My first UFO!

[Big Les]

Hi all, it's been a long time since I started a thread, but this has been bugging me for a few weeks now and I can't find a satisfactory explanation.

Now, before any of you whipper-snappers start, I know I didn't see an alien spacecraft. I don't even believe I saw some funky experimental aircraft. I'm sure there's some mundane explanation, I just can't think of it. Which is where you guys come in, if you're interested. Here's my sighting;

I was with some friends on Cocoa Beach waiting for the Space-X rocket launch (Oct 7 2012) - it was already dark - no more than 1hr prior to launch. One of my friends and I both saw an apparently triangular cluster of three red lights speeding (at apparently jet aircraft speeds) diagonally from bottom right to top left of our slice of sky, perhaps coincidentally in the direction of the launch pad. After what must have been only a few seconds, the lights converged on each other briefly creating a single red light before disappearing from view behind some cloud.

Two UH/MH-60 helicopters had flown toward the launch site earlier in the afternoon, and one of these returned as we left post-launch. No other aircraft were spotted. I'm as sure as I can be that it wasn't a helicopter. As a bit of an aviation buff, if I had to guess, I would say that it was a jet trainer type aircraft banking away from us and then climbing. But what would an aircraft of that type be doing buzzing around in the dark near an historic spacecraft launch? In addition, all three lights appeared red - no green, no white. They didn't look like nav lights.

They moved too fast to be the Chinese lanterns recently publicised. Any other ideas? It feels like there should be a textbook answer to this one, but I'm only just getting back into the UFO side of things (still making my way through David Clarke's excellent new book).

As an amusing aside, one of my ancestors was AVM Sir Peter Horsley I don't plan on following his footsteps as far as UFOs are concerned, so please, help me out!

 

[fishbait]

In addition, all three lights appeared red - no green, no white. They didn't look like nav lights.

Jets traveling from right to left would display the red nav light on the left wing. If they were approaching you at a slight angle the white nav light at the rear may not have been visible.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Venus reflected from swamp gas.
Or possibly not.
Any way you might access air traffic control records for the area? There may well have been aircraft in the area to keep unauthorised (press /sightseers) flights away.

 

[Spektator]

Not to sidetrack, but on the evening of November 28 I saw something peculiar. The moon, nearly full, was close to what looked like a small line of light, about the length that an em dash would appear at arm's length.

I was in the car and saw it through the windshield. When I got to my destination, I took out a pair of field glasses I carry in the glove compartment to take a better look, but the moment I got out of the car the mystery resolved itself without the field glasses. It was a conjunction of the moon and Jupiter. The curvature of my car's windshield had distorted Jupiter.

To be honest, I thought it might be a lighted balloon at high altitude at first, but since it remained in the same position for three or four minutes, it was obviously a celestial object of some type. Did look odd through the windshield, though.

 

[lane99]

Flying Saucers

There are a lot of UFO's in the UK. I stumbled across a whole slew of them a couple of months ago when I was taking a ferry from Britain to Ireland.
.
.

 

[xtifr]

My first was a really spectacular fireball. My initial guess that it was a meteor was confirmed by the paper the next day. My second, I never did manage to identify, but my best guess is weather balloon. It was near the UC campus, so it might have been an experiment of some sort. My third, just a couple of months ago, was also a meteor, also confirmed by newspaper reports the next day.

Technically speaking, I suppose I can only describe one of those as unidentified today, but all three were unidentified when I saw them.

My guess is that if you don't get a positive identification within about 48 hours, your chances of ever knowing what it was drop to near-zero. (But not, I admit, all the way to full zero.) Do keep in mind that it's very hard to estimate distances in the sky. What you saw might have been much closer or farther than you thought, especially if you'd made a tentative identification/WAG.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

My guess is that if you don't get a positive identification within about 48 hours, your chances of ever knowing what it was drop to near-zero. (But not, I admit, all the way to full zero.)

I had mine identified about 5 years or so after I saw it.

It was a dot in the sky which zoomed overhead, making a loud fizzing noise and leaving a trail of smoke that looked like the exhaust from a rocket in an old black and white Buck Rogers serial. I immediately assumed that it was a meteorite of some sort, but had never heard of anything like it, especially the fizzing sound. Years of asking around, as well as looking for reports of meteorites and so on, got me nowhere until, one day, someone on some message board I posted on said that it sounded like I'd seen a particular type of meteorite and posted a link to a page all about them. It was exactly what I'd seen.

Of course, I can't remember what it was called, now, but that's not really important to me. It was just nice having it confirmed to me that it was a meteorite and that meteorites could, indeed, fizz.

 

[meg]

Just noticed this thread today. Did you ever get a definitive answer Big Les?

I know that when the space shuttle launched, NASA sent up 2 specially outfitted WB-57s from Patrick AFB to points north and south of the take off trajectory to hold at 60,000 ft and photograph/film it. Page 6 of this NASA pdf discusses this in more detail: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/167722main_LaunchImagery06.pdf

If I were to guess, I would guess that what you saw were similarly outfitted, or maybe even those same aircraft.

 

[Big Les]

Sorry everyone - I stopped monitoring the thread after a couple of days. Thanks to all who replied. I had no idea they used high-altitude recce aircraft for launches - that might just have been it.

[edit] - well, at least one of them was there. Looking at daylight footage of the things zooming about, it seems quite likely that I could have observed it from a funny angle.

 

[quarky]

I was watching the sunset with my sweetie, on a Florida Panhandle beach. I'd say it was twilight time.

Suddenly, 3 bright lights appear near the horizon, equidistant from each other, and evidently moving at high speed. Then, they disappear. We were a bit drop-jawed at the sight, and turned to look at each other.

we could have so easily caught the cheap magic of the moment, but no. Mr. Kill Joy had to start analyzing it. you know, trying to eliminate the more obvious explanations, so that are new-found UFO-beliefs would be stronger...

I knew there was an airforce base nearby. (Edward's). But, in the U.S., there's always a military base nearby.
I deduced that what appeared so suddenly to us, was 3 military jets, flying in unison, coming towards us from the south. The noise of the surf, and the distance of the jets explains why we didn't hear them.

Abruptly, the jets turn west, the way we were looking, for the sunset, and we see the bright glow of the after-burners; 3 of them, in a row. So unlikely.
And then, they went straight up, so we lost sight of the butt-end light of the planes, nearly instantaneously.

It's easy to see how someone would explain what we saw as paranormaly unusual.
It was quite a stunning display, and a visual anomaly.

 

[thomowen20]

Here is one maybe you folks can help me with. A buddy and I were out walking at aounr 1:30AM chatting and whatnot. I look up and I see a bright light in the sky that I immediately wrote of as being an "unusually" bright Venus almost directly overhead (maybe 15 degrees or so from zenith toward the west). My buddy catches me looking at this light and he stares up at it as well. I notice that he seems fixated on the object and I try to continue the conversation we were having. As I start speaking he interrupts me by bringing us to a halt and saying that the object is moving. I had not noticed this at first, but sure enough (my friends visual acuity is slightly greater than mine) it was tracking across the sky and its apparent motion was increasing! It tracked across the sky at an increasing rate for about 10-20 degrees and then appeared to stop moving in relation to us. It stayed steady for about 15 seconds at which it faded out over a period of around 10 seconds or so until it disappeared.

The light we both agreed was solid, unwavering and yellowish-white point much like Venus would look if brightened somehow, until it disappeared after its apparent movement. It was actually on further thought much brighter than Venus normally appears, but not so much brighter that that in and of itself would call attention. We agreed that it would be maybe around half again as bright as as we have ever seen Venus to be in our rural Ohio location. Can you guys help me with this one? Feel free to ask any questions for clarification. Thanks.

 

[quarky]

My post above is loaded with explanation.