Strange Sighting in Night Sky...Probably not UFO.

So, I was just wondering.

And, to that extent I figure they are satellites.

Anyways. The other night I was outside for a second and looking at the stars. I've noticed this before but not in such frequent occurrences. I was looking up and saw extremely small points of light - like stars - but they moved slowly across the night sky. Like I said, I figure they are just satellites or even really high flying jets. I am mostly certain they aren't UFO's which is why I didn't put this in the UFO section of the forums. I was wondering if anyone knew for sure what they were?

I saw three in a short ten minute period, all moving different directions, and two of them disappeared. One that had disappeared made a red streak of light as it shot off. Any ideas? I thought it was interesting.

And I do apologize if the thread had popped up before...Normally you always hear about big pulsating lights and such but these just look like ordinary stars but moving slowly. Also, no noise at all.

reply to post by philosearcher


Some are satellites. The one's to be questioned are course changers, multiples and those that vanish above the horizon. I've also saw one twice in two weeks that would be very dim then grow to an extreme flare but after a little research I found it was a satellite with a deteriorating orbit. There are numerous Satellite tracking sites you can use to check and there's also MUFON.com which runs a live map of sitings. Hope that helps.

Thanks that really does help. I want to see if I spot any more but the moon has been incredibly bright lately. Hopefully I can get back out soon. Yeah, I've seen these a ton of times before but never really gave them much thought. It was just odd I saw three in a very short span of time thanks to incredible viewing conditions. I could even see the milky way exceptionally clear that night. I'll post if I see anything new, or really out of the ordinary.

Thanks again, Loken.

reply to post by Loken68


The sats that get brighter than dim are probably just sat flares. Iridium sats commonly do this b/c of their shape and orbit, they catch the sun just right. Heavensabove.com allows you to track these. There is a site also dedicated to observing sat flares where you can predict thae date/time etc. one will occur over the area you live, though the sites URL escapes me at the moment.

As to the OP, yeah you are seeing satellites. I see them all the time. I've even tried to track them in my 8" aperture telescope, but they move so quick it is hard to do it in a manually tracked scope like mine.

reply to post by JJRichey


yes, but the one I'm talking about was directly overhead. I checked it on a sat trac and sure enough it was the same. But I can't remember the name. What was Ironic there were two sat's by the same name but one was in decay so I'm assuming one was the replacement.

sat trac

Originally posted by Loken68
...The one's to be questioned are course changers, multiples and those that vanish above the horizon...

[emphasis mine]

A satellite could easily vanish above the horizon (or at least become so dim as to be almost impossible to see).

The reason we see a satellite at all is because it is reflecting sunlight back to our eyes. Once the satellite gets near the horizon, the angle of reflectance could be such that not much light is being reflected toward the observer -- hence the satellite would seem to fade out and disappear.



[edit on 5/28/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]