Bright light last night.

Last night, I was sitting in my living room, when through the sliding glass doors I see this bright orange light. Now my first thought is chinese lanters, as I know we have seen them before...but I pretty quickly realised it wasn't.

For one they are now banned in this area due to all the trees and fiels surrounding and the danger it poses. Secondly it wasn't moving up...it was moving along at a steady height, and much too fast. But the kicker, it's night time, and I'm inside with the lights on...so the glass is basically one big reflection of whats inside, but I can see this light trough it...so it's much to bright to be a chinese lantern.




The sighting happened at 11.25 at night over the town of 'Finedon' in England, heading in a North Easterly direction.

I have done a VERY VERY rough speed estimate, based on roughly where I think I saw it from, to where I think I lost sight of it, and I get a speed of about 5.5 to 6.5 metres a second. With the sighting lasting about 45 seconds. All rough, so this is probably immensly out...

It was an orange light which sort of glowed, with a brightness almost like looking at a lightbulb in the next room over, bright, but not quite enough to hurt your eyes... Just a single light, not wing tips like planes normally have, and much to bright and low to be a normal plane. There was little wind so any sound should have carried; but there was not a single sound coming from this thing, it was completely silent.


Now I must say that at about 4.30 that after noon my parents had seen a Vulcan aswell as 4 aerobatic planes go past the town, so there was something happening nearby with planes by the sounds of it.


Anybody else see anything? Know what plane it could have been? Or see this type of thing before?

Normally I'd have put this in skunkworks, but the fact there was no engine sound and my whole family came outside to see it....it's just a bit more odd than the average strange military plane...

Get your camera out next time!

My guess would be a plane or helicopter, possibly a blimp of some kind. One of the past things you can do is consider the nature of the flight. Did it have any erratic movements or general motion? If it simply moved in a straight line as you said I am inclined to believe that its a man made vehicle or something caught in the wind.

Although it doesn't sound like anything to me, I like your approach.

Far too many here are quick to jump to the least likely conclusion, or call a simple light in the sky an alien spaceship.

reply to post by IgnoreTheFacts


Definitly not a helicopter, we would have been able to hear it. There were no erratic movements, it simply went in a straight line, but, it was low....but with no sound of an engine. Thats the strange part about it... and, also with it as low as it was I would have expected a light so bright, also odd for a plane, to have lit up some sort of outline...but there was none.


This thing definitly would have hit Big Ben, for some sort of height reference...so theres no reason not to have heard it's engines, but we didn't.

reply to post by StevenDye
Hi Steve, I saw a satellite at the same time last night. I don't know which one as there were none listed for that time. The reason it caught my eye is that for a very short time it was brighter than even the ISS, my guess is that it caught light from the Moon and the Sun, (the half-Moon was exceptionally bright too last night) I was still able to follow it after it flared,but when bright it does look like at low altitude.

Originally posted by StevenDye
reply to post by IgnoreTheFacts

 

Definitly not a helicopter, we would have been able to hear it. There were no erratic movements, it simply went in a straight line, but, it was low....but with no sound of an engine. Thats the strange part about it... and, also with it as low as it was I would have expected a light so bright, also odd for a plane, to have lit up some sort of outline...but there was none.


This thing definitly would have hit Big Ben, for some sort of height reference...so theres no reason not to have heard it's engines, but we didn't.

Did this object seem close to the earth, relatively anyways - much closer than any airplane/helicopter would be, and was this orange light somewhat smallish?

Did it move in an intelligent manner?

Were there more of them in the vicinity?

reply to post by StevenDye


How did you determine it's altitude? Hard enough to do during the day with a structured sighting, but even harder at night unless maybe it passed between your vantage point and another known object/structure?

Just curious, no flames intended. I'm sure your answer will make sense because I like your thread and manner. I just suddenly want some more info that's all.

To answer Troy and Ignore the facts...


I determined it's altitude only because of how low it seemed, I couldn't give you one in feet of course, but I saw it coming from a fairly wide berth, straight over my house and then away until it dissapeared behind the roof.

I say it seemed low mostly because of how large the light was...not overly big, but if it had been from a plane at 30,000 feet in the air it would have been huge Also the glow you get from a bright light tends to be less the further away the object is.

I would say closer than any plane or helicopter not belonging to the military, many planes of which we get around here...but they arn't generally known for being quiet.

There was no direction change at all...and we saw no others, but I did a google search, and people within my county saw similar things oly days before ranging from about one to 30 objects with very similar descriptions...I'll add an edit with the link.


Interesting theory smurfy, I must say I've never seen a satellite (Well not known I have anyway ) So it would definitly be a strange sight to me, and I wouldn't recognise it.

Infact my country seems to be awash with them haha...

Sighting 1

Sighting 2

Sighting 3

There are more, I just chose three different to show it across a range of dates...

[edit on 30-8-2009 by StevenDye]

I thought I saw something on the US east coast around 4AM. But I think it was a lightning bug and my reference point was just weird to make it look like it was up in the atmosphere.

I was looking out a small window early in the morning when it was still dark and something looked like a very bright star. I was like "What is that?" I was staring out the window doing a dream recording actually is how I saw it. But the window I looked out of is a small window and I didn't have a good reference point.

Well then I realize it might be moving and I'm just making my recording but start paying more attention and it seems to go away and then out of nowhere it lights back up and goes horizontal. Then it goes away again and comes back and it did a semi circle, dipping downwards. That's what made me flip out lol, my heart started racing. Cause it did it too slow. That's the thing about it. If a plane was doing a flip or something crazy, it'd have to be going fast. This thing had just done it so "effortlessly."

I already had a little vertigo from the dream, so I was already in a sort of overexcited state I guess. That doesn't happen with most dreams though, this one had huge waves in it in the ocean, maybe 70ft high, maybe a mile high... I was far away from them by the time I really looked. Big waves kinda freak me out.

So I run outside which takes 20 seconds to get out there... Then I wonder if it's a lightning bug, but I didn't think they would be out in the early morning much... But yeah, there was one and it was in the same place I was looking at, just the angle made it appear to be in the sky. I saw it light up twice and then went back inside.

But wow, at least I know what it feels like... I really thought I saw something. My heart raced lol. And hey it could've been something, but I think it was that lightning bug.

The first light I saw may have been a plane, but it didn't seem to be moving at first when I first saw it... There was a plane still barely in the sky by the time I got out there.