Weird Lights In The Sky Last Night

neo2010

Hey everyone,

I'm very skeptical when it comes to this subject, but what the hell was in the skies over Limerick City last night?

From my own back-garden at about eleven last night, I saw three odd looking lights moving erratically about the sky. Thought straight away that these we're chinese lanterns but the lights we're moving at incredible speeds and changing directions every 5 seconds or so.

The lights actually followed one another as they moved and we're definitely not aircraft -the maneuvers performed are just not possible.

Anybody see them? Two others in my house saw the very same thing - really really weird.

xsiborg

i'd sooner suggest given the time of year that it'd be fireworks rather than anything extra-terrestrial...

roast

Could be those fancy spotlight things that the nightclubs use to attract the zombies students in. Like the ones that Trinners used to shine in the sky?

Itsdacraic

Probably just a spaceship

neo2010

Nope, definitely were not fireworks.

I watched them for about five mins straight just moving around the sky. The lights moved at fast speeds, stopped dead air, changed direction and carried on flying on numerous occasions.

I thought it was a complete pile of crap until I noticed that the lights moved in correspondence with each other - it would be impossible for army jets or commercial airliners to move in the way these did.

I know the lights that the night clubs sometimes shine into the sky. These looked like stars - must have been really high up, but still very visible.

I hate all the conspiracy crap that goes on these days, but I really cannot explain what was in the sky last night.

xsiborg

surely you MUST have gotten a photo?

ShatterProof

Itsdacraic wrote: »

Probably just a spaceship

Nope, it was 3

neo2010

Yeah I was going to video record it but it was pretty cloudy last night.

Clear as day for anyone to see. The lights were basically flying around the same spot for just about five minutes.

Really strange, I've never seen anything like it.

Thought all those UFO spotters were short a few screws, but what was going on in the sky last night was not normal.

Insect Overlord

The Armadillo
"This is the time of year
when almost every night
the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.
Climbing the mountain height,

rising toward a saint
still honored in these parts,
the paper chambers flush and fill with light
that comes and goes, like hearts.

Once up against the sky it's hard
to tell them from the stars --
planets, that is -- the tinted ones:
Venus going down, or Mars,

or the pale green one. With a wind,
they flare and falter, wobble and toss;
but if it's still they steer between
the kite sticks of the Southern Cross,

receding, dwindling, solemnly
and steadily forsaking us,
or, in the downdraft from a peak,
suddenly turning dangerous.

Last night another big one fell.
It splattered like an egg of fire
against the cliff behind the house.
The flame ran down. We saw the pair

of owls who nest there flying up
and up, their whirling black-and-white
stained bright pink underneath, until
they shrieked up out of sight.

The ancient owls' nest must have burned.
Hastily, all alone,
a glistening armadillo left the scene,
rose-flecked, head down, tail down,

and then a baby rabbit jumped out,
short-eared, to our surprise.
So soft! -- a handful of intangible ash
with fixed, ignited eyes.

Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!
O falling fire and piercing cry
and panic, and a weak mailed fist
clenched ignorant against the sky!"

- Elizabeth Bishop

dlofnep

Doesn't sound like Lanterns.

Insect Overlord

dlofnep wrote: »

Doesn't sound like Lanterns.

In that case, http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056434062

dlofnep

Insect Overlord wrote: »

In that case, http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056434062

Doesn't meet that criteria. The IIS follows a set path. The OP claims to have seen multiple objects, moving at high speeds in varied directions. So it's none of the above.

neo2010

I am positively certain it is not lanterns or fireworks.

A few others and I watched for minutes as they continued to fly, intelligently might I add, over the skies of the city ( I'm living two mins from city centre).

I would genuinely be the first to disprove this but you've gotta call a spade a spade - it was definitely something out of the ordinary.

These lights stayed in the same general airspace and just flew at high speeds from one end of the sky to the other - performing strange circle movements, flying around eachother and completely stopping in mid-air.

I would probably just think it was crap but the intricate movements and speeds are not possible with today's technology. I'm baffled anyway.

Rhys Essien

OP,check out the 'Pheonix lights' video on youtube.See were they anything like them.

neo2010

You know the completely crazy part - the lights in that video actually look quite similar.

The lights last night were dim enough because of the cloud cover - but they were as bright as stars and moved in a bunch of crazy ways.

Over the course of five minutes, I saw two of the lights actually flying and maneuvering in what can only be described as a synchronized fashion - I must stress the speed of these were unnatural to say the least.

The lights could easily have been seen by anyone living in the general environs of Limerick City.

Rhys Essien

"Whether we are alone in the Universe or we are not,either thought is frightening".- Arthur C Clarke.

tricky D

Chinese lanterns tied together. Speeds and directions can be quite deceptive.

neo2010

Nope, highly improbable.

These lights moved in together then separated - did this on numerous occasions.

I have never heard of lanterns that travel at speeds faster than a jet fighter - they tend to float, not propel themselves through the air.

INEEDANID

I saw them too this morning on the way to Shannon at about 07:30 when it was dark.

Weird like really fast red lights flashing. Too fast for a plane.

neo2010

I'd say a lot more people saw these lights - they were just too hard to miss.

I didn't think anything of it until I was shown by somebody else.

Stood outside in the cold gazing at them for at least five minutes.

dr.fuzzenstein

Same in Clare:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=75182359#post75182359

Mc Love

Insect Overlord wrote: »

The Armadillo
"This is the time of year
when almost every night
the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.
Climbing the mountain height,

rising toward a saint
still honored in these parts,
the paper chambers flush and fill with light
that comes and goes, like hearts.

Once up against the sky it's hard
to tell them from the stars --
planets, that is -- the tinted ones:
Venus going down, or Mars,

or the pale green one. With a wind,
they flare and falter, wobble and toss;
but if it's still they steer between
the kite sticks of the Southern Cross,

receding, dwindling, solemnly
and steadily forsaking us,
or, in the downdraft from a peak,
suddenly turning dangerous.

Last night another big one fell.
It splattered like an egg of fire
against the cliff behind the house.
The flame ran down. We saw the pair

of owls who nest there flying up
and up, their whirling black-and-white
stained bright pink underneath, until
they shrieked up out of sight.

The ancient owls' nest must have burned.
Hastily, all alone,
a glistening armadillo left the scene,
rose-flecked, head down, tail down,

and then a baby rabbit jumped out,
short-eared, to our surprise.
So soft! -- a handful of intangible ash
with fixed, ignited eyes.

Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!
O falling fire and piercing cry
and panic, and a weak mailed fist
clenched ignorant against the sky!"

- Elizabeth Bishop

Oh look its President Michael D

RonMexico

It is impossible to accurately judge the speed/distance of an object in the sky at night.

I'd put my life-savings on the lights being lanterns blown about by the wind.

neo2010

Lads, I try to be rational with everything - not into the whole UFO business - but I can categorically state that it wasn't a lantern.

These lights zoomed from one end to the sky in to the other in about two seconds - how could a lantern achieve these kind of speeds.

They were racing about the sky for more than five minutes - not floating, actually racing at immeasurable speeds - and there were three. Unless somebody attached an advanced rocket to three lanterns, put pilots in them and let them loose for a few minutes, they weren't lanterns.

Insect Overlord

Could it be possible that it may have been light reflecting off insects a few metres above your heads, rather than something way up in the sky?

langdang

The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus

neo2010

Some outlandish theories there.:D

It was three lights, miles up in the air and moving around for about five minutes. My back-garden is paved in concrete so I highly doubt it was insects.

It was probably a weather balloon though - that seems to be the standard issue explanation for most of these happenings.:rolleyes:

krudler

was it a light that looked to flicker from yellow to red constantly? saw something in the sky above raheen around 1am

zuroph

Im still going to guess lanterns. they all moved in the same direction? wind. they changed direction? so did the wind. the speed? you've no frame of reference as you dont know how high up they are.
they're everywhere for halloween at the moment.

jonski

This is not aimed at the original poster but at any or all of these kind of posts . There are a few of ye , it goes on for more than five minutes and no one thinks to point their phone up at the sky and take a picture or a video ?

neo2010

It would have been pointless to record as It was too hazy for anybody to properly see.

That's the reason I started the thread - to see if anybody else saw them.

No disrespect Zuroph as you probably didn't see them but I have seen plenty of lanterns around and these literally went from one end of the sky to the other in a flash. How could lanterns travel that fast?

I could roughly estimate the altitude of these lights and they were definitely not in the range that lanterns float - this looked higher than commercial planes.

There really should be a hell of lot more people that saw these lights. They were flying right above Limerick City centre.

zuroph

how can you estimate the height, you have no idea what size it was, or what it was???! You have no frame of reference for height.

gpjordanf1

zuroph wrote: »

how can you estimate the height, you have no idea what size it was, or what it was???! You have no frame of reference for height.

Perhaps you should go outside and guage your point of reference, for something to go from one end of the visible sky to the other in a flash would be phonomenal. I've seen the fastest object i've seen travel across the visible sky and that was the ISS and that took a good 10-15 seconds.

And to take any type of photo at night would need a serious SLR camera.

Dont mind them OP, I can imagine your frustration reading much of the above, they would have you believe you havent a clue of what you witnessed!!!! I would have loved to have seen what you seen. Sounds amazing.

zuroph

so it travelling "at a flash" means it was high up? there's no frame of reference, as you dont know the size

neo2010

Well, you can decide and formulate your own theories but I, along with a few people who did see it, know that it wasn't remotely anything related to a lantern.

I think I am intelligent enough to discern between something moving at huge speeds and a paltry Chinese lantern.

gpjordanf1

zuroph wrote: »

so it travelling "at a flash" means it was high up? there's no frame of reference, as you dont know the size

No it doesn't, regardless of its size or altitude, if it travelled across the sky "at a flash" it was something out of the ordinary!

Bicycle

My son saw something similar last night, some time between 8 and 9. When he read the original post, he said it sounded exactly like what he saw.

We're on the North side of the city.

falan

Relax lads,its the Irish government testing our new state of the art top secret fighter planes to add to our world class air force.

zuroph

ok. how about a light/lazer show at the racecourse for the students halloween party.

KaiserMc

I saw those lights as well, exactly as the OP described them.
Was outside my house at 2am about 3years ago smoking a cig and looking up at the sky , it was a clear night and their was loads of stars visible.

I was leaning against the fence looking up for a couple of minutes and everything was static (as normal) then all of a sudden three lights that looked like stars and seemed as far away as stars started whizzing all over the place,this went on till i went back inside as i got a bit windy. Five minutes later I went back outside 'kinda thinking to myself , did that just happen ?' Looked back up and everything was static and it started again ,three lights flying individually horizontally and vertically at amazing speed across the sky, these lights were to the side of the house and would of been over Castletroy , the lights from the planes can be seen at night to the front of the house in the Raheen direction.

I know for a fact that these were not Lanterns or plane lights as I was looking up the whole time ,nothing rose up and no lantern or plane could pull off the manoeuvres that these lights were doing. I can't explain what these lights were but it was a freaky experience and exactly like what the Op described.

neo2010

Yeah your description is the exact same as mine.

No lanterns whatsoever. I am not mistaken, I know exactly what I saw.

Last Summer me and a group of friends set off a few lanterns and watched them - they look nothing like what was in the sky last night.

No laser shows, no bugs, no balloons - nothing of the sort.

I've never in my life seen something move so fast in the sky. It's weird seeing one not to mind three at the same time.

KaiserMc

neo2010 wrote: »

Yeah your description is the exact same as mine.

No lanterns whatsoever. I am not mistaken, I know exactly what I saw.

Last Summer me and a group of friends set off a few lanterns and watched them - they look nothing like what was in the sky last night.

No laser shows, no bugs, no balloons - nothing of the sort.

I've never in my life seen something move so fast in the sky. It's weird seeing one not to mind three at the same time.

neo2010, all I can say is I believe you but I ain't too comfortable about getting into a conversation about it such was the impression it left on me. As you said ,I know what I seen and I don't expect people to believe me, hence me not mentioning it to anyone before. All I will say was that it was both a exhilarating and frightening experience that I am not sure I would like to experience again.

neo2010

Yeah it gets pretty frustrating when a few off-the-wall explanations are thrown at you.

It just seems pretty unsettling seeing lights moving at incredible speeds in the skies above the city.

If anybody has ever seen a shooting star in the sky at night, that is a good estimation as to how fast these were going.

It's not even the speeds that astound me, it's the absolute precision-like movements that we're carried out whilst travelling.

I saw a video during the Summer relating to lights seen above London City during the day - looked very similar.

Comhrá

OP... was there any partial cloud-cover which could give some indication as to the altitude of these lights? Did they seem to be above the clouds, or were they bright enough to be visible through light clouds? Might give an approximate clue to the altitude, are we talking of a height of say, 30,000 ft? similar to the height of jet aircraft.

KaiserMc

Yeah.. they went from this point to that point as though this is what stars do,not a bother to what ever it was. Neo ,tis best just to forget about this, you saw what you saw and some of us believe you but there's many who won't. The best way to deal with this is to 'Just remember what you seen and enjoy the buzz 'because the vast majority will never believe you and you can never prove it.

zuroph

you know what, sorry, I apologise for being skeptical. Would love to see it too and understand more.

neo2010

The lights seemed extremely high up in the sky. They looked like stars shining, just that they were moving at unnatural speeds. (They appeared to be almost in space - as in that high up. It's actually really difficult to explain, but they were very very high up.)

They were definitely above the clouds. I could see the ISS last night and these were immeasurably higher - that's what struck me as strange - the speed, movements and general height.

It seems pretty cool but weird at the same time. I'd probably laugh if one of my friends said they saw something similar, but now I actually understand how amazing it can be to see something so strange with your own eyes.

AntiRip

I don't dismiss what you saw. My nephew and a group of lads saw lights one night as well that really really frightened them. I was saying to them it must have been a helicopter or something like that but said if I'd seen it i'd understand. It flew across the sky at incredible speeds and stopped immediately over them and started decending. They all freaked out, and they're all normal young fellas. They said it flew out over the Shannon again.

Only thing I've always wondered is, if it's extraterrestrial why would they fly millions of light years to another planet to do tricks in the sky to scare people. There must be a logical explanation for it

neo2010

Absolutely agree with you.

The lights were spinning and doing all sorts of crazy movements.

A lot of the time they also seemed to just hover - then dart off in opposing directions, then regroup. You would have to see something like this to believe it - it would seem farfetched to anybody who didn't but it actually happened right over the city.

zuroph

my astronomer mate tells me that for the last few nights there's been incredible aurora shows taking place, further down than usual, even seen in some southern united states... could be a possible explanation... most of Ireland being clouded out hasnt helped it be more noticed here...

zenno

neo2010 wrote: »

The lights seemed extremely high up in the sky. They looked like stars shining, just that they were moving at unnatural speeds. (They appeared to be almost in space - as in that high up. It's actually really difficult to explain, but they were very very high up.)

I believe you seen something that has moved at incredible speed high up but as with me many years ago I had seen some very strange things as well but once you tell someone they laugh and come up with a lantern or bugs or swamp-gas.

the problem with these kind of people is in their little world/box they just see what is in front/behind/left/right and they never look up as this is alien to them and also they are not educated in space above or with anything of this kind. if they looked up they would probably faint.

mostly it's a lack of education when people use stupid words like a chinese lantern in this case as they have not seen it as you and others have and even if such people did see this they would just not understand it i.e speeds of acceleration motion height also distinguishing between other space objects etc...