Hi, just been outside in the early morning hours for a cigarette and to watch the sky (very clear night) here in Bristol. Observing the skies as always looking out for satellites, shooting stars and the likes. I was facing east and looking vertically up for a few minutes and saw a flash slightly lower down from my view in the corner of my eye. @ Approx. 4:45am

Anyway, i immediately looked to where this flash came from and thought "that was odd" when it happened again, so i stood there trying to guess where the next flash would happen (as if it was an object in orbit, reflecting the sun). But it appeared to have no obvious flightpath across the sky, the object was only visible during the brief flash, which also varied in brightness every other time it occurred. There was a random delay between flashes (5-30 seconds) and it appeared to change speed.

So as i was watching this thing go upwards (from east to west) it suddenly appeared about an index finger (at arms length) to the right of my view. Immediately after that, there was a very odd burst of small flashes around where i guess this object was and it left a smear of white light for about half a second (like a long exposure photo of car headlights moving during the night) . Next thing i know this blinking light is now traveling down-wards and literally 1-2cm (at arms length) to the east of Jupiter in the sky, whereas before it was traveling upwards from my view and was approximately 2 index fingers away from Jupiter. Blinked several more times and just disappeared...

Its the kind of flash as if you could imagine someone snapping a photo at night from a long way away facing your direction. The thing that really gets me, is these lights never appear on the horizon, they just start blinking for a short moment in a random part of the sky.

I'm posting this thread because i want to know what this was. I have tried researching things like "star-like flashing lights in the sky" but never found anything which fits what i have seen. Shooting stars, satellites, ISS, space-junk, just doesn't fit. I watch the sky for at least an hour every night when the stars are visible, and i do know what a satellite (artificial or man-made) behaves like.

Now i know this probably isn't that interesting just being a blinking light, but i have wondered for a long time what these mysterious flashes are? I know of the flaring effect when satellites reflecting sun-rays from their solar panels as they rotate, for example. However that does not explain the erratic movement between flashes, such as chicane-like movements, blinking twice in the exact same spot, or even doubling back on itself. As well as the fact this is just a flash/blink that happens almost instantaneously, in an on-off fashion.

I've watched several of these things in the past and all pretty much act in the same way as i tried to explain here. Its really bugging me that i can't find an explanation for it. Any ideas?

By the way, if anyone seen these strange flashes this morning (4-5am england) then please post about it, i'd really like to know what it could have been. Thanks.

I have seen this as well, in Florida.

Actually, many strange things in the skies as of late..


And yes, I have seen the flashing stars, wondering if they are planets or what, but they sure don't look like it.

Seen that very thing in the UK on Monday eveing around 8pm. The little guy was blinkering like crazy!

I'm no where near you at all I'm in northern Arkansas, but my grandpa and I saw a flash in the sky last night. My grandparents live out in the middle of the country so it's pitch black outside when the porch lights turned off. I was leaving their house, I was walking out to my car, and my grandpa was sitting on the porch smoking a cigarette. As I was getting in the car I just seen a white flash in the sky, I was facing the house and my grandpa was facing the road when it happened so he was looking behind me and I was looking behind him and it lit up the entire sky. I asked him if he saw it and he said "Yep, see alotta weird things in the sky sitting on this porch all night," and he went on the say he'd seen the flash before. I didn't see the source of this said flash, but I sat on the porch with him for a couple hours and listened to some of his stories. He mentioned that one of the times he seen the flashes (in Kosovo) that when the entire sky lit up there was one black patch in the sky in the shape of a circle (like a circle facing you) with a bite taken out of the top and bottom - that's exactly the way he explained it. He's recently retired from Interpol and came home from Kosovo only about 9 months ago, I consider him reliable but who knows - just sharing.

I am in Southern Arkansas and work a 12-hour night shift every other week and most of my time is spent star-gazing. I see this very thing at least once every week that I work. It has been way more noticeable as of late and you have probably described it best with the "ping" wording out of the threads I have read on similar events.

...after reading that other thread that was linked, I would also like to point out that is the second or third report to see this phenomena in the Orion vicinity.

Damn... They could be taken photos of ATS users..

I wouldn't put it past them.

Originally posted by ThePawnsTheory
I am in Southern Arkansas and work a 12-hour night shift every other week and most of my time is spent star-gazing. I see this very thing at least once every week that I work. It has been way more noticeable as of late and you have probably described it best with the "ping" wording out of the threads I have read on similar events.

edit on 28-9-2011 by ThePawnsTheory because: (no reason given)

Come to think of it this is the same here.

As far as i recall this is about the 6th, maybe 7th time i have seen this kind of thing dating back to around november 2010, 4 of them being within the past few months. It always appears to be early morning hours around 3-6am.

Originally posted by ThePawnsTheory
...after reading that other thread that was linked, I would also like to point out that is the second or third report to see this phenomena in the Orion vicinity.

edit on 28-9-2011 by ThePawnsTheory because: (no reason given)

Yup, early this year i have seen several flash's from the area of orion, but not anything which appears to be moving, just stationary "ping" like lights which appear for no longer than a minute. Pretty strange.

I have seen many anomalies in my time. I have seen exactly what you describe. This weekend past I was in Northern Michigan, (lower peninsula), West, near Ludington. I spend time watching the sky there as it is quite dark in the middle of the forest. Looking around I have seen these "flashes" of light. I've been unable to observe anything associated with the flash. The flash happens in more than one spot, but with close proximity to each other. I have also seen the flashes looking West from 150 miles South near Kalamazoo. I don't know what to make of these flashes. It's hard to talk about anomalies unless you have film or pictures. I see other posts reminding me that we are not alone in our sightings. Maybe someone with some insight can spread some knowledge on our query. The person suggestingd the flashes are close to a flashbulb effect is right on with their description. Maybe we are missing part of the viewing process. I have spent a lot of time at sea. The sky at sea is like a planetarium. More awesome than you can imagine. We can think we are viewing in total darkness on land. However, one has to be a long way away from any light to have complete darkness. This thread will be interesting to keep a follow on regarding the sparkling flashbulb mystery blips.

I have to ask,but is it coming from here,betelgeuse?

Originally posted by kdog1982
I have to ask,but is it coming from here,betelgeuse?

I have seen these "pings" of light come from orion in the past on occasion yes. However the object/light i watched earlier this morning was about 90 degrees to the east of orion, just a small patch of sky to the north-east of Jupiter when observed from the ground. I guessit was around the area of the pisces constellation.

Originally posted by 02bmw76The flash happens in more than one spot, but with close proximity to each other.

Spot-on, thats a good way of putting it. Whatever these are they move slow, but slow enough to be noticeable that they are in fact moving. This morning stands out from the other times i have witnessed these lights because of the fact it erratically changed direction and jumped across a fair amount of sky, considering the speed this thing looked to be traveling at.

Its also awkward as you mention with capturing them on camera. Personally i don't own a camera that can record anything dimmer than the moon, these things don't give of any more light than the average star in the sky. Besides you will miss the "flash" if you blink.

hi

I'm about 20 miles south of Bristol and I've seen the flashing star a couple of times now in the South East....

The first time I saw it I was watching what I assumed was a satellite travelling roughly west-east,
it got close to the blinking star and then, the blinking star (which had been blinking every now and then so I thought it was a star going behind a cloud), flashed rapidly about 3-5 times and the 'satellite' zipped off towards the North East.....

This would be about 2-3 weeks ago. ETA it would of been between 8pm and 10pm.

Hi folks!

I think it was the night of last sunday to monday when I saw something similar in the skies above a town in the western part of Germany: A flashing light in the sky, that was flashing rather erratically (always 5 to 15 seconds between every flash).

The size/brightness of the flash could be compared to that of one of the brighter stars in the sky. I wondered, if it was a rotating satellite, whose solar panels would reflect sunlight, but the flashing appeared a bit too erratically for that the rotation of such a satellite can be assumed to be constant.

Regarding it's flight-path: It seemed to take a straight direction, but because of the fact that it was only viewable every couple of seconds and sometimes longer, it was difficult to estimate if it's flight-path was really straight.

Reading the previous posts, I now wonder, if it possibly wasn't a satellite, but something else.

BTW: Thanks for your contributions so far, people! Mannered debates like this one about alleged banal lights in the sky I prefer much more than all those heated and often disgusting (because of the personal attacks involved) debates about the latest faked youtube-video.

Originally posted by InsideYourMind

Originally posted by kdog1982
I have to ask,but is it coming from here,betelgeuse?

I have seen these "pings" of light come from orion in the past on occasion yes. However the object/light i watched earlier this morning was about 90 degrees to the east of orion, just a small patch of sky to the north-east of Jupiter when observed from the ground. I guessit was around the area of the pisces constellation.

In Washington DC for the past year I have observed several of these, at night, between 10pm and 12am that are west of Orion's belt. I have just started to notice one now, that is south east of Orion. Lot of very high altitude aircraft has been seen as well, emitting crazy flashing patterns, not usually seen on commercial aircraft.