Two Astronomical Sightings - UFO or Explainable

I've had my share of peculiar UFO sightings. Most were easily explained away with a little bit of research (i.e., National Guard Night Maneuver Trainings, Dry Cleaning bags filled with combustible gas, etc.). However, there are two (fairly) recent astronomical observations that have defied explanation and I was wondering if anyone might have a logical explanation for them.

Occurred : 8/24/2006 20:45 (Entered as : 082406 20:45)
Location: Medford, OR
Shape: Flash
Duration:30 seconds
Unidentified Falling Object - Not Meteor.
Description: One very large falling object seen North by Northwest of Medford Oregon. Falling object was silverish blue with a white aura and very short trail. No smoke or long trail common with an object like a meteorite. It fell quickly from high in sky down below the visible horizon.

Approximately 15 minutes later 2 military helicopters approached the airspace near where it was seen while 2 F-16s from Kingsley Field Airbase (Klamath Falls) were observed in a holding pattern outside that area.

Lot's of unusual air-traffic in the area for 5-6 hours afterward. Commercial Aircraft were stuck in holding pattern while large cargo planes took off from Medford International Airport.

Theory: This was the reported date that a Soviet-era Spy Satellite was supposed to splash-down.

Occurred : 4/19/2009 10:42 (Entered as : 091904 22:45)
Location: Medford, OR
Shape: Flash
Duration: 5 Seconds
Unidentified Light/Star.
Description: Because of light pollution, very few stars were visible in the night sky. Other than Orion, Auriga, CMajor, CMinor, Gemini, Regulus, Vega, Aldebaran, UrsaMinor and Spica, there were few other visible stars in the sky. In the vicinity where Cancer would be, had it been visible, there was a star that appeared brightly out of the dark sky, brighter in magnitude than any other luminary in the night sky. It was bluish-white and did not twinkle or blink. It was visible for but 5 seconds before disappearing. It was definitely not Saturn which would have been many degrees SE of this light. Observing the night sky for an hour afterward gave no further re-appearances of this light.

Don't know about the first one, but the second one the answer to that is here.

I'm very very afraid that this man is going to kill us all. He'll lead the NWO reigns with his alien "Friends."

www.share-international.org

The first observation suggests the re-entry of a defunct satellite/space junk.

The second could be the description of an Iridium Flare. Did you check the flare predictions provided by Heavens Above or a similar resource?

WG3

I had never heard of Iridium Flares until now...and that makes perfect sense.

My clock may have been off a bit, but there was one that was scheduled in that time frame with a reasonable variance.

Although, to the naked eye it looked just like a bright star, not like the pictures of other Iridium Flares I got via Google, but I am sufficiently satisfied with your hypothesis. It is the most probable explanation.

Thank you!

[edit on 21-4-2009 by fraterormus]