I saw something wierd the other night (REPOST)

Hey Everyone,

I've been reading these forums for a long time, and they are truley awesome. This is my first thread started in this section. Last night, I was sitting outside on my deck and looking at the sky. It had poured rain all day. The rain had stopped maybe a hour prior to this, and the sky was perfectly clear. I noticed how bright the moon was and was checking out the stars. All of a sudden I noticed an oval shaped object, in my peripheral vision. At first I thought it was the moonlight shining off tree branches in the wind, but when I looked directly at it I saw nothing. I looked away and again, there it was in my peripheral. It appeared to have some sort of cloaking device or something, because it blended in with the sky almost perfectly. The only reason it caught my eye, was because it was near the moon. Again I looked directly at it and I couldn't see it. I then looked away again thinking I'm going crazy, and there it was. I followed it with my peripheral vision, all the way across the sky. It was like looking at a translucent object, or more like when they censor something on TV, and you can still see it, but it's blurry. It was incredibly hard to see, but it was really freaky. I couldn't tell if it was in our atmosphere or in space. If I could compare the size of it to the full moon, I'd say it was about half the size thin, but a little bit longer. I know it wasn't my eyes playing tricks on me because I turned and moved around, and the object stayed in the same place. I just couldn't see it when I looked directly at it. The best way to describe the experience, was like looking at a magic eye book, where you have to look past the page and use your entire vision to see the hidden message/object. Perhaps this is some new technology, or perhaps it's something else... Has anybody seen anything remotely similar to this, or heard anything about it?

I posted this before, but I didn't realize I had global ignore on from a signature problem a whiles back.

A few other things.

Somebody mentioned a "floater" in my eye in the last thread I made about this. I was just wondering if you could explain what that means. Also I do not wear glasses, contacts or anything of the sort. The best way to describe it would be like something out of a "Magic Eye" book. I only saw it in my peripheral vision, however by turning my head, the object did not move with me. It stayed in it's flight pattern, but looking directly at it caused it to vanish. It was definately one of the wierdest things I've ever seen.


[edit on 16-1-2006 by Barcs]

It was likely to be the moon, and it's an effect that is well known to biologists due to the different types of sensory cells within the eye, rods & cones:

www.parascience.org.uk...

The eye contains two types of photosensitive cells, rods and cones, which convert light energy into signals that are carried to the brain by the optic nerve. Rods are very light sensitive, and give us black and white vision but they produce quite a low-resolution image. Cones, on the other hand, give very high resolution, colour images, but they are not as sensitive to light.
In the middle of the retina is a small dimpled region called the fovea. This contains only cone cells, so in ordinary light we would look straight at an object to produce the best picture. In dim lighting, the rod cells are better for imaging, and the largest concentration of these occurs near the outer edge of the eye. This means that we can see objects in low light better out of the corner of our eyes These cells also give us the best motion detection, so we can see movement best out of the corner of our eyes.

The investigator sitting in a darkened room might perceive a small point of light, maybe from an item of technical investigation equipment. It can be seen more clearly out of the corner of the eye, but no detail can be perceived. To compensate for this, the investigator attempts to look straight at the object to try and resolve it. But when we constantly focus on one point of light, we begin to lose a proper perception of it as the chemical in the cone cells, iodopsin, becomes bleached out. To try and overcome this, our eyes do what is called saccadic scanning, which basically means our eyes make small rapid movements, of which we are unaware. This saccadic movement is misinterpreted as movement of the light source, rather than movement of the eye, as there are no other objects visible to relate the movement to. This is what is called the autokinetic effect, and differs between individuals – some people see small movements, whereas others see the light source moving up to 8 inches. So a small stationery point of light has suddenly turned into a moving ball of light – is this a ghost manifestation occurring? It is important to remember also that, just as when we focus on a point of light in a darkened room the eye needs to keep moving to keep perceiving it, the same is true of the rods and our peripheral vision – we will no longer be able to perceive a stationery object at the periphery of our vision unless we keep moving our eyes.

Anglo.

[edit on 16-1-2006 by anglodragon]

Interesting theory, but wouldn't it stay in your peripheral vision no matter where you looked? I turned my whole body in the opposite direction and saw it in the corner of my other eye.

Did anyone happen to check this out?

Thanks!