Did a star go nova tonight?

A few people in different states all across the U.S. are saying they saw something. So how could it be a meteor coming straight at them?

Unless.. it was one coming straight at the center of the U.S. and you could see it from anywhere on the continent ..

Ive seen satelite flares, ive seen the ISS reflecting brightly, Ive seen many meteor showers, it wasnt any of these. One of my favorite pastimes camping in the sierra is watching the satelites go over, you can see definate movment with a satelite, this didnt move it was just to the left of a visible star
It was too low in the sky for a point view meteor, and someone two thousand miles away would not have seen it as a point view meteor.
I just looked up the iridium flare for yesterday and it was not at the right time and not right location. If I was riding at 4:30ish in the am it would have been behind and to the left of me.

I marked about where the flare was on this image

reply to post by runetang


Only people who are essentially in line with the trajectory will see it as a point any one else will see it traverse the sky. The only way way for people in various parts of the country to see it in the same location would be if it was extremely far away. If it was in our atmosphere people in different parts of the country would have had a different bearing on the event.

Ok, I'm stumped. I looked up mufon, google news, and a few other places. Might still be too early though.

Maybe it was a weather balloon. Reflected light off of Venus or something.

Seriously, I trawled through the recent news reports. There were only two likely, non-bizarre candidates -- an Indian satellite launch and a Canadian amateur weather balloon launch. Geographically speaking I'd have to rule out the first possibility, since the report says it's a geosynchronous satellite located at 74 degrees east.

The other possibility, I don't know, you decide for yourself.



It seems to fit the position in the sky you mentioned. And it would have been pretty visible if it expanded to the size of a bungalow.

reply to post by Beachcoma


Nope not the alberta ballon guys, that was on 8-11-07 at 9:30 am.They recovered the ballon around 12:30 pm same day.

reply to post by punkinworks


Damned news report. It published in September yet said "earlier this month" instead of last...

I'll keep on digging and see what I can find.

Originally posted by Beachcoma
Maybe it was one of those Iridium satellite flares. A 10-15 seconds flare seems about right.

I was just going to say the exact same thing and then I saw your post. I'm willing to bet that it was exactly that... an Iridium flare.

But I know what people here are probably thinking.... exploding UFO.

[edit on 9/4/2007 by pjslug]

reply to post by pjslug



I checked the data for the iridium flare yesterday, it would have been 9 hrs earlier and in a different direction to the south of west about 60 miles west of my location.

Originally posted by pjslug

But I know what people here are probably thinking.... exploding UFO.

Technically that's true. It's an exploding (or simply flaring), unidentified flying/floating object

okay so ive looked over all the input from everybody else and all i can say is im still stumped....i saw no objects in the sky...ill re-state what i saw....i looked out my window to look at the lake...and out of the corner of my eye saw these bright flashs of light that at the first reaction i thought was lightning but still went outside to look any way.....went out side about 10 second later and looked in the same direction and saw 3-4 bright pulse's of light...not concentrated light but like brightening the skies off in the distance kinda pules's if that makes sense...simaler to what you would see from a cloud being lite up by lightning....accept there were no coulds in the sky cept a few lil guys the weather was good and this was def something off in the distance....plus it was seen by others across the country.....that does not lead me to speculate aliens at war in the sky or anything...but its more then likley none of the explanations thus far....but all your help tryina figure this out is appreciated



lmao edit spelling

[edit on 4-9-2007 by future flow]

I know this is out there, but some experts at the latest Bay area conference have related they are seeing an all out war up there including lasers of late. Sounds like something got smoked. IMHO. Iridium flares are not static.

Originally posted by future flow
ill re-state what i saw....i looked out my window to look at the lake...and out of the corner of my eye saw these bright flashs of light that at the first reaction i thought was lightning but still went outside to look any way.....went out side about 10 second later and looked in the same direction and saw 3-4 bright pulse's of light...not concentrated light but like brightening the skies off in the distance kinda pules's if that makes sense...simaler to what you would see from a cloud being lite up by lightning....

Originally posted by jpm1602
I know this is out there, but some experts at the latest Bay area conference have related they are seeing an all out war up there including lasers of late. Sounds like something got smoked. IMHO. Iridium flares are not static.

Call me nuts (it's okay, people do all the time) but could this be some of the first high-powered testing of HAARP?

[edit on 9/4/2007 by pjslug]

Here's a dumb question
Is it even possible to see a star going nova with the naked eye and how long would it be visible for?

reply to post by punkinworks
Can you clarify a couple of things.

The map states sighting at 9:10pm on Sept 4, Central CA (that's the town name)

Was it sept 3, monday, at 9:10 or Sept 2. sunday, at 9:10

The only Iridium flare for that area at night recently:

Search Period Start: 17:27, Sunday, 02 September, 2007
Search Period End: 18:27, Tuesday, 04 September, 2007
Observer's Location: Central ( 38.3930°N, 121.5720°W)
Local Time: Pacific Daylight Time (GMT - 7:00)

Date Local Mag Alt. Azimuth Distance (Mag.) Satellite
Time

02 Sep 21:15:05 -0 17° 357° (N ) 43.3 km (W) -6 Iridium 67

You might have, you might have also witnessed space debree burning up in the atmosphere. You ask what are the chances of seeing something from such a perspective. Why not ask, "what are the chances of viewing a star going nova when it takes how many millions of years for it to travel through space for us to see it?".

reply to post by roadgravel


Exactly, there was no iridium flare on that night .There was a flare on monday but it was earlier in the day, and it would have been visible in an entirely different direction.

Originally posted by newage2012
You might have, you might have also witnessed space debree burning up in the atmosphere. You ask what are the chances of seeing something from such a perspective. Why not ask, "what are the chances of viewing a star going nova when it takes how many millions of years for it to travel through space for us to see it?".

It is possible a large enough piece of junk could produce a good size flash, but at least one other person reported seeing very bright star that went out. Like I said earlier only someone very near my location would have seen it as a point, the other person would have seen it as a streak across the sky.
And man it was bright, and white and it lasted too long for a meteor or something burning up in the atmosphere.
Super novas happen on the order of 1 every 50 years per galaxy, those are pretty good odds. And the distance has no bearing on the chance of looking i the right place at the right time.
A gamma ray burst maybe? Long bursts can last from 2 seconds to several minutes, and one that was observed was as bright as the planet neptune, and was 9.6 billion light years away.
I will most likely never know what it was that I saw but I do know it was something extraordinary, whether it was a point view meteor, a piece of space junk or a cosmic event of some sort.

Originally posted by punkinworks
reply to post by roadgravel

 

Exactly, there was no iridium flare on that night .There was a flare on monday but it was earlier in the day, and it would have been visible in an entirely different direction.

The flare was sunday night. What night was your sighting at 9:10pm? It was at that time per your map, correct?

Originally posted by newage2012
You might have, you might have also witnessed space debree burning up in the atmosphere. You ask what are the chances of seeing something from such a perspective. Why not ask, "what are the chances of viewing a star going nova when it takes how many millions of years for it to travel through space for us to see it?".

Here here! Space debris indeed!

Other than that explaination--i'm left with the possibility of alien/top-secret space warfare. . .

Which "feels" more realistic each day now.