8.9.8 Great night for UFO watching in Eastern US

Enjoyed the evening air down here, but nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe my dogs scare them or such. I've always loved that Gary Larson cartoon showing the aliens with hands for their heads and the farmer unknowingly setting off Earth's elimination.

My luck is they land near by and my dogs knock me and the tripod over running towards it to take a bite out of them once they have landed. I'll make sure to wear plaid and overalls whilst filming.

Life imitating art?

I guess my enthusiasm from the OP was in vain.
I really thought we were gonna get something tonight.
I blame all of you.
I hope you're happy with yourselves, you have crushed Sdog's hopes.

Originally posted by schrodingers dog
I guess my enthusiasm from the OP was in vain.

I really thought we were gonna get something tonight.
I blame all of you.
I hope you're happy with yourselves, you have crushed Sdog's hopes.

Dammit, made me back up a page and re-check who the OP was !!! lol

I blame all of you, heh, funny

We should have "UFO night" every other week or something. Your post got me thinking Sdog. That would give a good chance of sightings. Hell, I guess it could be every week some time as well.

Of course sometimes these things catch us off guard though. I guess we should all carry a camera with us as much as possible.

Troy

reply to post by cybertroy


That's not a bad idea. Even though every night should be ufo night really.
But I like idea of designating one night every week when every ats member tries to watch the sky for at least an hour.

Last night was really clear here (SE PA). However, nothing out of the ordinary. But I did catch nearly 7 meteors. One was sort of coming quite directly 'at me' (not across sky) so it looked like a quick flashing star with a bit of movement.

This weekend/week is the Perseids. Peaking around Aug. 12-14. Nothing like the "storm" of the morning in '99 when I got my son up early in the am and saw the Leonid shower - nearly 1 per every couple seconds.

www.earthsky.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 10-8-2008 by bonaire]

i notice here in NC, the best times for UFO's seem to be between 7:30-9pm, and i saw 5 satellites on 8/8/08, all going in different directions across the sky. normally they just go S to N, but these were ones i haven't seen before. however, one did get much brighter at about 12 o'clock in the sky, then disappeared about 1 o'clock, so that was weird. most of the UFO's i see around here are bright stars, brighter than planets, making a tight formation in the sky, and there'll be like 4 or 5 of them appearing and disappearing, way high up in the sky.

my coolest sighting was when a military jet was flying over, and i see a shooting star going in the opposite direction of it. all of a sudden, when the jet reached about 12 o'clock in the sky flying over me, a light instantly appeared about 5 wing-span lengths away to the right of the jet. i thought it was a flare at first, but noticed it was going parallel with the jet, flying the same exact speed as the jet. and as the jet went beyond the horizon, out of sight, the light moved from beside the jet, up into the sky and off to the right, then faded away once it got high in the sky.

these sighting were within the last month, andi'm not even gonna bother taking pictures, because it's just gonna look like a bright star!

well i tried but north alabama was cloudy last night, so we went ghost hunting instead. but no luck there either.

Strange... seeing as how this past saturday was going to be a sober and boring one for me, I decided to Lay out by my pool and watch the night sky for a few hours last night.

Although I can't say possitivly from an objective standpoint that I saw any "U.F.O.s" it was a marvelous night-here in Northeastern Ohio nonetheless to peer up and let the sky amaze me as it usually does.

I cought 3 airplanes, I police plane, one helecopter, two brilliant meteors (looked like fireworks), and about four satalites-moving pretty quick.

Now all practicallity aside, one of those "satalites" I happened to be mummble to and waveing at like an idiot, hoping for a response did indeed do that. What caught my attention was the fact that as it passed over me it turned -I want to say violently-a green color (like firework green?) and then instantaneously turned red and then back to its origianal color, carrying on in its original direction.

Could have been a satalite reflecting swamp gas but who knows. A good night for sky peering none the less.

I think a ufo spotting night is a great idea....Actually...thats a really great idea. We should try to organize the official ATS ET Watch Night

Im in Edinburgh, Scotland.

take it from that it WILL rain, and there WILL be clouds.

sigh

reply to post by shauny


Know it well, my wife's from Renfrewshire.
Ufos in Scotland are best viewed during the 45 minutes of summer you guys get every year. So be sure to be looking at the sky when that happens. lol

reply to post by schrodingers dog


I get that feeling too

so, at least I'm not the only one

wish I could leave the city to get away from the light pollution - but not an option

it sucks for star gazing, don't know if it really affects looking for UFOs

but haven't seen any, so...

anyway - saw nothing the 8th, nothing last night - looks like rain for tonight

was thinking of getting myself a telescope - and would appreciate advice (from you, anyone/everyone)

remembering that I'm starting out as a complete amateur - a nearly destitute amateur

but I have a question - it really is so bad here that I basically see the big dipper - and a couple of fuzzy things here and there that might be stars - is it even worth it to get a telescope under conditions like this?

also - farther on in the thread - about a designated ATS UFO-spotting night - I'm in

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


Yeah, I'm not a big techie either.
I wonder if there is such a thing as a telescope/digital camera so if you catch something on your telescope you take a quick picture of it.

The other idea I had was to purchase or build something like a laser/strobe. The idea is to just point it vertically towards the sky so that it might attract attention to anything up in the sky. I know it sounds simplistic, I don't even know if it's legal. The FAA might have regulations about things like these. It might also be that you need too much power to have it visible at such distances.
I'm just thinking out loud here.

reply to post by schrodingers dog



well, I wonder if maybe the way they're set up (technology-wise) - you could probably walk outside in the dead of night - look up - and just wave - try and look sincere

I guess the problem is drawing them in - maybe with snacks or something

I mostly want a better shot at just seeing what's out there -

not sure about me and a camera - I'm usually pretty disappointed with the photos of things I recognize 2-3 feet in front of me

anyway - I like the idea of everyone going out at roughly the same time then coming back in to talk about what they saw

Me and my friend were watching the skys last night and near 9:45, He saw two orbs floating in the Valley below Green, Red Orbs were hovering and shot up into the sky

reply to post by paufowatcher


Sounds promising.
Could we have a general location por favor?

Yeah, that's true, every night should be a UFO watch night. That's the thing I haven't done, which I should do, though, is devote some consistent time on doing some watching. More eyes to the sky hopefully should yield more evidence.

I'm not working at the sweatshop anymore, and I hope I can grow my computer business quick enough, so I don't have to follow a crazy schedule of waking up at the butt crack of dawn. That way I have time at night to do a fair amount of watching, without having to wake up at 6:30am.

I need better photo equipment, that's for sure. I won't be able to do much with the digital camera I currently have.

Troy

a live streaming sky cam would be nice, i could watch from the comfort of my home.