A 'Satellite' that flashed us back

Friday night, on June 26th at around 10:30 PM my family and I saw something pretty cool.

My hubby had decided a week before that we would all go up on the roof and watch the sky for a few hours.

We saw a lot of small bright objects going in straight lines, either north to south, or the opposite direction. I'm pretty sure they were satellites, because they were very small and weren't blinking, just solid light.

Anyway, as they would fly over head, we would shine our flashlights in their direction to point them out to each other.

This one flew by and my husband said he saw it flash. He told us all to flash our lights at it and it flashed back. It got really bright four different times in about fifteen seconds.

He said it was probably an Iridium Flare, so we looked them up. We went to Heavens-Above but we couldn't find anything listed on that sight for the time we saw it.

I know it probably wasn't anything too cool to anyone else, but it was great to be there with the kids, having them flash the thing with their lights and to have it seem to flash us back. We were all pretty excited.

Do the flares flash multiple times like that? Do you think it was space junk?

Man made flares dont blink. they are just an intense light with intense heat. But the Iridium Flare could be the anwser. Might be a satllite that no one knew about or somthing. I dunno, could be space junk of a UFO. Still its somthing interesting. I would go up on the roof more often with a camera to see if you can find anything again.

Originally posted by notsosweet
Do you think it was space junk?

There is a possibility of that. How long was it after sunset?

If it was immediately after sunset, there is still a chance that light would have been reflecting off the space junk.

It would seem pretty far fetch that a satellite would be able to pick up a (dispersed and weak) beam of light from a mere flashlight out of all the lights on Earth (even those in your vicinity) .. if that is what you are suggesting. There are lots of things in the sky that flash all on their own. What color was the light? If it was just white looking, it probably was rotating space junk.

It was more than an hour after sunset. I'm not suggesting that it was communicating with us, or could pick out our five flashlights amongst all the other lights on the planet. I just thought that it was really neat that we were 'signalling' it by flashing our lights at it and that it flashed back. It wasn't blinking. It just grew really intense for like a second each time. Four times. It got really bright, no color, just white. I know it was probably a completely random coincidence, but it was really cool. Thanks for replying. I guess I'm going to have to buy hubby that fancy camera he wanted.

very interesting! where was this?

my roommate was camping along Lake Michigan this past June 26 on the northwest shore of Michigan in the lower peninsula near sleeping bear dunes/empire, mi and saw an unusual object that she described as a ball of white light moving at considerable speed with rings around it resembling the planet saturn. she said she saw a few shooting stars and sattelites but this object appeared much closer and resembled neither. this sighting occured around 4:30 a.m. any ideas? anyone in the area see anything similiar?

I have one of these that is above my house rather often.
No idea what it is.

Anyway a lot of people have been experiencing these lately, here's an article about it and I also think the guy talks about flashing his laser at it and getting a response.

Ariel Lights

reply to post by notsosweet


Space debries can be very bright.

See the third video in this page of the STS-124 mission.

STS-124 video

reply to post by pop_science


Thanks. I checked out that site and it had some pretty interesting stuff. The one we saw didn't change directions, so I thought it must just be something boring, but if it's ok, I'm going to still think it was really cool. We look at the stars all the time now.

Originally posted by Dirty American
saw an unusual object that she described as a ball of white light moving at considerable speed with rings around it resembling the planet saturn. she said she saw a few shooting stars and sattelites but this object appeared much closer and resembled neither. this sighting occured around 4:30 a.m. any ideas? anyone in the area see anything similiar?

Sounds like a slow meteor. They usually appear to be round, and often don't have any tail. The rings are just halos. Any bright object can create halos under the right circumstances (if there are ice crystals present at altitude), like the moon or sun for example.

Meteors and bright objects in the sky often appear to be closer than they actually are. Our brains guage the distance to objects using visual cues, including the brightness of an object. In the sky there are usually few cues except for brightness, so when we see a bright object, the brain automatically assumes the object is close.

This is typical for meteors, and when a bright event is seen over a wide area, there are often many calls to the emergency services from people who think they saw a plane crash "over the next hill", when in fact the meteor was a few hundred miles away.

This link explains the effect in relation to meteors: DID I ACTUALLY SEE A FIREBALL LAND NEAR ME?

For showing your kids the sky, noticing something unusual, and then reporting on it in a calm, factual manner, you earn a whole set of gold stars in my book. Keep looking and noticing and logging the unusual.

Spacecraft with multiple solar arrays can create a series of discrete flares -- I've seen Hubble do two, a few seconds apart. The ISS can do several, it's got so many panels on the outside.

Sometimes high-flying aircraft are so high their red/greem wing lights fade out, but other nav lights -- or landing lights checks -- can be seen.

Be sure to teach the kids to measure the sky -- azimuth and elevation -- using their extended arm and fist as a 10 degree ruler. Make them aware of cardinal points. The time may come when an observation they make -- an aircraft accident, a meteorological event, or something really unusual -- will have real value because they can tell people WHERE in the sky it occurred.