Recent New Zealand UFO sighting (with pic) ISS.. or something else??

I am posting this UFO report on behalf of my workmate Barry who witnessed a UFO a couple of weeks ago while staying with some friends and their children, they witnessed a bright white object fly overhead that was definitely not an aircraft. He managed to take a pic, which was miraculous in itself considering it was running out of memory and battery power, and I have posted the picture here too.

The party of five concluded it must be a meteorite and lost interest in the object but Barry continued to watch it as it then turned a bright round red (as red as a Coke can) and POOF, it's gone. Now would a meteorite do this, if it was burning up while entering the atmosphere? Here's Barry's report, quoted verbatim:

On Sunday 28th December 2008 at 10.28pm, while holidaying in the Hunter Hills (Waimate region, South Canterbury, New Zealand), some children observed an object gliding across the starlit sky, straight above, moving at approximately the speed of an aircraft that would be a normal visibility object (30,000 ft). The sky was clear, deep black, and the object was very bright.

The group of five adults were rather taken aback by the object which didn't resemble known objects (i.e International space Station etc). Appeared to be travelling between the stars and the assumed atmosphere. travelled in a straight line due south, and (always easily identified during its traverse) approximately 3 minutes later, well above the horizon, suddenly glowed a very round red (a perfect round red) and disappeared.

Barry and his friends weren't the only people to witness this object. A fellow workmate heard that it was seen as far away as Christchurch. Another person reported seeing it at Waitaki Bridge. Barry's friend Rodg (from Oamaru) also saw the object - not only that, he also witnessed the object turn red and disappear!

Now, what we do know, is that the International Space Station has been doing its rounds and I'm inclined to believe that it is indeed the ISS. We've been watching YouTube videos posted of the ISS filmed from ground level and its speed and luminosity / shape is rather similar. Apparently the ISS also takes 3 minutes to travel from horizon-to-horizon. HOWEVER, if it was the ISS, why would it suddenly turn a beautiful bright red and just vanish into thin air? So, we are hoping to find out what this thing is... was it the ISS? Was it a meteorite burning up? All witnesses ruled out a shooting star as it travelled so slow. Barry remarked it was so bright and travelled lower than an aircraft that it seemed like he was looking at one of those 3D pictures that pops out from the background. He said it was quite surreal. He described the object position as neatly in between where you would consider the stars to be, and our atmosphere. And it was very bright.

Here is the photo that was taken (camera is a Fuji FinePix A 500):


..and this is the same image, cropped and zoomed for your convenience:


Any ideas, thoughts, or fellow reported sightings are most welcome!

[edit on 17-1-2009 by RiotComing]

cool.

sounds like ISS and that pic looks what you would see, im not sure way which way it travels down that end of the works, when its fluing over uk, it always passess west to east.

as for it turning red? ive never seen that, but ill guess that as it was going out of your sight it can see some light from the setting sun , that might have that effect of making it turn red, ive seen it happen to planes loads, but they are quite a bit lower down.

Yes, that sums up my thoughts exactly. I took the zoomed object and compared it with the ISS YouTube vids on pause and it certainly comes out looking very similar, glowing white in the middle with the pixelated grey around the outside, which leads me to come to the same conclusion as yourself.

It's just the turning red thing - and yes, from talking to people, they came up with the same conclusion as you, light reflecting from the sun, at 10.30 in NZ, the sun is still setting (well it's dark, but not completely dark at that time) and could well be reflecting light from the sun. All the other people there had lost interest and never saw it turn red; as you would imagine, it was a warm summer night and they are sitting around having a few beers outside.

It seems that it was one very clear atmospehere day, not so common every day, so maybe this was the reason why ISS you witness was so bright..
And yes, when going into the Earth shadow, ISS will dissapear. Not suddenly, but in a matter of, i can't remember exactly, but maybe 10 seconds or more (hope not much wrong), and it become red because sunlight traveling through earth atmosphere, that's why surise or sunsets are red, or full eclipsed moon is red.
If anyone knows a program or site to verify past transits of ISS, it will be clearly solved. But, from description and my personal sightings of ISS, it looks this is the plausible answer

[edit on 17/1/09 by depthoffield]

Originally posted by RiotComing
HOWEVER, if it was the ISS, why would it suddenly turn a beautiful bright red and just vanish into thin air? So, we are hoping to find out what this thing is... was it the ISS?

I's almost certainly a satellite and it might well be the ISS. It's certainly too slow to be a meteor.
Perhaps you guys can work this out yourself if I give you a few hints:

Satellites are only visible when they are reflecting sunlight.
If you look at the sun when it's setting, what color is it?

Have you checked heavensabove.com if the ISS was visible at the time?

Edit: depthoffield got in there first, while I was typing/doing something else!

[edit on 17-1-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

Here's what Heavens Above says for ISS passes over Waimate, New Zealand around the time reported. I don't know the accuracy of this. It should be within about 10 minutes. I think it uses today's orbital elements, which will be different from the actual ones for that day.



While two passes of the space station occured the evening of 28 December, they straddle the reported time and neither travelled due South.
Although the description given is very similar to the ISS, it could well have been another satellite in low Earth orbit. The red fade-out characteristics reported are typical of bright satellites observed in clear skies.

It might be possible to determine if a bright satellite passed over Waimate on that evening at that time, but I'm personally not inclined to do so. Nothing in the report indicates anything other than a conventional satellite.

WG3