Midlands UK 1 AM 5/5/2016

Just seen the weirdest site. a smooth round white light bigger than the apparent size of Jupiter by 4-5 times . I was putting the bin out looked up and this object was travelling from the from South East to the North West in the direction of Birmingham airport Object was a single totally silent seemingly flat white illuminated flat disc. No idea at what altitude it was, if it was high enough to be out of earshot, it would have been absolutely huge. Travelled in a straight line at some rate of knots, certainly far quicker than any plane and as it vanished into the North West it became star like in its' appearance.

As it flew over my head it appeared to be a solid round object of some size, no other lights, nothing resembling navigation lights at all. If it was a plane., drone, etc it was very low altitude to have shown up as that sized disc and no noise? Even drones make a noise and no, it was not any form of landing light, had it been at that apparent size, it would have woken the whole street. Imagine the focused beam of a searchlight on a cloud with no cone from the searchlight itself and that was the effect, and no not a searchlight etc, there was no cloud to reflect off of. Anyone any ideas what it might have been?

originally posted by: FireMoon
Just seen the weirdest site. a smooth round white light bigger than the apparent size of Jupiter by 4-5 times . I was putting the bin out looked up and this object was travelling from the from South East to the North West in the direction of Birmingham airport Object was a single totally silent seemingly flat white illuminated flat disc. No idea at what altitude it was, if it was high enough to be out of earshot, it would have been absolutely huge. Travelled in a straight line at some rate of knots, certainly far quicker than any plane and as it vanished into the North West it became star like in its' appearance.

As it flew over my head it appeared to be a solid round object of some size, no other lights, nothing resembling navigation lights at all. If it was a plane., drone, etc it was very low altitude to have shown up as that sized disc and no noise? Even drones make a noise and no, it was not any form of landing light, had it been at that apparent size, it would have woken the whole street. Imagine the focused beam of a searchlight on a cloud with no cone from the searchlight itself and that was the effect, and no not a searchlight etc, there was no cloud to reflect off of. Anyone any ideas what it might have been?

Any vibrations at all or physical sensations? I wonder if anyone else reported something similar. Something that large might have been spotted in multiple locations.

a reply to: FireMoon

It's a nice night, I'll go out for a smoke see if I see anything.

In the NE here.

That's what I'm hoping for, someone else saw it. No sound whatsoever and the City I live in is pretty quiet at this time of the night, you can hear the Motorway that runs about 2 miles North of my house quite clearly when there's traffic on it.

Central UK here, i have a sweet downstairs bedroom with double doors onto a garden decking, situation going on enough bragging.

Just popped my head up for 5 minutes, very nice night. I didnt see what you saw, but i did see two flashes about 30 seconds apart, directly up, much like a plane blinker, but no plane and only the two flashes, nothing before and nothing after - weird.

Jupiter is SOOO bright tonight, i wish i still had my mates telescope, alas i returned it to him in his new home - damnit, why did i do that lol

a reply to: FireMoon

It's a little hazy but clear above, nice view of the big dipper.

I didn't see anything but my eyes played tricks on me (I think) saw a blink of light a few times above me, I tried to focus on it but it was on the edge of a band of haze. Figured it was a star but I honestly couldn't focus on it, seemed like it was moving or phasing in and out?

Anyways probably tiredness and eyes tricking me.

a reply to: Biigs
That's uncanny, swear I kept seeing little blinks... Sometimes the light stays in my eyes when going from light to dark making it seem like something is flashing or moving as you move your eyes but I was keeping my eyes still when "blinking" occurred.

A couple of weeks ago Jupiter was huge I really should invest in a telescope.

a reply to: RAY1990

It's probably the only thing I miss about smoking, all the weird stuff I'd see in the sky at night

I just had a look out my window but didn't see nothing not even stars

a reply to: Discotech

Some of the craziest things I've seen was being out for a smoke (tobacco) a couple of years ago I went out and noticed I was in the middle of a storm of dragonflies, I mean some of these were the size of a plate and to top it off I could see about 50 bats having a free-for-all pretty much everywhere I could see. Icing on the cake was that it was a full moon so you could see glints and shadows everywhere.

It was local too, I phoned my mate 200 yards down the road to go take a look and he could see nothing. Weird really.


I don't scare too easy but I felt unnerved in the garden earlier, didn't want to be their lol.

a reply to: FireMoon

South coast, another step and I'll be in the channel! so not likely to see what you saw.
Just posting to say use a digital camera next time you see something, reason being they see what we humans can't see, infrared!
You dont have to post the pics, people just shout fake if you do, but it enables you to have a better look.

I've just checked this site out Flight Tracker and run the graphic for flights around my area at 1 am and nothing at all is listed.

Questions - did the light have any "glare" to it, or was it sort of "flat," like the sun at noon seen through a thick layer of clouds - perfectly round and white?

Would you say it was the size of, say, one of your fingernails?

What if it WAS silent? What if it was lower down and closer to you than you might surmise due to the lack of sound?

Any "reference points" with clouds etc? Did it seem to "fly" or more oddly "skim" along the sky?

Curious!!

- AB

a reply to: FireMoon

Found this, not sure if it covers your area?
If I was you I'd of posted this over in the aircraft section an see what the folks know instead of here. From what I understand military flights aren't covered on Flight Aware, so no love there.

It's the 2016 schedule, altho since it's early in the year there may be more added.


www.gov.uk...

A list of timetables for operational low flying (OLF) training by RAF fast jets and Hercules aircraft. These timetables cover 3 tactical training areas (TTA) only.

These training areas are:

LFA 7(T): central Wales
LFA 14(T): northern Scotland
LFA 20(T): the borders area of southern Scotland and northern England
When the TTA is not in use, there may be other flying activity in the area.

The MOD is unable to provide a timetable for all low flying activity as the information can very quickly become outdated due to weather conditions and training requirements.

originally posted by: AboveBoard
Questions - did the light have any "glare" to it, or was it sort of "flat," like the sun at noon seen through a thick layer of clouds - perfectly round and white?

Would you say it was the size of, say, one of your fingernails?

What if it WAS silent? What if it was lower down and closer to you than you might surmise due to the lack of sound?

Any "reference points" with clouds etc? Did it seem to "fly" or more oddly "skim" along the sky?

Curious!!

- AB

The analogy of the sun through cloud is quite a good one the light itself was a pure white no hint of yellow or blue in it at all. As it flew over head it was a totally flat light as well, no sparkle, flashes etc, just what seemed to be a solid circle of white light.

Size wise, with Jupiter just to the West f my location and clearly visible, I would say about 4-5 times the apparent diameter of Jupiter, maybe even a good bit larger than that on initially sighting it, as it was almost overhead of my house at the time. and as it sped away from my position it seemed to take on a slightly oblate shape. I followed it until it disappeared below the roof lines of the houses further down the street by which time it looked like a star of the first magnitude or maybe even a little brighter. That is something that has me scratching my head. Initially, the light looked akin to something such as the effect you have from a light box where you are using quite a thick opaque sheet, the sort you see along the sides of subways so there's no glare. as it sped away to become star like, it seemed to begin to twinkle. My assumption is that, that was probably, just an atmospheric effect.

Again, it was totally silent so its' real size is a mystery as I genuinely cannot even hazard a guess at its' height from the ground. On the other hand, if it was an aircraft light, then it couldn't have been more than a couple of hundred feet up for it to be that apparent size. When I checked the flightpath site at roughly 1;30, there was a plane heading over my home City so I popped outside and checked and there it was, clearly an aircraft with lights, flying quite high and it's engines plainly audible. If you zero in over Coventry on the flight map it came from the direction of Brandon Woods and was seemingly, heading in the general direction of Birmingham Airport at Marston Green. I shall try and l give BHX control a call later today and just ask did they have anything on Radar at 1 am in that general direction.

It was fast that I do know, certainly covered some sky in a relatively short time. I considered rushing in and grabbing my phone however, Id have not been able to properly watch it and by the time Id have managed to collect my phone it would have been just a star like light in the distance. If anything it seemed to glide, I say that because of the complete lack of noise. The sky was mostly clear with a some cloud on the North Western horizon probably extending 10 -15 degrees above the horizon otherwise, totally clear sky and the planet Jupiter was my reference.

Caver...Thanks for doing that research much appreciated, nothing in my area according to that data at all.

a reply to: FireMoon

The reason I asked those questions, is that your original description seemed to point to something that I saw, as well.

Mine was daytime under heavy cloud cover and the color was a red/orange, not white, but that same weird "flat" effect (in my case it would be like looking at a red/orange sunrise or set through heavy clouds - perfect circle but zero glare).

It had an odd "skimming" quality - or "gliding" would work as well, no sound at all, and it was a perfect circle. In my case, it got weird at the end. Just past me heading north it instantly sped up to where it appeared to be a blur for about six inches worth of sky from my POV and then it went invisible somehow. Freaked the heck out of me.

Anyway - I think you've seen a genuine Unidentified...and I don't think anyone is going to be able to clear up for you what it was, in the end.

Thank you for sharing it!!!

- AB

a reply to: FireMoon

You're very welcome!
Wasn't intending to disparage your experience. Personally I'm on a "kick" for myself to make sure I rule out unknown to me military craft from possible experimental stuff, from highly unusual stuff.

Glad you are getting some confirmations from other posters!

originally posted by: FireMoon
Just seen the weirdest site. a smooth round white light bigger than the apparent size of Jupiter by 4-5 times . I was putting the bin out looked up and this object was travelling from the from South East to the North West in the direction of Birmingham airport Object was a single totally silent seemingly flat white illuminated flat disc. No idea at what altitude it was, if it was high enough to be out of earshot, it would have been absolutely huge. Travelled in a straight line at some rate of knots, certainly far quicker than any plane and as it vanished into the North West it became star like in its' appearance.

As it flew over my head it appeared to be a solid round object of some size, no other lights, nothing resembling navigation lights at all. If it was a plane., drone, etc it was very low altitude to have shown up as that sized disc and no noise? Even drones make a noise and no, it was not any form of landing light, had it been at that apparent size, it would have woken the whole street. Imagine the focused beam of a searchlight on a cloud with no cone from the searchlight itself and that was the effect, and no not a searchlight etc, there was no cloud to reflect off of. Anyone any ideas what it might have been?

I have seen this exact thing. It became star like then disappeared though, not over the horizon but just got smaller and smaller, very rapidly. From 4-5x Jupiter to gone in 5 seconds.

Just a quick update..... Tried to contact Birmingham about anything on Radar and the world of the automated phone system doesn't have a... "ask us a question about weirds*** please press 23"; option. Contacted the local Newspaper and they are going to a run a little piece on it so just maybe, someone else saw it.

a reply to: vtrio12

Sadly, nothing like what I saw at all. If you hold a 5 pence piece over your head, the initial size of the object was akin to that and exactly the same shape. Just one light that seemed to be the whole object, a very flat colour white with zero hints of any other colours within the white. If anything, it looked like a piece of animation, the colour and the apparent sharpness of the edges were that "flat". One thing that really threw me was that, there was absolutely no context for what I was seeing, it genuinely was unlike any other light I have ever seen in the sky. If anything, it looked somehow "fake" it was so perfect in its' shape. The air was almost still at ground level and it was moving way too fast to be our old friend the Chinese Lantern.

If you're in the USA, take a 1 cent coin and hold that at arms length above your head, that was about the size of what i saw initially.

Or maybe you saw a disc craft with a white ionic aura ?