shooting star? (first post)

A few days ago my friend and I were driving down a highway when all of a sudden this (rather large) object shot across the sky. It looked like two parallel yellow lines (he said it looked like a cylinder) followed by a florescent yellow trail. The trail lingered in the sky for about three to four seconds but the object shot way off into the distance. It looked like it was flying close to the ground (couple hundred feet perhaps). Who knows, maybe it was just massive instead. It was surrounded by an odd yellow aura, almost like there was an object in the center..

Its weird because my friend who lives about ten miles north of me saw one just like it a couple days later but it lasted for about five to six seconds. The two that I saw were very quick (1-2 secs).

any thoughts? Perhaps it was just a few satellites burning up..

reply to post by zetamafia911


Where do you live?
this is a one liner.

im up in nor cal (eureka/arcata)

What you describe sounds like something I saw a few months ago. The color was a luminous yellowish color. It was very low, (it seemed) maybe two hundred feet above treetop level, flying east to west. It flew at an incredible rate of speed. If you blinked, you'd miss it. I'm in the midwest.

Ps. It did not look like a shooting star to me. This was long just like you describe it. Could not tell if the ends of it were straight or rounded because it went too fast.

[edit on 27-10-2008 by Clark W. Griswold]

yea it was the most unusual color..

it kind of arched toward the horizon also

were you near an air force base at that time, because based on your saying of a yellow trail, it might be the exhaust of an military aircraft (war planes) like F- series etc.

And then the shooting off into the distance, it could be due to plane accelerating suddenly, you know what these aircrafts are capable of now a days.

Does that solve your query.

[edit on 27/10/08 by peacejet]

we don't have an airforce base in the area (nearest one is about 200 mi away). Also it was waaaaay to fast to be a jet, it was a split second event.

I don't live near a military base, and what I saw was most definitely not a plane of any sort. I saw the front and the back. It almost to me looked like a giant glowstick ( maybe 150 ft in length, just a guestimate) shooting from east to west.

To the op---would you describe it as that? If not, maybe we didn't see the same thing, but something similiar.

yes! it looked like a huge glow stick (with a trail) flying through the air. You don't think. its what we all want it to be do you?

oddly the one I saw was also going east to west

Very interesting! It does sound like we saw the same thing. Yes, I saw the trail too. My daughter was out with me, helping me to take out the trash. She was looking in the other direction and didn't see it. She missed out.

I wonder what the heck it was?

Maybe by tomorrow, someone else will see this thread and might have seen the same thing. I'm curious about it.

[edit on 27-10-2008 by Clark W. Griswold]

meh, strange times call for strange occurrences

but im also curious. Till tomorrow. Ciao!

Either this thread got buried too quickly, or no one else has seen anything like this. Too bad. I am curious as to what it could have been.

yea me too. Oh well, im sure it wasn't what I hoped it was anyways..

Thanks to Phage for bringing this thread to my notice.


First of all, there has been unusually strong meteor activity these last couple of weeks, so this is probably what you saw.

Please check this thread I started for info and links: www.abovetopsecret.com...

As for your description of the event, it's perhaps a little unusual, but no doubt what you saw was a meteor...

A meteor, when it enters our atmosphere, produces light by exciting air molecules and making them emit light. Due to the motion of the meteor, this ionized and glowing air forms a tube like structure behind the meteor which can continue to glow for a short time. It's rare to observe this, but not unheard of.

I may of very well saw a meteor that night. It was just the trail that it left which was especially odd. After the main object disappeared the yellow trail sort of stayed in the sky for a few seconds then faded out as one large line, not in succession following the object like normal meteors I have seen.


but alas, I digress...

reply to post by zetamafia911


I know this is a pretty dumb question to ask but, could the thing you may have seen been a meteor shower?

I only ask because it seems like that's what you're describing.

To me it sounds like the avarage shooting stars in a meteor shower, or one object breaking into more pieces when it entered into our atmosfare.
At least that's what it sounds like in my opinion...

Originally posted by zetamafia911
I may of very well saw a meteor that night. It was just the trail that it left which was especially odd. After the main object disappeared the yellow trail sort of stayed in the sky for a few seconds then faded out as one large line, not in succession following the object like normal meteors I have seen.


but alas, I digress...

Yeah - it's normal for brighter meteor to do this. It's the difference between a "wake" and a "persistent train". Persistent trains can last for many minutes sometimes. They are often described as "leaving a tear in the sky that quickly closes over"!

Did you see the videos here:

feraj.narod.ru...
and here:
leonid.arc.nasa.gov...

?

Here's (slowed down) footage of a nice long Leonid train: www.sendspace.com...

Keep an eye out next weekend and you'll probably see some persistent train from Leonids.