Strange Flashes in the night sky ,what are they,and have you seen them?

reply to post by BigfootNZ

I do wish i could afford a telescope! It must be amazing,and here where i live,there's not so much light pollution,so that's a bonus.Well,maybe sometime in the next 2 years-in my country,even secondhand,telescopes are Very expensive

reply to post by Raxoxane


No need for a telescope. A DSLR (second hand will do as long as it's not over a decade old), a 50mm 1.8 (or better yet 1.4) lens, a cheap tripod, and a cable release would suffice. Then you'd also have a record of the event which you could post here, and also use to identify the junk causing the flashes.

As there is not much light pollution where you are, you should get great results.

Sounds like heat lightning to me. The first time I saw it, it scared the hell out of me when I was 13 in the mountains in West Virginia.

I havent seen these for a few years now, but back in 2010 when my ex gf and I were sparkin' we used to go out to the river and camp on the gravel bar every weekend. That summer we saw MULTIPLE big flashes of light in the sky. It looked just like lightning, but on a cloudless summer's night. And it wasnt just one night. This happened many times that summer. I was on an extended ATS hiatus at that point or I would have wrote about it. At the time we were 'falling in love' so we took it as a good omen. I always suspected something more.

Just taking out the bins there and bang saw it again , could have swore this was a plane coming into land with its landing lights on it was so bright , looked away for a second and it went dim back to a normal brightness of a star , this is the second time i have saw this the 1st time i would guess was a satellite but this time it stayed still .

i posted about my 1st experience just the other day but somehow ATS did not save it i could have swore i posted in this exact thread . But there is no record on my stats of it .

Seen the flash a few times starting a few years ago, and I recall on one day, I had seen it with a friend. She said it was an exploding transformer, although I didn't really believe that. And it's funny how there never a cloud in the sky sometimes, unless it's just a reaction from inside one of the spheres.

P.s: I also had seen a green flash a few times, which seemed more like the aurora. It was rather difficult to view due to seeing it from a bathroom window that has that fog design when I was showering. But it did flash a few times, and it was in the winter time.

reply to post by Specimen


Your friend is probably right. What you describe fits the description of an exploding transformer perfectly (the "green flash" included).

reply to post by FireballStorm


I guess she was, lol, Im not going to the end on that if I said yes it was.

The green light however, was not the same as a flash. It literally looked like a stream going in a direction, and some would probably think it was an "alien laser beam" if they saw it. I live in southern Ontario, and some towns a few hours a from where I live can see an aurora. My house kind of faces south, so it really wouldn't make sense if it was.

reply to post by Specimen


You mentioned "laser"... is there a chance it could have been one? The prices of lasers came down a lot around 2008ish, and powerful green lasers could be bought very cheaply. I have a small collection myself.

reply to post by FireballStorm


Like I said it looked like a stream light, not a beam.

I was being sarcastic about the laser, due to most sci-fi view of Green being the primary E.T colour.

reply to post by tarifa37

Hey....to anyone still trying to answer this thread. Well just today I was sitting with my family and having dinner and decided that we wanted to watch a scary movie on Netflix. ANYWAYS we were sharing events in our lives that we found scary then an occurrence, similar to the one, came to mind. This event occurred during summer break, yes I am in high school, either in the month of June i believe, it was no where near 4th of July, just to clear up any initial assumptions. So I was out walking my dogs in my neighborhood at around 12 or even 1 o'clock, minding my own business. My attention was on my dogs since I had to make sure that they wouldn't eat anything or roll around in anything, and slightly because I was afraid to look around, it was too late for me to even be outside but I felt bad that I lied to my mom saying that I walked them earlier in day, kind of felt sorry for my dogs too. BUT ANYWAYS as I looked down the road in front of me, there was a red/pink flash that LITERALLY covered the sky. It appeared like a camera flash but it lasted for about 3-4 seconds. I looked up as quickly as possible and I just saw the night sky disappear and be replaced by this radiant light! the houses were of red tint, I was of red tint but before I could even comprehend what was going on the light disappeared. MY HEART STARTED BEATING SO FAST. I looked around to see if there happened to be anyone and I mean ANYONE outside to have witnessed what I have witnessed. BUT THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO ONE. There was no car in sight and I was freaking out.

Not going to lie, at first I thought it was a bomb. More like an explosion because in movies whenever there was a war going on at night, the sky would lit up. I ran home and at that point I was petrified as to what may come. At the dinner table today I told my dad this story for the first time since he just came home from deployment last month and after retelling this story I began assuming other possibilities. I remembered that a flare gun can produce a red light. But I have seen the light of a flare gun since it is similar to a mini firework but the amount of light did not equate to the light I saw. THIS MIGHT SOUND CRAZY: The sky looked like day. As if the sun only emitted pink/red light. It was so bright that the entire sky changed color! If you wanted to get a better idea of what I saw, walk out side in daylight and imagine the sun emitting red/pink light so your house was tinted that way. It seemed like an unnatural, yet natural light. Like I said the houses had a tint of red/pink light and I was a tint of red/pink all around me was red/pink. It would be unbelievable for eye-witness to explain. I live in Hawai'i on the Island of O'ahu. I live so close to the city and it is pretty quiet here. I don't see why a person would randomly feel the urge to shoot a flare gun right in my area so I was unsure whether to even keep "flare gun" as an option. The light I believe came from the left side of the corner of my eye but it was not far since I had to look up and not far ahead to see the first sight of light. The sky was a blanket of pink/red as if it were a SOLID blanket. Now like I had stated earlier the light disappear in like .0001 seconds it was so fast that I was so confused, THE LIGHT DID NOT JUST SLOWLY DIE DOWN. Everything seemed normal again as if I had blinked and was brought back to reality. My first thought was to run! then when I got home i thought " what just happened?!".

I told this story to my mother and sisters the day of the incident but they were mad that I woke them up and told me that it wasn't a big deal. So I tried to stop thinking about it but I couldn't, I began researching but I found little in formation about so I had to give up but this time school came so that I could focus. But now at dinner my curiosity has been reignited and I am ready to find some answers! I might have been repetitive but only because I began to build frustration as I write this event. I am frustrated at the fact that I wish I had a camera at that moment so that I could document it or that I wish at least someone was out there with me to experience it. If anyone can explain to me what happened that night it will be greatly appreciated. I am not expecting a UFO or extraterrestrial answer, like if you say that "it must have been a flare gun", I won't be disappointed. HOWEVER if you suspect it to be something "out of the ordinary" I would be excited to hear what you have to say. Sorry for the long story, I tried to get every detail in, important or not. By the way the next day after the incident I asked my friends if they seen the light and they sad no since they were asleep.

-P.S. I just created this account Oct. 18, 2013 HST because I just looked up on Google similar incidents and this site had kind of what I was talking about. I find this experience to be of great importance to me so please please reply back. I do not care how ridiculous! I dislike this feeling of mystery and uncertainty!

reply to post by samasco356


i too have seen these fashes in the night sky but the ones my fatherinlaw and i saw were blue

and we saw them on many nights and many times in anyone night .

still have no idea what they are though

reply to post by tarifa37


I also have just seen this at around 9:00 December 15 2013, i am in PA and it was 4-5 pulses of strobe in the sky but it wasn't from a single point, it was as if the entire sky lit up and flashed repetitively, i was in the car at the time and thought i was seeing things until my dad exclaimed "what?!" then we agreed that it happened in the direction of the city of reading and was just wondering if it was a transformer going off or "aliens"

reply to post by JayinAR


i also just saw this i am in pa near reading, was it as if the entire sky just went and strobed for 4-5 pulses?
it was a cloudless night and has only happened to me once but scared me it only happend 20 min after i made this post and i still have chills

reply to post by samasco356


this exact thing happened to me 20 minutes ago at 9:00 pm and the sky just strobed for 4-5 pulses and scared the crap out of me i know it happened because my dad saw it too and i was wondering if it was an electrical accident of something so o googled it and i made an account and now im here

happened 9:00ish december 15 2013

reply to post by justamomma


exactly what i have seen! not a single point but as if the sky just strobed for 4-5 pulses and the entire sky lit up, i know it wasn't me because my dad saw it too.

seen on december 15 2013

deyehaus
reply to post by justamomma

 

exactly what i have seen! not a single point but as if the sky just strobed for 4-5 pulses and the entire sky lit up, i know it wasn't me because my dad saw it too.

seen on december 15 2013

Here are possible explanations:

1. The Iridium satellites are known to flash:

Iridium flares are bright reflections of sunlight off flat panels on Iridium communications satellites. For a brief period, they can reach magnitude -8.5, around 1000 times brighter than the brightest star in the sky. They are akin to someone shining reflected sunlight off a watch face straight into your eyes - only this time the "watch face" is a metre-wide flat metal panel about 500km above the surface of the Earth.

2. Heat lightning


3. Chernikhov Flashes in the upper atmosphere

reply to post by Insomniac


mah dear sleep erred friend

meteors will often explode upon entering earths atmosphere

here is a link explaining why from our good friends at WIRED
www.wired.com...

reply to post by samasco356


please excuse my grammar in regards to my previous comments, , i was frightened and still unfocused.
i was with my dad on a cloudless night coming home when the whole sky in front of us pulsed very quickly and lasted 4-6 pulses. it didn't appear to originate from anywhere and was very uniform and seemed perfectly flat the light was almost a repeated camera flash, however it was as if a very large projector lit up the sky. it it was soundless and there were no clouds out, my father and i both yelled, so i am a bit more reassured that i am not crazy, later when i asked him about it he said it was green for him were for me it was white. as i forget who said previously in this thread if it is aliens using dimensional warp or along those lines, i tried to look at the area but trees obscured my view.

also about a month later my dad saw it again but with my sister, they both say it was relatively cloudless and both say it was green so unless my dad has something to do with it...

reply to post by FireballStorm


were you present during the first video? if so then at about 14-15 seconds in was that a lightning strike or the transformer?