Bright red light over london - 17:00 - 17:30 26 November 2012

I have absolutely no idea what this is.
I am used to seeing aircraft & helicopters and this was neither - facing East South East at an elevation of approx 25 - 30 degrees this evening, I have snapped a bunch of pictures but they have not come out too well. I also tried to take footage, but the results are less than impressive to be honest.
Rather than post all the photos, I have zipped them all up into an archive and will be happy to let anybody have copies to analyze or look at to tell me what this was - I know what it was not, and that is aircraft (I have never seen aircraft sit and just hang in the sky for almost 30 minutes at a time and there were no navigational lights flashing either - it just looked like the cleanest & purest red light I have ever seen.
Looking at the pictures zoomed in to 200%, you can sadly see the effects of camera shake, but it zooms in to a bright, white light instead of Red, and seems to be a sort of circular shape (when I could hold the camera still, that is) and at times it went to an intense white when zoomed in.
I have made all the shots I have into an album - please feel free to download & analyze as I want to know what this was. You *will* need to zoom in quite a way here, and some are worse than others - look for the red dot roughly in the middle of each image.


Here are a couple of the zoomed-in pictures: To get to these, where you can see the treeline you should zoom in. I have left the Photoshop desktop open in the shot so you can see what I have zoomed in by.

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Again, I apologise for the poor quality - I could not get the Canon E05 to take a picture at all, and had to use a small Kodak - the lights were a heck of a lot brighter than they appear here and I am certain someone else must have seen them as I am in West London and this was facing ESE.

Why not just upload the individual images?
You are no doubt going to get some grief because of that.

That said, could it be a Chinese lantern? Taken with a camera on low shutter speed? If that can be ruled out this certainly is an interesting photo.

EDIT:

Originally posted by neil wilkes

I see you did link to your imageshack album, you should make it more clear in your OP
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What direction were you looking in ? It could be Jupiter rising, it's really bright in the sky at the moment.

What are we supposed to do with those images?

Upload the raw image please, a pixelated dot of light is, well.... a pixelated dot of light, not a 'ufo'

Wow, good photos regardless, how did it travel, did it just disappear? That must have been exciting to see, possible meteor? Honestly it looks like light just as you say, I personally would say its a UFO.

I don't think it could be a Chinese lantern as I previously suggested, because these two picture show it hanging around the same area over 25 minutes, according to the EXIF data.

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reply to post by Kr0nZ


the light in the second images looks like its almost in front of the trees, so I wonder how big it was? Thats wierd....

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but judging by what I have seen with my own eyes in the past, I think this is a photo of the setting sun shining through a small gap in an otherwise cloud covered sky. Sunset today was 15:58 GMT so my hunch tells me that this photo was taken between 15:30 and 15.58, earlier than the time stated in the thread title. With the heavy rain clouds we have in the UK at the moment, it would not be unusual to see this kind of effect.

The weather at the time was cloudy as can be seen here Met Office
So if this is an object, it would have to have been below the cloud which would be very low with the kind of cloud we have at the moment. Many people would have seen this.




EDIT - I'm going to retract the above. After looking at the pictures on imageshack, there are some where you can clearly see the dark sky through the cloud so it does look to be after sunset. Thought I would man up and admit maybe I was hasty and may be wrong to the OP

Originally posted by fiftyfifty
I'm going to go out on a limb here, but judging by what I have seen with my own eyes in the past, I think this is a photo of the setting sun shining through a small gap in an otherwise cloud covered sky. Sunset today was 15:58 GMT so my hunch tells me that this photo was taken between 15:30 and 15.58, earlier than the time stated in the thread title. With the heavy rain clouds we have in the UK at the moment, it would not be unusual to see this kind of effect.

edit on 26-11-2012 by fiftyfifty because: (no reason given)

That does not look like a setting sun, and if you look closely in the second image shack image it looks to be slightly in front of the tree.

reply to post by CottonwoodStormy


I can't see anything to suggest it is in front of the tree myself. However, it is common for twigs and small branches to be drowned out by the intense light of the sun in the background as demonstrated here

ETA - If we can get the original unedited images, we can determine the time they were taken.

Originally posted by Kr0nZ
I don't think it could be a Chinese lantern as I previously suggested, because these two picture show it hanging around the same area over 25 minutes, according to the EXIF data.

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edit on 26/11/12 by Kr0nZ because: (no reason given)

Unless its two separate Chinese lanterns set off 20 mins apart

I am more than happy to post the unedited images. I have around 29 of them, some are badly taken (I forgot to switch off the flash although they do give a sort of idea).
Chinese Lantern? er, no. As I tried to say earlier, it was way, way too bright for this and was certainly not in front of the trees either as after hanging there motionless for approx 15 minutes, it slowly slid behind the tree - and then came out again back to where it was before.
Direction I have given already - East South East at around 1700 hrs to 1730 hrs.

I will happily post all 29 images, or if anyone wants the raw files they can have them gladly.
None have been processed or tampered with in any way - what would be the point, as I want to know what it was and tampered images are useless unless you know what you are doing with the processing (I do not).

Just go to Image Shack, and get them - I uploaded then unresized so they should be identical and they are marked as public so accessing them should be easy. If you have difficulty please PM me and tell me how to send them to you and I will gladly oblige.
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The pictures do not do what I saw justice - I have no real way to know how far away it was - it looked to be a fair distance but there is no way to know as I could not see it's shape - all I could see was the light (which was a bright red, unblinking/flashing, and not aircraft navigation lights. I am used to seeing aircraft, and it was not one of those, neither was it a balloon or a helicopter. Things that are drifting do not hang there, go one way (towards the right from my viewpoint) and then sit still again, finally going back in the direction it had just come from.
I was watching it for a good 30-35 minutes, then had to deal with something (took 10 mins) and when I looked back again it was gone so I did not see it go away.

I am well aware that 95 - 97% of lights in the sky have a mundane explanation and this may well be no exception. I can certainly rule out Chinese Lanterns, Sunsets, reflections etc.

Originally posted by scrog77
What direction were you looking in ? It could be Jupiter rising, it's really bright in the sky at the moment.

I know - I have been watching Jupiter every evening for days & days now, and I know what & where Jupiter is.
Wrong colour (JUpiter is not almost scarlet in colour) and far, far too big for Jupiter.
As posted, view was ESE at about 25-30 degrees

Here's another 4 images I somehow missed at first.....again, they do not show much but if you zoom in and have a fiddle with brightness & contrast you will see how intense the light was.

hey buddy, im in livingston scotland and seen the same last week.

Having told friends the day later, that night the same bright red twinkling light was in the sky at the same spot. This is one of the most intense red lights in the sky i have seen, and ive watched the skies for many years.

Luckily my old man was with me this time when i saw it again. He stopped the car, scratched his chin and gave me a lesson on how to spot the ISS space station when its passing over. On checking with an i-phone app it confirmed it was the ISS we where looking at. This thing sat stationary for ever, just a hugh pusling red light with the glow coming off it in a diamond patern, brighter than anything in the sky.

Here are the direct links for the pictures I uploaded to Image Shack.
I am not sure how much it will help, as they need examining by someone who can process them properly.
Apologies for the quality - I could not get the Canon E05 working....(my better half's camera)

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Originally posted by zeetroyman
hey buddy, im in livingston scotland and seen the same last week.

Having told friends the day later, that night the same bright red twinkling light was in the sky at the same spot. This is one of the most intense red lights in the sky i have seen, and ive watched the skies for many years.

Luckily my old man was with me this time when i saw it again. He stopped the car, scratched his chin and gave me a lesson on how to spot the ISS space station when its passing over. On checking with an i-phone app it confirmed it was the ISS we where looking at. This thing sat stationary for ever, just a hugh pusling red light with the glow coming off it in a diamond patern, brighter than anything in the sky.

Interesting theory - but why would the ISS sit stationary for 15 mins, go slowly to the right, and then go back to where it started from again? What you describe sounds like something very similar - but it was not the ISS, on that I would wager my left nut. I've seen that too - in binoculars - and it is not stationary either (things in orbit move very quickly and do not stand still unless geostationary - which the ISS is not.....
Still, I could be wrong (not unusual) but I do not think that is what it was - far, far too big & too stationary

reply to post by zeetroyman


The ISS does not sit stationary nor does it emit red light.

Regarding the OP, I don't think the images are clear enough to make a definative conclusion.

reply to post by neil wilkes



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Holy Infestation Batman! I had that said to me with a few of my interesting orb and "faces/shapes" backyard photos at night.

reply to post by neil wilkes


First it doesn't look like 25-30 degrees elevation in those pics and at the time Mars would be above the horizon from London looking in that direction.

Red planet red object right time and location I will leave you with that there are also a couple of the brighter stars in the area at that time.

If we new the correct direction from your location ie what area of London would it be in that direction and another location in line with that near yours you could probably confirm what it was.

You can check it out if you have Stellarium it's free software if you don't have it download it.