low level streaks of light. What are they?

Has anyone else seen streaks of light fly by them?
On a few occasions i have seen something that whizzes just above (50-100ft) and in front of me. They appear to be a brightly lit object with a trail.
They pass incredibly fast and horizontal and make no sound. Each time it was at night.
Have you seen them, or know what they are?

reply to post by sayzaar


ya man thats creepy cause i just saw one the 2 days ago but i just figured it was a shooting star.

not a one liner

this is kinda creepy because i saw one just two days ago was in my firends car and looked up and just happen to catch it.

I just figured it was a shooting star but seemed to be too bright for it to be that.

Its nothing to be concerned over. During the meteor shower, I saw a particular bright and wider streak that you mentioned, its just relatively closer then the rest of the shooting meteors.


It should only be "creepy" (or cool) if you see it do a stairway type pattern. up, right, up, right up, right etc.

reply to post by calibanvov


So was there a metor shower recently? If so then that explains it, I dont keep up on that kind of stuff so I would'nt know.

Like I said if there was then that explains it for me.

reply to post by Everythingyouknowisalie


Record the events individually and make a "flash" diary or Journal. Then after a while, go back and research the date/times and see if anything corresponds.
Meteors, UFO reports, etc. Keep in mind, I've had this same effect happen and I usually just dismiss it a "nuttin".

But, I wouldn't just take the first convieniant answer and roll with it. Are you really interested in this personal anomaly? Or is this "just in passing"?

Just a thought,
Cuhail

reply to post by Cuhail


O I'm intrested in it cuase i have seen a shooting star before and this just didnt seem like it. It was very bright and had a very long bright tail.

Maybe I'll sit outside tonight (even though it's super cold at night over here) and keep my eyes in the skys.

I saw something exactly like that a few months ago.

However, if you see a very fast meteorite without a frame of reference if can be hard to judge distance. So who knows?

If you ever see one indoors or one stops and talks to you then you have cause for inquistion

I live in australia in a scantly populated suburb of a major city. I saw one around May this year and had been wondering about it all along. It was anywhere between 1 am to 3 am in winter and i recall seeing a bright streak of light from the corner of my eye but by the time i turned around to look at it, it was gone.

My initial thought was of a shooting star too but this one was just barely clearing the roof of a double story house across the street.

It was the oddest thing ever.

reply to post by 04326


This is EXACTLY what i am talking about. It was no more than the height of a couple of houses and flew horizontally. At that height, if it were a meteor, it should have been practically vertical and about to strike the ground ?

oh yeh, it was flying horizontally and was very bright. I tried asking my husband about it but he dismissed the whole thing too by saying that it was a shooting start. It was flying too low to be one.

I too would love to find out what it is because so far, I haven't a clue.

Actually, meteors can appear to travel in any direction (even "up" - think about it), and appear anywhere in the sky. As long as it's above the horizon, and not passing in front of buildings/telegraph poles/mountains, it's probably a meteor (or a satellite/space junk if it's very slow).

They can also vary in brightness and color tremendously. Although the vast majority of meteors are dim, bright meteors are surprisingly common, and can be seen all the time, if you are prepared to wait and watch. I've personally seen meteors casting shadows (brighter than the moon), and some that are so dim, you would not notice them if they were not moving!

Meteor activity does vary throughout the year, but it never stops, although we can't always see it (eg. in daylight). There are sporadic (random) meteors which don't belong to any showers (that we can tell at least) constantly bombarding us all the time.

As well as the sporadic background, at almost any given time of year there are at least one or two minor showers active, if not any major showers. This time of year is fairly busy, with at least 7 minor showers active right now.

With all activity at the moment, it's not unreasonable to expect to see 3-4 meteors per hour early on in the evening, and perhaps 5-10 per hour in the AM hours, if you have good viewing conditions free from light pollution.

Hope this helps clear up some misconceptions

Edit to add:

There are so many factors that determine exactly how a meteor appears to us, so much so that effectively, no two meteors will appear exactly the same, although meteors belonging to the same shower often share similar characteristics.

If you watch for a while, you'll see that meteors are so much more than quick bland-white streaks... some go slow, some go fast, some have a tail and some leave a trail! Some throw off sparks, and some look like "roman candle" balls of light or flares. Some explode, and some cross the sky gracefully lasting many seconds. Almost every color can be seen in meteors, and in some cases a single meteor can display all of them. The intensity of the colors can be breathtaking!

I'm only just scratching the surface here. Meteors are full of surprises. Just when you think you've seen it all, you see something completely new that leaves you speechless. Keep in mind, I've been watching meteors for 10 years nearly and I still am constantly surprised by meteors that I see, so anyone who has little or no experience watching meteors is likely to be fairly shocked by some of the things meteors can do!

[edit on 6-10-2008 by C.H.U.D.]

Last spring, my roommate and I were out for a walk and a meteor zoomed right over our heads. At first, all we saw was a bright light in the sky, but it grew bigger as the meteor drew closer. When it went over our heads (a few hundred feet above the ground), it was close enough to see the burning material and hear a distinct sizzle. It disintegrated before making it to the ground. It was spectacular.

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
Actually, meteors can appear to travel in any direction (even "up" - think about it), and appear anywhere in the sky. As long as it's above the horizon, and not passing in front of buildings/telegraph poles/mountains, it's probably a meteor (or a satellite/space junk if it's very slow).

Thank you for that

OP sorry if I appear to steal your thread but just curious if a shooting star / meteor would be as low as say 10 meters ??? Because the thing i saw just skimmed the neighbors roof. Any lower and it would have hit the side of the house.

Originally posted by Siblin
When it went over our heads (a few hundred feet above the ground), it was close enough to see the burning material and hear a distinct sizzle. It disintegrated before making it to the ground. It was spectacular.

That's another misconception...

Meteors are only luminous above a certain altitude, but they can appear to be much lower then they actually are, and I've experienced this myself too! See this page for a full explanation.

As for the sound you heard, it happens from time to time, but it's pretty rare! I've only experienced it once in all my years. Check this link about Electrophonic Sounds from Bolides

Heres another good link from NASA on the subject:
science.nasa.gov...

reply to post by 04326


You're welcome.

Quite simply, if a meteor were luminous at that kind of altitude it would have to be massive, and if that was the case, it would be game-over I'm afraid!

It's the velocity together with the size that's important here. Our atmosphere is very dense from the point of view of a meteor - when they hit they experience tremendous forces, and in many cases they disintegrate/explode because of the severe conditions. Anything that's robust enough to not disintegrate then falls (if you'll excuse the pun) into two categories:

1- meteoroids below a certain size threshold (the vast majority) don't have much momentum and are quickly slowed down by the atmosphere. Anything surviving will no longer be luminous and will free-fall to the ground.

2- meteoroids above a certain size threshold can retain enough of their cosmic velocity to remain luminous all the way down to the ground, but they are thankfully very few and far between! If you were lucky/unlucky enough to witness such an event, the meteor would probably be at least as bright as the sun - ie too bright to look at for any length of time!

Our atmosphere does a pretty good job at protecting us from even quite large chunks of rock.

hmm... how intriguing. I wonder what it was then that i saw that night. There was somethting that was just not quite right about it.

I might have to do a bit more digging to get to the bottom of it because I am 100% certain of the height and the brightness - but the brightness was no where in comparison to the sun. More like a extremely bright flair. Will post again if i find anything 'interesting'.

That night right after and the night before extremely bright light shinning through my upstairs window. The thing i noticed was that the angles were quickly changing and being second floor bedroom it was not a car.

Posted the above on another thread yesterday, Not sure if it's what your talking about?

04326 - meteors can certainly have an eeriness about them... especially if you see an "Earth grazer" (search for my numerous posts here on ATS about them), which sounds very much like what you saw! There are still things which are not well understood about meteors even by scientists, so the occasional odd meteor goes with the territory

In case anyone has not seen it, there is a major event literaly just about to occur now - see: www.abovetopsecret.com...

This looks to be just about category 1, but a few meters larger and it could have been a cat. 2 event!

Anyway, I have a camera to attend to... never know if a small fragment could end up off course

you are just a minefield of information and saved me days of googling to come up with the 'earth grazer' term.

Good luck with the camera and hopefully there will be a couple of small strays giving you some wonderful photo opportunities