my uncle has seen "flashing" on the surface of the moon

He has a telescope in his back yard near Yuma, Arizona. It's not an exceptional telescope, but it does its job (I don't have the specs on it).

Anyway I was talking to him about if he'd ever seen an anomaly (he goes out and looks every night that's visible, which is often in the desert of Yuma) and he explained that three times while he was looking at the moon he saw bright encompassing flashes. Two of the times it was just one flash. One of the time's it was three flashes, all the same length (short, pause, short, pause, short, end, that's it). He said they were years apart.

Could there be a natural/terrestrial cause for this sort of effect? Has anyone else seen this?

He may well have seen little meteorites hitting the surface. As the moon has a much thinner athmosphere than earth, even little rocks can hit the surface. I can't remember where i read it, but I remember reading something about that, it took them (NASA) quite a while to figure it out (if my memory is right, which is probably isn't)

Or it could be this
www.universetoday.com...

gas? Moon farts

[edit on 16/8/2010 by Acidtastic]

Never seen that...

But about 25 odd years ago (wow, long time) I remember walking home from school with a few mates and you could see the moon up in the sky, as you often do. And I noticed what looked like a flame or flash of light cicling around the moon. It would flash past it, disappear as it went behind and then flash past around and so on. Took about 1 second or so each pass.

I pointed this to my firends, they looked up and we all wondered what it was. Of course, we were about 8 or 9 years old so we had no idea. We all thought it was a flaming meteor that got caught in the moon's orbit or something.

Anyhow, it wasn't until years later that I thought no.. that wasn't right. That was very weird.

Of course I have no evidence, photos, videos, etc. Just my account of it, for what it's worth. (shrug)

My best guess would be space debris, if its natural. Maybe a piece of dust or something on the telescope lens. If its not natural there are a thousand different conspiracies, aliens, inter-dimensional beings, government space base, the moon really is darth vader's death star...

Double post

[edit on 16-8-2010 by Xiamara]

Hmm, meteorites/space debris hitting the surface of the moon seems plausible, and that story is really interesting regarding the light that appeared to orbit the moon.

I'm going to check that link out right now.

Im not an expert but it could be the mirrors the astronauts set up back in the day on the surface of the moon. You can launch a lazer at the moon on that spot and it will come right back to u > but idk

From the gas theory it appears that we have to wait until they've had time to do some observation and map the moon flashes before a conclusion can be reached.

For me, if it is just gas or meteors I still think it's pretty cool you can see such an effect on the moon if you watch it a lot. So far it at least seems apparent that my uncle really did see flashes, since it is apparently not a unique experience to him and even NASA is curious about it.

reply to post by sremmos


funny you should mention that, about the moon. yes the other nite i noticed something unusual as well w/the moon and the naboring crystal ball, (satallite?) right next to the moon; which to me looked multi-dimensional-i grabbed a sun-chair sat down w/my astronomical bi-nocs---and observed. so yes i thought all and all something was up!!

No sorry guys it was me I left a heap of Jack Daniels bottles lying around up there every now and then they glint in the sun .
No seriously I have seen this myself from time to time .

I remember watching MythBusters this one time when they were busting the myth of 'have we been to the Moon?'

They mentioned about flashing a laser onto a reflector that man has put onto the moon. I'm not sure whether or not the lasers are visible, but if they are and they were fired when your Uncle was looking, maybe he saw these as flashes?

This is called Transient Lunar Phenomena.

Here's a site with more info on these occurrences.

The Lunascan Project

The link won't take you straight to it so just click where it says the website moved to and then look where it says PROJECT INFORMATION about a 1/4 way down the page and select:
Lunar Transient Phenomena- Definition of LTPs & Some Great Links!

I tried to link straight to that page but it wouldn't do it for some reason.

[edit on 16-8-2010 by TheLieWeLive]

im pretty sure it was small meteor that hit moon

here a link to nasa talking about this.
science.nasa.gov...

You know, I always wondered if it would be possible if at the exact right time in the right place...if someone shined a laser/light (it would have to be very very very powerful, even at that probably not strong enough) at the exact spot on the moon where the mirror/reflective surface is it could reflect back at you?

There's far too many 'exacts' and 'perfects' in there...but if you were lucky enough? I doubt it even then. Interesting though.

reply to post by philosearcher


I do believe the type of mirror they have is one of those that no matter where you shine a laser from it always comes back to its origin(within a small area atleast)

It's a pretty well documented phenomenon, for years it was observed, but nobody could say with certainty exactly what the cause was. Today the general consensus is that the moon flashes are the moon 'farting' if you'd like, releasing gas from its interior.

www.space.com...

news.nationalgeographic.com...

reply to post by Sumdumguy


That's extremely fascinating.
also
People are really still raising questions about whether we went to the moon? If this mirror is up there...doesn't it kind of prove it?