Curious what these would be

Now, I realize it's that time of the year when we see those spiffy Perseids (I've laid outside on the roof at my cabin a few times in the past and watched them for hours, my then fiancée and I counted over 800 in around an hour a number of years back and actually even heard a few whoosh and crackle). That being said, what I watched (with two friends) last night wasn't a meteor shower.

I happened to be looking up (just because it's that time of the year) and it was approximately 11:10 - 11:15PM CST (last night not tonight, the 10th not the 11th). The sky was partially cloudy but not overcast, and I'd guesstimate I could see around 75% of the sky/stars/etc. with most of the clear sky being directly overhead (clouds to the west horizon and north horizons). We were in a low light area out near an airfield where we launch rockets and fly (or in my case lose) RC aircraft, or if it's night and clear we might bring some scopes, copious amounts of insect repellant, and perhaps smoke a fat one (hey, we're Canadians) and stargaze for a few hours. I'd again 'guesstimate' less than 1.0% light pollution (at most). What was visible in the sky was pretty clear; sunset was something like 8:40 and twilight was something like 9:20 (these aren't accurate, but I sort of pay attention to this as this is "my" best time of the year to go out with the scopes to look up -- it's still warm out late at night and it's usually not overcast).

Enough background, on to what we saw.

Like I said, I was looking up to see if it was worth returning with my scope and I noticed a fairly bright light moving in a perfectly straight line from NNW to SSE (sure looked like a satellite to me). I said to my buddy beside me, "Hey! See that satellite? Watch it'll probably flash soon." (Iridium) He looked up and saw the satellite almost immediately. Maybe 6-8 seconds passed and instead of flashing, it changed direction instantaneously and went off at around 60 degrees from its original track. I said, "What the #? Did you see that?" He did, we then stood there mumbling about what it was we saw and agreed it was both neat and strange and both tried to explain it away. Of course, now all 3 of us were looking up and mumbling away about it. Perhaps 2 or 3 minutes later another satellite came across the sky on a WSW to ENE direction (similar brightness), about 1/2 way across the sky it changed direction almost 110 degrees and headed off south (at pretty much the same speed as far as I could tell). All three of us saw the object/light this time (and its path) and then its direction change.

One time seeing a light in the sky change direction is interesting, and probably chalked up to two different satellites, at different distances, passing across each others orbit path (relative to our viewing angle) and your eyes simply tracking the brighter one and "forgetting" about the original object -- but twice in a 5 minute period?

I've seen this before a long time ago when I was in university, and my buddy's dad said he's seen the same thing many times (he night fishes a lot out in the middle of the lake in a near zero light area). Just wondering if anyone here has an explanation of what it is we're seeing or has seen something similar.

It made me want to go park my ass back out there with my scope (which is a futile idea anyway, it's hard to track a fast moving object like a shuttle or satellite or even space station with a big scope), but then I decided it was getting cold, I was tired, and TV and the couch sounded like the best option.

Sounds awfully unusual to me, heck file a report with MUFON or somebody. You cant identify it, right? Lets see, Venus, swamp gas, the Perseids, temperature inversions, satellites, ISS, migrating phosphorescent geese, known domestic and international aircraft, missiles, out of focus insects, high altitude mogul ballons, none of these fit the bill. I've seen something similar to this as has a few other in my family. No we arent moonshiners and I gave up the blessed weed years ago . I'd file a report. At least it would be logged. Maybe there are dozens of others in your neck of the woods that may have observed the same thing.

[edit on 12-8-2005 by Defragger]

If it wern't so late at night, I'd say it was birds. I have no idea though. I'm going to move this to Aliens and UFOs, they may be able to help out a bit more. If you don't want it there, just ask a mod to move it back.

Good luck!