Meteor? UFO? Transformer? What Was In The Sky Over The American Southwest Last Night?

A sudden bright spot in the night changed colors from blue to orange before streaking across the sky and disappearing has caused hysteria amongst residents in California, Arizona and beyond. While many scientists are pegging the light show as the result of a basketball sized piece of interplanetary debris burning up through our atmosphere, we are not so quick to agree. While a spaceship seems unlikely, a secret military satellite being blown out of orbit (as posited in the beginning of Andrew Mayne’s debut novel Public Enemy Zero) and crashing down to Earth could work. From the picture posted above, we also can’t rule out that dozens of sitcom stars had simultaneous given a poignant piece of advice and the resulting streak was simply a "The More You Know" punctuation.

What do you guys think?

Interesting. Seems to be a lot of these lately.

First, I think you look like a potential hottie in your avatar. Second, I think the most likely explanation is in fact a meteor burning up in the atmosphere but, without more evidence, it's kind of up in the air.

Wait...article is dated Thursday, September 15th, 2011.

Hmmmmm.

Meteor was from Sept 2011....here was a video of it:

Probably a meteor, another one. Not usual from my point of view.

Old news but still very intriguing.

Looks like the same thing that got a lot of attention in CA recently. I also saw one of these in Denver a few weeks back.

reply to post by Unidentified_Objective


Aww...thank you! That is the real me. I don't like to hide myself.
It does sort of look like a meteor, but it seems like they would have found it if that were the case. Maybe.

reply to post by gavron


Are you positive that is the same thing? It looks completely different than the photo...

Wouldn't it be more slanted downward like the video? The photo seems to make it apear like it's slanting upward like it's shooting up. It doesn't appear to be falling.

reply to post by nikkinichole90


That could be due to perspective....the angle and position in the sky...direction relative to where the photo was taken from. Its still pretty interesting and even though a meteor is the most likely culprit, can't rule out anything else with 100% certainty.

reply to post by nikkinichole90


Well got the UFOCapture program and camera going a few day's ago
nothing so far

wife was looking at me kind of funny when she saw me running around the yard in the dard and turning a mini flaslight on and off then checking my computor

But now it pointing up so now UFO or Meteor I'm ready


Ok now remember this was a test run to see if I could post it to YouTube

not a UFO or Meteor ( a mini flasflight going on and off)

I saw something like that in the day once while driving, the impression I got was it was some of our space junk re-entering the atmosphere

reply to post by Trillium

Cool experiment!
I would probably believe that, that was something unidentified if you could somehow blacken out the tree lines in the background.

reply to post by Unidentified_Objective


I definitely agree!

Didnt someone post an unexplained rocket launch in CO recently?

Looks like space debris to me. Satellites are always being taken out of action by burning them up in the atmosphere and the ISS (space station) crew jettison their organic waste to be burned up in the atmosphere...

Still very cool, ive seen one, during the day no less. And it was bloody impressive.

Originally posted by Doodle19815
Interesting. Seems to be a lot of these lately.

Two things:

First, the meteor mentioned in the OP is from 2011.

Second, there are not more meteors, but more people with cameras (and more webcams/security cams).

reply to post by nikkinichole90


If you think that this is an interesting video (which it surely is) you should consider going on youtube, and typing in the words Bolide meteor.

www.youtube.com...

Many of the other results returned by that search contain video from various CCTV cameras, some pointed vaugely toward the direction of the meteor, and others pointed away from the meteor. All of them however show the night being turned to day by the light given off by these falling bits of space rock.

www.youtube.com...

The above link is to a compilation video, showing various atmosphere penetrating meteors. Its actually quite handy as a reference, because this video has lots of variety in terms of how the meteors appear because of the perspective of the camera in relation to the direction of travel of the meteors they show. I really recommend having a look, because there are some absolutely amazing images in this one.