Bright fast moving object minutes ago-questions

I was smoking a cig out on my back deck not five minutes ago and saw a very fast moving, blindingly white light. I'm in Washington state by Olympia. It made no noise and moved across the sky and out of view in about a minute-minute and a half. It looked like it was at a really high altitude. It got very bright for about 10 seconds then dimmed and repeated the same after about 30 seconds. No red lights or emergency lights that i could see, no flashers to identify wings, Etc.
Did anyone else see this thing or what?
When does the shuttle come back down to earth because i was thinking that may be what it was. I don't know the name of the last shuttle mission they launched to dock at the space station. I don't even know if a re-entry looks like that.
Anyone got info the clarify this?

Hard to say what you saw, could have been a satellite (kinda fits the description) or could have been a something stranger, who knows. I do a lot of stargazing and I still get excited when I see satellites, lol.

The odds are good that is you are in a mildly populated area that others saw it to, and the odds are really good if it fit the bill for being truly something to take a second glance at you will see what you saw pop up somewhere on the internet. And if that happens it will be found and posted here on ATS in mere nano-seconds.

Isn't the internet just so cool, lol.

reply to post by patent98310


What was the direction of travel?

[edit on 14-2-2010 by Violater1]

Your description sounds consistent with one of my favorite objects to observe -- the ISS. The space station moves along at a cool 18,000 mph, give or take a few. Occasionally, I get to see it at a very bright -3.5 magnitude.

It will generally appear somewhat dimmer, then brighten quite a bit, and then dim out as it passes out of the range where it is reflective from my location.

You can go to Heavens Above, put in your location and then click on "ISS", see if the timing coincides with your sighting. In general, I think www.heavens-above.com and other sites like it are an excellent resource for figuring out if our sightings have a terrestrial explanation. I remember once several years ago, seeing a VERY bright vertical flash in the sky just before sunrise. I was a tad freaked out, until I found out about irridium flares. Now, I look for them when they are going to be bright.

You might already know all this, in which case, sorry for the ramble.

cheers

Did it look like this? Captured this while camping a couple of years back and after subsequent discussion/postings and research it was confirmed it was the ISS...pretty awesome to see for the first time.



delius

reply to post by Violater1



SW to NE, I had to estimate with the help of google maps with the view of my street..lol.
I don't think i could have seen a satellite reflecting sunlight as bright as this object was glowing. It was on a straight path and didn't appear to turn or bank in any direction. I've seen much weirder things in the sky but i have never seen anything this bright. It was like a giant LED when it started to glow, even stayed completely visible through the light fog rolling through. And very fast.

reply to post by argentus


I went to the site and the ISS' location is almost due south of me all the way down by South America. If it is visible from that far away on the horizon than that's pretty amazing!

The OP is describing the International space station with the sighting. Very bright fast moving light heading toward the east. As it heads toward the horizon it starts slowly fading away dimmer and dimmer until invisible to the eye.

It was a very nice sighting when I got to see it a couple of months back. I even remember when the space shuttle was trailing it, and there was two bright lights close to each other.

reply to post by delius


Yes it looked a lot like that. It was going a little bit slower but the one you recorded might seem faster because of the smaller focus area.. I can't compare the brightness because of the night mode.

It was probably just the ISS or a satellite, pretty cool to see it nonetheless.

It could have been a UFO. But what I can tell you is, don't go chasing around UFOs.
There is no point. You will gain nothing from it.

my brother in law was on his way home from work from a plant in decatur arkansas and he said that he seen a bright object like a meteor ,but it was huge ,like a car size

[edit on 14-2-2010 by leggelegged]

reply to post by patent98310


Try searching for time, direction and brightness on,

spaceweather.com...

I think it is due overhead around 0600 tomorrow. At Mag -2.4

it will be easy to see unless you have a cloud cover.