 12 o'clock, (I couldn't be bothered counting them for all the night )
They disappear as they enter the earths shadow which depending on the time of day night and altitude of the sat can be from near the horizon, to fairly high in the sky.

check out this. It Shows visible sats passing if you put in your location.

Ilyushin76

Probably a Chinese lantern

Calibos

Dammit! I am so unlucky. I am outside at night at all hours all through the year with me binoculars and telescope and never get to see these orange things flying by that are not chinese Lanterns. NCL's I call them. What are the odds! I only ever get to see the BSCL's (Bog Standard Chinese Lanterns). When I point my Binoculars or telescope at them, each time I pray that I am going to see an NCL but its always just a bloody BSCL.

Some would say that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, but not me!! I wish I was one of the special people who have had these unique sightings when they just happened to look up randomly some night. My luck will change one of these numerous nights where I actively scan the skys though. One of these nights it won't be a Chinese lantern or Aldebaran or antares or a plane I see in me Binos!

Cú Giobach

I'm in the "same boat" as the previous poster.
I must be one of the unluckiest people on the planet. I have spent most of my life (and I wouldn't be considered young) watching the night sky,
and have never seen a single unexplainable light in the sky.
I think I should have gone to specsavers.

backboiler

alan4cult wrote: »

I'm looking out my window now and seeing the same thing the OP describes. Looking SE I see it very low, glowing orange/red, moving but maybe not. It's definitely not a Chinese Lantern as it's been there a good hour now.

What is it?

Betelgeuse? It's big and red and was low in the sky ESE at the time.

Calibos

Cú Giobach wrote: »

I'm in the "same boat" as the previous poster.
I must be one of the unluckiest people on the planet. I have spent most of my life (and I wouldn't be considered young) watching the night sky,
and have never seen a single unexplainable light in the sky.
I think I should have gone to specsavers.

Tell me about it!!

Its amazing that 50% of the time people in these threads say

"is that what it was?, Cool"

whereas for the other 50% the Chinese Lantern answer is just not cool enough

It always goes something like this.....

Us: What you described sounds like a Chinese lantern.
Them: No it wasn't a Chinese Lantern.
Us: Have you seen one before?
Them: No
Us:Do you know what they look like?
Them: No
Us: then how do you know it wasn't a Chinese Lantern then?
Them: I just know!!

Or if they have seen a Chinese Lantern before.

Them: Wasn't a Chinese Lantern because I have seen one before and it didn't move like one.
Us: Did you know they can rise and fall in air vertical air currents?
Them: No
Us: Did you know they can speed up and slow down when moving in and out of an air current?
Them: No
Us: Did you know they can change direction when transiting from a lower level air current in one direction up into a higher air current travelling in another direction or travel over a vortex updraft from some geographical feature or building?
Them: No
Us: did you know that two CL's in the same meandering air current from certain perspectives can look like the are travelling in opposite directions but are actually both travelling in your general direction or away from you?
Them: No
Us: Did you know that something quite small and relatively dim but close to you traveling slowly can look like something big bright and fast traveling in space due to perspective?
Them: No
Us: Do you not think that the odds are, that it was a chinese Lantern
Them: Definately Not!!!!

Look, the day I read a post on one of the many amatuer astronomer forums I frequent which is full of hundreds of guys who have had Myriad Chinese Lantern sightings and know all about what they look like and how they can move etc etc. The day one of those guys says he saw a moving orange/red light/s that couldn't be explained by a Chinese Lantern well thats the day I'll be less sceptical about these 'definately not Chinese Lantern' sightings.

Heres where I get hypocritical though!!:o

I have had two WTF experiences myself. One explained and one unexplained. The first was seeing an reasonably bright object moving across the sky and making an instantaneous right angle 90º turn. The kind of physics defying manouver you hear about an Alien Spacecraft doing.

For a few seconds I was stood there going "Holy Fook! The drunk trailer park dudes were right after all!!"

Then it all became clear when I saw it was two craft. Two airliners. There was patchy cloud. There were two airliners whose paths intersected at right angles from my perspective(in reality they were separated by miles in all 3 dimensions) When I looked up one airliner was already behind a small patch of cloud and I didn't see it and at first only saw the other airliner. It just so happened that when one airliner disappeared behind the patch of cloud, the other airliner came out from behind the cloud at right angles to the trajectory of the first. For all intents and purposes it looked like some craft high up had just done a physics defying manouver.

Second unexplained sighting was a few nights later. Orange light (I know, I know ) about as bright as Vega appears at zenith whose trajectory was an arcing turn from due west to South west where it disappeared about 15º from the SW horizon. Now if someone said it was slow moving/drifting or cruising airliner or Satellite speed across the sky, the first thing I would say is CHINESE LANTERN!!! I'd put the apparent small size and Vega like dimness down to the flame about to go out.

However, this thing moved at the speed of a meteorite but without a tail. Like literally from Zenith to horizon in about 3 seconds. And what the hell was the curving trajectory all about??!! The only thing I ccould think of is something skipping off the atmosphere but can that explain the curving trajectory? Either that or a firefly zooming a few feet over my head which perspective makes look like something in space?? But we don't have orange flourescant fireflys in Ireland, Do we??

Bjorn Bored.

Well you see the fact is I have seen chinese lanterns many times,and I know how they can move and travel,they can make all sorts of strange looking manouveres as the previous poster has pointed out in great detail, I have been at partys when they were sent up and I know full well lots of people have been fooled into thinking that what they were seeing were UFOs. I have an outdoor a night time job which means I get a lot time to look up at the skies and I generally carry a decent pair of Binoculars with me although as luck would have it I left them in my other car the days I saw the objects.
Now I dont think I saw an alien space craft,but I have never seen a CL travel dead straight for about 80 secs completely horizontally right across the sky with no deviation up or down. This object had a mass about it,it wasnt a flimsy looking thing,it moved very deliberately and menacingly across the sky from horizon to horizon and lasted 80 seconds or thereabouts,is there any such thing as a slowly moving meteor or something along thoses lines? All I could think of at the time was this if that thing hits the ground its gonna make one hell of a mess!

djhaxman

Cú Giobach wrote: »

I'm in the "same boat" as the previous poster.
I must be one of the unluckiest people on the planet. I have spent most of my life (and I wouldn't be considered young) watching the night sky,
and have never seen a single unexplainable light in the sky.
I think I should have gone to specsavers.

Same here.

Beeker

djhaxman wrote: »

Same here.

I have never seen anything that could not be explained, and I spend a lot of time watching the sky:D

Popoutman

I've been an amateur astronomer for nigh on 25 years, and I've seen a fair few strange things, but nothing that wasn't easily enough explained. I've seen sprites from thunderclouds, satellites moving in formation, distant planes on strange approach paths to Shannon about 25 miles away at the time, lightning behind distant hills giving very strange illumination of clouds in that direction, multiple fireballs behind dense clouds (leonids '99) and I've only seen my first chinese lantern last night.
I can well understand why they appear odd, it took me a few seconds to realise that it was moving close to the local wind direction, and it was shimmering much faster than I would have expected
In 25 years of looking up and paying attention to the sky and its contents, I have yet to see something that I couldn't explain with a bit of research. I'm looking forward to seeing odd things in the future...

Poutbutton

I saw this and badly recorded it last night. I saw a really bright orange light quite near me at 8.30, it was below the moon and moving near and away from me. It made no sound but I thought it was some sort of helicopter, did'nt take much notice until my friend called me outside an hour later when there was 2 more lights, the other 2 moved in a synchronised fashion to the left and then disappeared in a flicker, the other one remained which is what i caught on camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLhNx8wMbF4

GarlicBread

Poutbutton wrote: »

I saw this and badly recorded it last night. I saw a really bright orange light quite near me at 8.30, it was below the moon and moving near and away from me. It made no sound but I thought it was some sort of helicopter, did'nt take much notice until my friend called me outside an hour later when there was 2 more lights, the other 2 moved in a synchronised fashion to the left and then disappeared in a flicker, the other one remained which is what i caught on camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLhNx8wMbF4

Hello, ive been watching these things for maybe 2 years. Always thought they were stars because they stay still and move accordingly. I was given a fancy explaination on here awhile ago about how it is the light reflecting off certain stars which causes them to flash green/red/blue etc etc.

About 3 or 4 days ago for the first time ever i seen one of them clearly moving around going left and right. No way are these guys stars. People are begining to take more notice of them. Im not sure what relation they are to the orange lanterns things that people are seeing, maybe they are the same. You can see them all over the night sky, well spaced apart and going behind cloud cover and back out again showing that they are very high.

This may very well be ufo disclosure in action .

Poutbutton

I must add that the video, taken with an ageing digital camera, does no justice to the light, it was so bright you would squint, when I first saw it in the sky an hour earlier than the video footage it was way nearer me and a blinding light shone from it. I cant believe a chinese lantern could have that strength of light. In saying that though, I'm still curious as to whether they were soundless helicoptors of some sort

maninasia

Somebody might have rigged an LED light to a Chinese lantern.