When a star becomes a ufo.

OK last night me and my mate were stood out in the garden looking up skywatching.
Over about twenty minutes we had spotted moving 4 objects one of which was again (like one we saw last sat night) zig zagging along instead of the straight line you would expect a satellite to take.
Then suddenly the brightest star in the sky & one which we had both been using as a reference to find the moving objects just started moving and within a minute it was gone out of sight into the distance.

Now how come the brightest object in the nightsky, that was stationary for 20mins can just decide to move slowly away like that? It went from the middle of the sky to out of sight in about a minute.
This was no satallite or the iss.

Did anyone else see this?

Sorry - i meant this to go into the ufo & aliens section.
Can a mod please move,cheers

What was the weather like in your area? What part of the world are you in? It was probably planes in a holding pattern and when they moved they were getting ready to land.

It was clear, im in the uk & it was not a plane.
Planes dont just sit there for 20mins like a star then move away.
We didnt realise it wasnt a star until it moved off, we were using it as a reference to check for other moving lights also it was very high up - in atmosphere.

reply to post by cropmuncher


Actually planes do appear to do this. If they are coming in at a very slow rate and you are at teh right angle relative them, it looks as if they are stationary. Also the zig zap pattern you mention could be a plane circling in holding pattern. This appears to be a zig zag because you dont perceive the circular motion. I have seen this many times from my home and I live about 45 minutes from the airport.

I think you are misunderstanding me, what i was doing was looking straight up at satallites and other moving things in the sky.
I wasnt looking at planes head on or anything like that.
I know what planes look like and this was no plane.

reply to post by cropmuncher


Well then that is cool. Maybe you did see a UFO. I was just trying to see if maybe it was a misperception. Happy Hunting!

Actually i dont blame you for being skeptical as i am initailly of other peoples experiences.
Its not the first sighting ive had but i just wondered if anyone else had noticed it - i cant believe no one did as it was the brightest object in the sky.

Hi im new here and read this and had to post my experance i had as a kid. I have been lurking for a couple of days now and had to post this as its exactly like what i saw:

I am now 24 and this happened when i was about 8-10 ish i cant remember exactly how old i was. now i live in the UK in Suffolk and i was staying at my grandparents house in Ipswich, my dad had a keen interest in UFO's and always encourged us to watch the skys and when i couldnt sleep i would stare out off the window and see the stars etc.

now going back on topic!! it was summer time and it was dusk about 8 - 9 pm ish and i couldnt sleep so i looked out of the bedroom window looking about due east over the town and saw a bright star in the sky it was one of the 1st out that night and it was really bright and i asked my dad what it was and he siad its probably a star, i kept watching the skys watching planes and stars and got bored so tried to get some sleep again.

The next night was the same as the last i couldnt sleep so looked out of the window and yet again i saw this really bright star, and a i watched the other stars coming into light i kept looking at this star because it seemed 2 bright and different than the other stars and all of a sudden it started slowly moving north keeping its atultude, and as i cried for my dad in the louldest voice i could scared out of my wits i saw it go really fast still on the same heading and atultude and by the time my dad got upstairs it was gone. i told him and told him about it being the same star that i asked him about the nght before but he didnt know and just told me to go to bed.

I know i was young at the time but this memory has stayed fiexd in my mind to this day and i know i wasnt ill at the time on drugs pissed or anything (would be a bit worrying if i was at that age!!!) but this is a moment in my life i have never been able to find a explenation for especially as i remember seeing it in the exact same place at the same time the night before the only thing odd was it was really bright.

Do you have any explanation? or have any of you had this happen? be interesting to find out thanks

Originally posted by cropmuncher
zig zagging along instead of the straight line you would expect a satellite to take.

It's quite common to see satellites that appear to zig zag...

The autokinetic effect (also referred to as autokinesis) is a phenomenon of human visual perception in which a stationary, small point of light in an otherwise dark or featureless environment appears to move. It was first recorded by a Russian officer keeping watch who observed illusory movement of a star near the horizon. It presumably occurs because motion perception is always relative to some reference point. In darkness or in a featureless environment there is no reference point, so the movement of the single point is undefined. The direction of the movements does not appear to be correlated with the involuntary eye movements, but may be determined by errors between eye position and that specified by efference copy of the movement signals sent to the extraocular muscles.

wikipedia.org


As for the "star" you saw, how high in the sky was it? If it wasn't that high, chances are (as someone else mentioned), that it was a plane traveling directly (or close to it) towards you. They can appear to be stationary for a long time, and look just like a star...

Originally posted by cropmuncher
Planes dont just sit there for 20mins like a star then move away.
We didnt realise it wasnt a star until it moved off, we were using it as a reference to check for other moving lights also it was very high up - in atmosphere.

Actually, they do.

I live about 20 miles from a busy international airport. Planes on final approach will illuminate their "landing lights," which at a distance, and can appear to be one solid light or "star," and by far the brightest such "star" in the sky.

As they approach, they remain at a steady altitude, and are reducing their speed. I have seen such steady lights for several minutes at a time; sometimes first observing them from one location, going home, and finding them again in apparently the same place I last saw them.

When they finally get to within a few miles of the airport, they are "vectored in" to a flight path that leads them to the runway. When they make these final corrections, their landing lights are no pointed in my direction and they become virtually invisible. They may still be so far away that the navigational lights (red or green wing tips) are not readily apparent. Sometimes, if I try very hard, I can see the white or red strobe/beacon after they turn, but it is not always so.

Given my location, as they continue along their glide path and get within a few miles, I can more often than not pick them back up and follow them down until my view is obscured.

jw