A Mysterious Streak Above Hawaii

How long will the government continue to insist that there are no ufos and there are logical explanations for every anomaly reported in the sky!

"Explanation: What in heavens-above was that? Not everything seen on the night sky is understood. The Night Sky Live (NSL) project keeps its global array of continuously updating web cameras (CONCAMs) always watching the night sky. On the night of 2004 December 17, the fisheye CONCAM perched on top of an active volcano in Haleakala, Hawaii, saw something moving across the night sky that remains mysterious. The NSL team might have disregarded the above streak as unconfirmed, but the Mauna Kea CONCAM on the next Hawaiian island recorded the same thing. The NSL team might then have disregarded the streak as a satellite, but no record of it was found in the heavens-above.com site that usually documents bright satellite events. If you think you have a reasonable explanation for the streak, please contribute to the on-line discussion. Current candidates include a known satellite that was somehow missed by heavens-above, a recently launched rocket, and a passing space rock. Volunteers are solicited by the NSL project to help monitor the operability of each NSL CONCAM, including looking for interesting anomalies such as this. Disclosure: Robert Nemiroff collaborates on both the NSL and APOD projects."
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...
www.drudgereport.com...
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...

There is a picture of the anomaly on the first link.

If this has already been posted I aplogise. But I do leave the "explanation" to the ATS experts

[edit on 8-2-2005 by Mynaeris]

Thx. for posting this -- the fact this streak was picked up by two different cameras located on different islands -- Mauna Kea is on the Big Island, Haleakala on Maui -- will allow photogramettric experts to triangulate its velocity (speed and direction).

I would think such analysis would allow for a rather accurate estimate of its speed. It is my understanding that no meteor has ever been recorded in the atmosphere at speeds less than 27,000 nmph (almost 43,500 kilometers per hour) -- please, should I be mistaken in regards to this factoid, I would geratly appreciate it if someone would correct this figure for me.

Anyway, point being, professional analaysis very well might be able to rule out the possibility the streak was a meteor if it can be shown the speed of the object is outside the envelope recognized for meteors.

Speaking of which, given ATS also serves as a news source, do they have their own in-house analyst qualified for such analysis? That would be one hell of an asset, IMHO... maybe one for the sugegstion box.

This is a great find, myn. Thanks for sharing. I can't believe the write up on the APOD site! lol.

cool stuff

that would be the first time for me that NASA.GOV site says something like this:

"What in heavens-above was that? Not everything seen on the night sky is understood.......On the night of 2004 December 17, the fisheye CONCAM perched on top of an active volcano in Haleakala, Hawaii, saw something moving across the night sky that remains mysterious."

well from the looks of it its a cylindrical shaped mothership on a government sponsored site. How cool is that


EDIT:

found an eyewitness account on another forum :

Ok. Here's an eyewitness account. I had forgotten about this event until I saw the Astro Picture of the Day site earlier this evening.

I live in South Kona on the Big Island. I awoke in the very early AM. The sky was quite clear that AM. As I gazed up towards the zenith, tracking close to Leo was a very large "white blob". Being a frequent star gazer my initial response was "What the f#$# is that"!. I have never seen an object like it before. It's size was approximately twice, maybe a little more, than the Full Moon diameter.

After watching it track very slowly for about 10 minutes, I decided it was worth a look in my telescope. I have a 4" Vernonscope Refractor. Magnification was 20x. The wide field revealed a very soft light - no it was not a weather balloon as others have suggested - with stars visible behind it. Rather than some distinct object it seemed that a light was shining on part of the sky!

Even stranger was what I observed on the southern side of the object. About 3 full moon diameters away was a small dot of pale yellow/white light that looked and tracked like a satellite, however, moved much slower. Don't know about distance above the Earth, however, if it was in the atmosphere, there was no sound of any engine noise (I live in a very quiet area of the Island and any atmospheric sound from an airplane etc. would be audible). Also, there was no observable beam of light coming from the small object.

From the time I picked up the object until it disappeared into the East about 45 minutes later, it remained "parallel" to the "white blob", never varying its distance or speed. I have observed airplanes across the sky here, and this was not moving like an airplane. This tells me the object's distance from the Earth Surface was significantly higher.

One impression was a possible UFO, however, as I mentioned, there was no erratic pattern in its flight. Certainly doesn't rule it out, however, from what I've read (no I've never seen a UFO) UFO objects usually fly in erratic patterns.

Curious if anyone else saw this event Naked Eye???

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Interesting explanation

I saw a fuel dump some years ago (in the early 1990's) over Europe. These clouds can get bright. I would estimate that the peak total magnitude of the fuel cloud I saw to first or second magnitude, slowly getting dimmer with time. The cloud was visible, nearly motionless, for maybe an hour or so, shaped like a mushroom, streaming out of the point-like spacecraft, which was visible in a telesope only.

Having seen a fuel dump myself, I would certainly conclude from the observation posted above that this was a similar event.



[edit on 8-2-2005 by nukunuku]

When I see things like this it really makes me wonder why the nations of the world do not have a UFO research department. I mean Air space is being invaded! If it was a enemy aircraft it would be an act of war.
The fact that there is no UFO research department suggests to me that the government has to be covering it up.

[edit on 8/2/2005 by Umbrax]

Us space folk beat you by just a couple hours Mynaeris. www.abovetopsecret.com...

I was actually posting my reply to it when I recieved your u2u. Go figure!

Anyway, I'll just say the same thing I said in there. My best bet is that it was an asteroid composed of some sort of reflective material (be it iron, nickel, zinc, etc... I don't know.)

My first thought was an Iridium flare, but since the object takes about 20 minutes to move across the field of view that's out of the question.

Until some more information is gathered I'm not so sure, but I'll take my chances on it being an asteroid.

I clicked on the link in your siggy, but as I guess ATS membership is mutually exclusive from BTS membership, have returned here to post my question:

I had read that the slowest recorded meteor on record was measured to have been travelling at 27,000 mph? Is this true? Also, if possible, can you please provide me a link to an accepted reference to independently verify this?

Thank you much, and I look forward to revisiting 'your' thread in the other forum to further educate myself.

Originally posted by sdrumrunner Also, if possible, can you please provide me a link to an accepted reference to independently verify this?

Can't provide a link, but can give a hypothesis.

They probably aren't traveling that fast. With the figures you posted you can translate that to 725,000 meters/sec. Taking the approximation the speed of sound is 340 meters/sec at the outskirts of the atmosphere (it's not) then they are traveling at mach ~2132. Anything reaching the atmosphere at that speed would probably vaporize immediately due to frictional forces and we'd see nothing.

Originally posted by sdrumrunner
I had read that the slowest recorded meteor on record was measured to have been travelling at 27,000 mph? Is this true? Also, if possible, can you please provide me a link to an accepted reference to independently verify this?

I haven't ever heard that before myself, so I don't know. The closest thing that I could find was the slowest meteor showers' average speed.

www.namnmeteors.org...

Pi Puppids (PPU); Velocity: 18 km/s
Phoenicids (PHO) ; Velocity: 18 km/s

So doing manual calculations I got 104,285.69 miles/hr. Someone correct me if that's wrong, please. That's their speed when they hit the atmosphere also. As soon as that happens they drastically slow down, as Aether stated, and burn up creating the streak in the sky that we see.

Also, to access BTS just use your ATS login and password. It should work.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid

Originally posted by sdrumrunner
I had read that the slowest recorded meteor on record was measured to have been travelling at 27,000 mph? Is this true? Also, if possible, can you please provide me a link to an accepted reference to independently verify this?

I haven't ever heard that before myself, so I don't know. The closest thing that I could find was the slowest meteor showers' average speed.

www.namnmeteors.org...

Pi Puppids (PPU); Velocity: 18 km/s
Phoenicids (PHO) ; Velocity: 18 km/s

So doing manual calculations I got 104,285.69 miles/hr. Someone correct me if that's wrong, please. That's their speed when they hit the atmosphere also. As soon as that happens they drastically slow down, as Aether stated, and burn up creating the streak in the sky that we see.

Also, to access BTS just use your ATS login and password. It should work.

Thanks, Cmdr, for the information. I look forward to learning more on your forum.

Is it moving to slow for a satellite, say a secret spysat or the like? If it's an asteroid, wouldn't some astronomer say so? They could tell, right? If indeed an asteroid, is it really, really close in that flyby? A few q's I had.

Originally posted by Der Kapitan
Is it moving to slow for a satellite, say a secret spysat or the like? If it's an asteroid, wouldn't some astronomer say so? They could tell, right? If indeed an asteroid, is it really, really close in that flyby? A few q's I had.

For a satellite to be moving that slowly it would have to be quite a distance away from Earth. Far enough away I think that it wouldn't get that bright, at least. And as for it being an asteroid that slipped by, it's really not that uncommon. In fact, a majority of them arn't found until AFTER they've already gone past. A quote from the movie Armageddon comes to mind when talking about that... "Well, our object collison budget's about a million dollars. That allows us to track about 3% of the sky, and beg'n your pardon sir, but it's a big-ass sky. "

Cmdrkeenkid-

Didn't mean to sound hostile, I got five mo' minutes and it's back to the parenting-housework thing! Just trying to get the questions out quick.

Originally posted by Der Kapitan
Cmdrkeenkid-

Didn't mean to sound hostile, I got five mo' minutes and it's back to the parenting-housework thing! Just trying to get the questions out quick.

Oh, I didn't think you were being hostile at all! I was just trying to get an answer out quick before someone beat me to it, is all. The movie quote was almost purely for my own personal entertainment, though it does make a point that NASA's NEO programs are severly underfunded.

David Grinspoon and someone name Seth Shostak from SETI will be discussing this on Coast to Coast AM tonight.

I'll most likely listen and update with what they have to say.

It's just an observation, but... if you watch the clock in the lower-left corner of the images, it takes the object about 20 minutes to travel from nearly directly overhead to roughly 45 degrees above the horizon. Too slow for any meteorite, and slower than any satellite I've seen.

I'm thinking that if it's outside the atmosphere, it's very large or reflective. If inside, the fuel dump idea sounds likely... or maybe a weather balloon...

Originally posted by stargazernate
the fuel dump idea sounds likely...

My problem with this explanation is that they would have to have launched the satellite away from the rotation of the earth. That is, instead of launching towards the Atlantic, which would be with the rotation of the earth, they would have had to launch toward the Pacific. It was a military satellite launch, so I suppose for 'whatever' reason they may have had to do this, but the fuel cost to actually get the satellite into orbit would be hugely increased!

Edit:

This is ground track for the launch of the satellite. It matches up with the time of when this was seen. But why does what was photographed in Hawaii appear to be going in the wrong direction?


Source

Edit:

The GTO orbit is quite eliptical (19.3 kMi x 2.6 kMi) and would appear to slow down as it got higher.

Comments?

[edit on 9-2-2005 by Seth76]

I've made an animation that might help visualize an elliptical orbit. While watching this animation take note that the satellite seems to slow down in relation to the earth while in the distant part of its orbit, and then seemingly speeds up on the return. I think, after taking the time to visualize this, the 'fuel dump' is the most probable explanation.

Orbit animation - 320x240 gif - 1.2MB

This animation portrays an orbit of a satellite in an elliptical synchronous orbit. For those keeping track, this shouldn't be confused with a geostationary orbit. Geostationary orbits generally are aligned with the equator and have a round orbit, while a synchronous orbit is only following the earth one orbit per day.
Further explanation

I'd say you nailed Kepler's 2nd law pretty well there. Every object in an elliptical orbit moves at its slowest when it's most distant.

As an aside, geostationary (or geosynchronous) orbits also hold a satellite in one orbit per day (the satellite stays directly "over" the same location on the Earth). It appeared ambiguous from your posting whether you meant this.

There was a fairly lengthy discussion going on in this thread at the The Night Sky Live Project forums.

Apparently they came to the conclusion that is was nothing more than a fuel dump of the AMC-16 rocket launch and even closed the thread which personally isnt something i'd do.