Does Anybody Have Any Idea What I Saw?

Back in the early '90s my wife, a friend and myself were camping in Hastings on the English south coast. It was mid August and we were watching the Perseids meteor shower (I'm a keen amateur astronomer).

My friend said 'There's one!'. Obviously, if it's a meteor, by the time you look, it's gone! But this was still there. All three of us saw it, it was spherical, about the size of a capital 'O', yellowy orange, silent and slow moving (about the speed of an airliner at 15,000 ft). It was flying south towards the sea. Once out over the sea it traced a kind of double 's' shape in the sky before pulling an immediate 90 degree turn and flew west at incredible speed so it was out of sight in under a second.

About half an hour later a jet fighter followed the same path (without the aerobatics) but this may have been a coincidence.

The moment I got home I got out my astronomy books to see if I could account for it. I considered a fireball, but that would have gone in a straight line as would a potential meteorite. I also considered ball lightning, but the weather conditions were wrong - it had been a hot day and the sky was completely clear and the air was fresh.

It was certainly a UFO in that it was both flying and unidentified, but I would appreciate any theories that anyone might have as to what we saw.

That's a wild one mate... The intriguing parts to me are the "straight slow" ( like an airliner) initial flight path and the "craziness" at the end of the path... That certainly does NOT indicate any of the "natural" phenomena I've ever heard about.

This leaves us two possibilities, ultra secret manmade craft or "other worldly" craft.

That being the case, it would serve you well to put together as precise a description, including lat/long of where you were, date, time of day, and a drawing or other graphical representation of this and spread it round everywhere that accepts these type reports.

This may allow others who saw something like this on that very day in that same area to corroborate your sighting allowing a geographical triangulation which could then pinpoint exactly where this thing was and possibly where it went.

Springer...

Thanks Springer, I think too much time might have passed now and I cannot be sure of the exact day or time. I really regret not reporting it at the time.

I agree with what you said about it not being natural phenomena, I've really wracked my brains on this and couldn't come up with an explanation.

About a year ago i seen a orange light in the sky, my wife noticed it first she called me outside she said what is that when i looked up i noticed it was setting over the east bay thinking to my self it was a flair from a boat or something i turn around to go back inside, i said a UFO i guess,a little while later i went outside to smoke and it was still there,some time had past from when we first saw it and didn't understand why it was still there,so as i watch it it looked like this very faint light moved in below it and the light went out but not like poof its gone it was more like pulling a window curtain to been wanting to tell some body that forever.

In the urantia book it is talked about six colors of people. Yellow and orange are two of the colors. I once repeatedly keep seeing a mental image of a piece of candy corn that I used to eat as a child. It was yellow and orange. I never knew what was being communicated. They can be quite hard to understand.

[edit on 24-6-2006 by grasshopper]

I have a couple of suggestions and a question.
Suggestions:
Get Halo Northern Sky. It's free and has great add-ons and updates. You can check past, present and future skies. Very good planetarium program.
A good free star charting program is Cartes du Ciel.
Maybe with something like these programs you can eliminate possible astronomical phenomena.

Question:
You say it was the size of a capital O. Could you be more specific? Like say "it was the size of a dime at arms length".
Hey every little bit helps.

Originally posted by longhaircowboy
I have a couple of suggestions and a question.
Suggestions:
Get Halo Northern Sky. It's free and has great add-ons and updates. You can check past, present and future skies. Very good planetarium program.
A good free star charting program is Cartes du Ciel.
Maybe with something like these programs you can eliminate possible astronomical phenomena.

Question:
You say it was the size of a capital O. Could you be more specific? Like say "it was the size of a dime at arms length".
Hey every little bit helps.

Thanks for your reply. I have already exhausted all astronomical avenues. The only objects that move observably are meteors, but they don't deviate from a straight path. If not some kind of craft, the only other possibility I can think of is some kind of meteorolgical phenemonon which I know very little about! You don't know anything about the weather do you?

When I said a capital 'O' I meant the size that an 'O' appears on this page! Sorry, I should have been more expicit!

I'm no meteorologist. There have been instances of certain plasmas(ball lightning) observed around power lines and even in areas with a high frequency of earthquakes.
Here in Florida I've observed some freakish atmospheric effects during periods of intense thunderstorms and lightning. I've also seen it rain next door while I continued to improve my tan.
There are any number of possibilities for what you observed.
It's why they call em UFOs.

Yep, I guess it'll remain unidentified! I was hoping somebody would say "Yeah I saw something just like that. It turned out to be..."
That might still happen, I'll have to wait and see. Thanks for your input though!

[edit on 24/6/06 by Insomniac]

Here in Florida I've observed some freakish atmospheric effects during periods of intense thunderstorms and lightning. I've also seen it rain next door while I continued to improve my tan.

That happened here today, hehe...(also in FL).
I was taking out the trash, but raining out the back door, so I took it out the front and stayed dry!