The other day I was doing some solar observations from my back yard. I watched an aircraft fly across the disk of the sun and emerge flying due east. It was at an immense altitude, having no contrail or sound at all; it was little more than a speck moving at a terrific speed. It shone briefly as it went a few degrees past the sun and dissapeared from my sight. Around ten seconds later another flew across, following the exact path at the same altitude and speed. Then, six seconds afterwards, a third followed the first two.

I've done qiute a bit of aircraft watching, but I've never seen anything fly this high or fast, let alone a group. They were too distant (Height of the sun at noon) to observe any type of shape or size, but they made their trek around two or three times the speed of most commercial craft buzzing over at cruise altitude. It was one of those instances where if I hadn't been looking in the exact place at the time I never would have known they were there.

I viewed these from the Cape Fear area of SE North Carolina, halfway between Ft. Bragg and Legeune, but all they fly are choppers and noisy Harriers. Cherry Point is further NE with some Hornets flying out of there, but I can usually hear them from a hundred miles away.

Any thoughts about this formation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Hmm... Seems intestering... To be honest, I do not know.


I might be messed up, but when I see a plane in the sky, my eyes draw a tinted green line of where the plane is going to fly next. Like a track for the plane.

I hate to go off-topic, but any indication that they were something other than military aircraft? Objects transiting the sun have been seen about as long as solar observations have been made. The optics of a reflection seem to indicate an altitude within the atmosphere, but was there enough shape to definitely id as aircraft?

For a moment I thought they may have been a string of satellites, but they don't normally shine when they're between the sun and earth. I didn't view a direct transit, I saw them come out of the corona. I figured they were military because there were three. Never saw enough shape in them to even venture a guess. They were gone before I could train my scope on them, not that I could have tracked them if I did.