Starlike objects that move strangely in the sky

Just an update, In early October I could go out into the garden and see loads of these in a matter of minutes, Im talking 20+ in under 10 minutes but then we went through a couple of grey cloudy weeks and only recently has the weather been clear at night. I have gone out with my telescope, binoculars and cameras but have not seen one yet so far.

Has anyone else witnessed any in the past 2 weeks? Im just trying to find out if there is a pattern to the sightings or not?

one thing to note though, I have taken non believers out in the past and shown them the lights or starlike objects that move and it totally freaked them and now they believe something is up there!!

Originally posted by justjoemusic
Just an update, In early October I could go out into the garden and see loads of these in a matter of minutes, Im talking 20+ in under 10 minutes but then we went through a couple of grey cloudy weeks and only recently has the weather been clear at night. I have gone out with my telescope, binoculars and cameras but have not seen one yet so far.

Has anyone else witnessed any in the past 2 weeks? Im just trying to find out if there is a pattern to the sightings or not?

That is because at this time of year the sun dips too far below the horizon to illuminate objects in orbit that are above you. During the summer months, the sun does not dip far below the horizon, so satellites and junk in orbit above you are illuminated over most of the sky, depending on their altitude.

Even though the sun dips down below the horizon for most of the night at this time of year, if you look just after sunset/before dawn you will see them.

Summer vs Winter Viewing

Depending on your latitude, you may notice large variations in your window of opportunity for satellite viewing. If you live at a high latitude, either in the northern or southern hemisphere, you will find that you can observe satellites long into the night during the summer. This is because your location does not pass as deeply into the earth's shadow as it does during the winter. If you live beyond the Arctic or Antarctic circles where it is daylight 24 hours a day in the summer, you will not be able to see any satellites in that season. In the winter, the situation is reversed. The viewing period tends to be much shorter. At 40 degrees north latitude, you can typically view satellites for only an hour or so in the winter. At lower latitudes there is less seasonal variation in viewing times.

Source: Satellite Viewing Tips


If you learn to identify stars, satellites, and junk, you will probably no longer see "star-like objects" in the sky. The fact that "they move strangely" is more due to the fact that our eyes/brain are not that good at interpreting what we see in the sky, and adjusting for our natural body movements.

I have stood right next to someone, whilst observing a satellite passing over-head, and they perceived it to be wiggling (the body swaying back and forth causes this), whilst I just saw it taking a normal straight path. Everyone's perception is a little different.

As I have said, time and time again, it's only inexperienced star-gazers who see these things, where as experienced and knowledgeable star gazers look at the same sky, and are able to identify the vast majority of things that are being reported here.

It's not that we are seeing different phenomena, it's because experienced star-gazers realize that our eyes don't always tell the full story, as well as having the experience to be able to tell what most objects in the sky are (although this is not always the case - no one knows or has seen everything).

A good place to start IMHO would be to download this software and learn about the stars and constellations.

Good luck

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


But C.H.U.D.....what about the objects that are clearly not sats?

Do sats stop, change directions, or zig-zag, stair-step across the sky? Do sats have "dogfights" with one another?

Or is this inexperienced stargazer just "seeing things" and misidentifying them? My head is changing directions? My googely eyes are zigzagged? Were the "dogfights" just fireflies?

Just curious, I'd like to have a logical explanation as to what I saw....enlighten me.

I was deer hunting in a tree stand watching the stars and notices over a 20 minute period, 5 star-like objects 5 minutes apart go across the sky about twice as fast as a plane at 20,000 feet would travel. They never changed there light intensity and all traveled within 20 degrees North to South and made no sound. They never flashed and could not have been satellites. I only took notice as a star apparently started moving and i thought that was very odd.

reply to post by starcraft


starcraft,

As far as I'm aware, satellites do not change directions, or zig-zag, or stair-step across the sky, but they can appear to do all of those things. As I said before, your own body motion is what you are probably seeing rather than the motion of the object.

If you find yourself something to lay down on, so that your head is supported and not moving, you will probably stop seeing the erratic motion that you are seeing now. Give it a try, and let us know how you get on.

Not only will you be able to see things without them jumping around, but you will also be able to observe a much greater area of sky, and your neck won't hurt so much if you spend long periods of time observing the sky.

I think it's just your inexperience, and I certainly don't disbelieve what you say you saw since I have seen the same things myself in the past, but it is quite easy to prove to yourself what the cause is if you follow my suggestion above.

There could well be a better explanation for some of the things people have reported on this thread, but sometimes the most mundane things get overlooked, and from time to time even familiar objects can seem unfamiliar, if the circumstances/conditions are right. We think of air as a transparent/passive medium, but forget that under some conditions it can cause distortions in what we see and all kinds of strange effects (eg a mirage or scintillation).

Please understand, that without being there and seeing the same things that you (or others) saw, it's impossible to say with 100% certainty, but since more experienced observers don't tend to see these things (at least the more unusual descriptions found on this thread), and we look at the same sky as every one else, the most logical explanation for the discrepancy is technique/level of experience.

I should say, that rather than experienced observers not seeing things like zig-zagging satellites etc, they just ignore them and don't mention it. A good observer knows when not to trust his or her eyes, put quite simply.

As humans, everyone should also keep in mind that we have limitations, and we are by no means perfect. Our vision has evolved in a specific way that is suited for looking at things in daylight and on the ground. The human brain is the problem though, since what we see is not what the eye sees, but the brain's interperatation of what the eye sees.

As an example, our eyes actually see upside-down, but the brain flips it the correct way round for us.

Seeing doesn’t actually take place in the eyes, but in the brain. The brain puts together the nerve impulses from the optic nerve, flipping the image right-side up, and allows us to see. Scientists still do not fully understand how the brain does this.

Source: thinkquest.org

Indeed, everyone's perception of the world around them is different, and many factors can affect what we see, but the human brain is probably the biggest factor. This page has some good info.

The night sky is a notorious accomplice, since there are so few visual cues up there (our brains don't intemperate things very well in situations like this), and in many cases even experienced observers get caught out.

The prime example that I'm most familiar with personally is how meteors can easily fool people into thinking that they are much lower than they actually are, and this can apply to almost any object/light seen in the sky, but I'm sure you can find many others if you look.

I've explained some of the pit-falls in previous posts, here, and here if you want to gain a better understanding of how we perceive objects that are at high altitude. Every serious observer should be aware of the concepts involved IMHO.

Like most things, there is allot more to it than may appear at first glance, so stay on your toes and don't take everything that you think that your are seeing for granted, but at the same time be aware of your own limitations, along with the limitations of todays science.

I hope all of that makes good sense, and if not, please ask and I will try to explain.

[edit on 23-11-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

It seems some of the links are broken in my previous post.

Here is the most important link again, hopefully working this time!

www.buzzle.com...

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


Your rationale makes sense C.H.U.D, and I would concede that yes, a very small fraction of what some folks say they have seen could be misidentified due to your simplistic hypothesis. But.....

I will state again though. What I, (and 7 others) saw that night were NOT satellites.

reply to post by starcraft


Thanks starcraft,

Sometimes the most simple answer is mistakenly overlooked. The subconscious mind is a powerful thing, and it is often hard to dissuade someone that their mind may have played a tick on them.

My answerer was admittedly a very generalized answer, since I have very few details from you about what you saw. Perhaps you could describe what you saw? The more detail the better.

After re-reading what you wrote so far, it sounds more like it could be chinese lanterns. IMHO of course. Is there any particular reason they could not be?


Consider this:

The autokinetic effect (also referred to as autokinesis) is a phenomenon of human visual perception in which a stationary, small point of light in an otherwise dark or featureless environment appears to move. It was first recorded by a Russian officer keeping watch who observed illusory movement of a star near the horizon. It presumably occurs because motion perception is always relative to some reference point. In darkness or in a featureless environment there is no reference point, so the movement of the single point is undefined. The direction of the movements does not appear to be correlated with the involuntary eye movements, but may be determined by errors between eye position and that specified by efference copy of the movement signals sent to the extraocular muscles.

The amplitude of the movements is also undefined. Individual observers set their own frames of reference to judge amplitude (and possibly direction). Because the phenomenon is labile, it has been used to show the effects of social influence or suggestion on judgements. For example, if an observer who would otherwise say the light is moving one foot overhears another observer say the light is moving one yard then the first observer will report that the light moved one yard.

Source: click here


You said earlier:

In the entire hour I would say I raised the glasses to my eye around 20 times. Never spotted another object. Statistically speaking, I found it significant that the VERY first time I looked through them, there was an object. I mean, there it was, before even having to scan side to side. I looked up.....and there it was. What are the odds of looking randomly into the night sky with binoculars, looking at nothing in particular, only to view an object, big and bright the second you bring it to your face? I would say the odds are spectacularly low, given the size of the sky, and the size of an orbiting satellite. Million to one? More?

Page 17

Actually, the odds that you would not see anything at that time are much greater, since the deeper into the night you get , the deeper below the horizon the sun dips. Once the sun reaches a certain angle below the horizon, the sky above your head will all be in Earth's shadow, so you would not expect to see anything, just as you described.

Download Stellarium if you have not already, and see how the sun's angle changes over the course of a night, and during the course of a year - it really is amazing the difference between Summer and winter makes.

Some related reading:
SPACE.com: How to Spot Satellites
More info on the subject

I have also seen the Star- like objects and from watching them i experience sinister visions of big black eye alien images frequent headaches and feeling very strange. I live in the city and every night there are 50 or more of these objects i am very terrified.

reply to post by Vermelladiggs


Are they the Grey aliens with big black menacing eyes?? and are your headaches in the same part of your head everytime or in different places??

Just wanted to leave an update, I went through a phase of not looking up at the night sky for awhile, and recently Iv been outside again... Keep seeing them, they light up and move in all directions, blink in and out... and no these are not satellites, Iv even had loads of friends some of whom do not believe in E.Ts and they have all seen them and now their views have changed.

I have recently started meditation again, the Alien Contact Meditation from ATS and hope to see more and communicate again with these starlike objects or rather the drivers/pilots/operators of these things.

I am debating with myself on whether to do an experiment and share the results be they positive or negative on ATS, which will entail me filming as I meditate the sky above me and also have a camera set on me to see if anything manifests or happens. What do you lot think??

Me and my wife saw a star-like object moving across the sky a couple of weeks ago.

We were on the beach just gazing at the marvelous starred dome the night was then and I noticed that litlle star moving across.

It followed no linear path at all, it was like just slowly zigzaging about.

I have written until blue in the face that all them there stars up there are not stars about time someone is taking notice.

he buddy
very good job describing these things,whatever they may be
just wanted to let u know i ve seen them to
hoover, fading out, changing direction, light up
all kinds of weird stuff going on up there

by the way have u managed to capture them on vid yet
?

You said you were going to film this. I am sorry but I cant read 25 pages to see it.
If you did please re-post the footage.

They are out there. I have seen two moving in unison until shooting left, then right separately, 15 sec. apart at right angles, way past sonic speed. Even if I had a camera it was 1974, and would have been useless.

Yeah, they followed me once. They are most probably our own ships (human). Nothing large, but not too small either. Big as the triangle shaped UFOs. I saw it in the night sky, it was the only star visible, very bright light. Then all of a sudden the light went off, it started to glow red and then it quickly flew away in a second without any noise.

Hi All, this is my first post..i have seen quite a lot of star like moving objects..today between 7:10PM to 7:21PM i saw atleast 3 star like moving objects and two of them moved on the same course..one moving object passed close to a star thats near the orion's belt..and after few minutes i spotted another one from a different direction which then passed exactly the same route the first one did, i don't have a telescope to observe or to even find out what these objects are..they were pretty dim and soon faded away due to toomuch dust being seen because of light reflection.

Saw the same thing during my holiday this week.

A star-like object moving at tremendous speeds making no sound with no flashing lights during night.

Now that read this post now i know i'm not imagining what i saw tonight . I saw bright stars with red lights moving swiftly across the sky . I called mom over and she saw them too.When my hubbie arrived he saw them too.It was so amazing i never seen anything like this before. I'm going to record next time.

reply to post by justjoemusic


I am seeing very similar objects over Mechanicsburg PA just southwest of Harrisburg.
At about 10p.m. on august 12th 2011 I stepped outside to walk my dog and noticed a plane extremely high and moving very slow from southwest to northeast. I told my father to look at this plane he came out and me and him were discussing the weird vibrating motion it appeared to have and then I noticed another one not far behind it and as my sight became obstructed by a tree I noticed what I first thought to be a bluish white star to the southwest of me, to be changing from a blue to white to red several times in a random sequence. After about 1-2 minutes passed I noticed it was moving up and down and side to side as if it were hovering. The more I watched, it became apparent to me that the lights were going around an object of an undetermined size. I could see that the lights would go to the right and left because of the dimming effect it would have compared to the lights flashing directly towards me. I and my father watched this for about 10-15 minutes. My father was very skeptical of what he was seeing so he went back into the apartment. I followed shortly after to let the dog back inside. I walked upstairs to look out of my window to see if the object was still there, it was and was a little better view for me as it appeared to be a bit higher in the sky. I continued to watch and I began to realize that I had not seen any commercial airplanes flying overhead the entire time. Which is unusual because a lot of air traffic passes over head going to the Harrisburg International Airport and a lot of helicopters fly overhead going to and from the naval depot which is very close to my apartment? I decided to go back out front to continue observing the object. I watched it for a while it seemed to be continue the same movements and light changes. Then it stopped changing lights and was only red with a hint of purple to blue on the edges. For the first time I could see a dark almost flat black shape of the object I could only see above the lights could not see and shape to it below the lights. It began to change lights again and I could not see the flat black shape anymore. I started to wonder if my eyes were playing tricks on me from focusing on it for such a long time so I went inside and had a glass of juice and sat down for a few minutes. After I finished my juice I grabbed the garbage to take out with me when I heard a helicopter flying and could tell it was moving faster and lower than the normal helicopters I see and hear on a regular basis. When I got outside the object was gone and I could hear the chopper but could not see it what so ever. As I was scanning the skies to see if the object had moved I noticed several jets flying very fast and high all from the northwest to the southeast where the object previously was. I knew these were not commercial because they were going too fast, they were to small, and their red and blue wing lights were flashing different from anything that I had seen before. They did not have any lights on in the front of the aircraft. It was a very clear sky and a full moon so I could actually see the flat grey paint on the belly of a few of the jets, which pretty much confirmed to me that they were u.s. military fighter jets. I then heard a very loud noise from the north and it was a very big plane which looked like a C-130 gunship to me. It was very low and very loud. I then started to hear a very strange fast grinding noise and was unsure of the cause. This noise happened several times each lasting a few seconds. Shortly after those noises I heard what sounded like an explosion from the northwest. I also began hearing at least one maybe more helicopters from the same direction which had became very hazy almost like smoke across the sky to the northwest. I seen a few more jets coming from the southeast and once they got to cloudy area I did not see any jets for quite some time. I could hear a helicopter going back and forth from north to south with a jet which was flying much lower than the other jets because I could actually hear its engines much clearer. They seemed to be doing a grid type search pattern or there might have been 2 sets of them circling around something. I could not see them because of this cloud which by this time I started to beleave was a smoke cloud because of the strong gunpowder smell that was coming with it. I heard multiple police sirens heading their direction. It seemed to be hours of the jet and chopper back and forth from north to south. Around 1a.m. my mother came outside because she had to pick my brother up from work. She asked me to ride with which I did because the activity had really died down. She also immediately noticed the gunpowder smell. The smell also had a pungent odor which I had never smelled before. The smell was much different from the smell of fireworks which I find to be a good smell this was overpowering at times and very strange to me. I am sure I am forgetting a few details but this pretty much what I experienced last night into early this morning.
Has anyone else in the area seen this???