Okay, WHAT JUST HAPPENED WITH THE MOON!?

reply to post by Mooradian

The sun was setting just over an hour before your post. It would be in the West. It would appear orange through overcast. It would appear larger than the moon, which would've been crescent phase, about 1/4 (from overhead) up from the horizon in the SW sky. It would move relatively quickly w/reference to the horizon.

Sorry.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


lol... doh! But that doesn't explain why you feel that Venus would somehow be larger and brighter than our moon... oh, and now orange in color instead of the well known blue green it normally is seen as...

Good stuff, huh?

reply to post by loner007



I have heard of the illusion of 2 sunsets but have never seen it. I have seen the green flash that occurs just for an instant before the sunsets over the ocean. I tried many times to see it (very quick) and I finally did. This was on the Oregon Coast.

Originally posted by Romantic_Rebel
reply to post by Nventual

 

The moon is nearer to Earth then Venus and once in a while you can see Venus. That's why Venus is called the Morning and Evening star. Venus reaches its maximum brightness shortly before sunrise or shortly after sunset, for which reason it has been known as the Morning Star or Evening Star.
en.wikipedia.org...

Yeah thanks, I know what Venus is. Have you ever seen Venus? If you reckon Venus looks bigger than the moon then whatever.

I really do wish that there was something more to go on here. Without any photo or video evidence I just don't see that the story has any legs to stand on. I think that what you saw was truly amazing and I wish that I had been there to witness it with you for sure! My suggestion is to setup a camcorder on an stand (for stabilization) and be sure that you have good, clear video for us all to analyze should this anomaly happen again. Be sure in your video to have a lot of reference points (current position of moon, sun, stars if visible, buildings, etc.) so that we can fully comprehend the video and perhaps give it a rational explanation, or even better, freak out the whole ATS community with actual footage of something that shouldn't be there!!!

reply to post by zippy1958


lol, I experienced this as well, and it was very disconcerting, until it popped back out later, from behind dark, smooth cloud cover. Perhaps this was the situation in your particular case.

As for the OP, my son and I were driving with some other passengers tonight and he pointed out the amazing look of the moon, which was setting just like the sun, extremely huge, sort of gleaming with a warmer glow than usual and slightly surrounded by wispy dark clouds. It was incredibly beautiful, honestly. Looked like a painting, but the moon looked even bigger than the sun at sunset, so that was what caught the eye. It was just at the horizon, and that was about 8:00 pm or so, CST, in Birmingham, US.

My family and I had a strange experience last night. A neighbor who knows I love the cosmos and that I observe them often asked me to step outside to tell him what this 'light' was.

It was about 10pm in the SW direction. It was a large bright orange light and it looked larger and brighter then any Venus. I knew that it also was not Venus for Venus had already set. I have observed Venus hundreds of times, I have seen it at its brightest many times. This was brighter then I had ever seen Venus and larger. I was completely baffled. It was not a star, it was larger and brighter then any planet I have observed and it did not match any positions for regular lights I observe in the sky.

It was a mystery to me what it was and its still a mystery. I was not going to post about it, but saw this thread and figured I should say something.

It was not new the size of any moon I have seen....but it was still totally awesome and baffled me completely. It also did not seem to set.....we watched it for about a hour and it slowly dimmed away.

I told them I guess it could of been a satellite....but the satellites I have observed I could either watch them move or they dimmed out of site within minutes.

I stepped out tonight to make sure I observed Venus and the crescent moon together tonight because that light I saw last night after Venus had set was in the same direction as Venus is right now, but the light I saw last night came after the time of Venus setting. So anyways, the Moon tonight looks really weird, almost as if there was a sphere behind the Moon. Ya know how the crescent moon has 2 points on it....well the points seemed to have 'double points', at the top and bottom. Was really weird. My logical mind had to shrug it off as a optical illusion.

reply to post by 12voltz


it was at about 9.. it was already very dark and the sun was already down... moon was rising from the east and i saw this huge orange ball, NOT VENUS, slowly descend towards the horizon liek the sun does before it finally slips below the horizon. it was not venus... itr was larger than the moon.

Could it have been an asteroid? Just a thought, with all of these mysterious craters falling on the land.

OP --
You may want to fix your personal info. The info under your avatar says you are located in Hanover, PA -- However, in your OP you said you lived in New Jersey for 15 years, and that is also where this sighting occurred.
Hanover PA (at least the one I'm thinking of) is near Gettysburg and York, PA -- near the Maryland state line, and nowhere near New Jersey.

It's all a bit confusing.

_________________________________________


As for the sighting, perhaps it was a fireball meteor or bolide. You said it was a bit overcast, so perhaps the clouds were thin enough to see the meteor, but thick enough to be "lit up" a bit by the light, thereby accentuating its size.

Originally posted by LeoVirgo
My family and I had a strange experience last night. A neighbor who knows I love the cosmos and that I observe them often asked me to step outside to tell him what this 'light' was.

It was about 10pm in the SW direction. It was a large bright orange light and it looked larger and brighter then any Venus. I knew that it also was not Venus for Venus had already set. I have observed Venus hundreds of times, I have seen it at its brightest many times. This was brighter then I had ever seen Venus and larger. I was completely baffled. It was not a star, it was larger and brighter then any planet I have observed and it did not match any positions for regular lights I observe in the sky.

It was a mystery to me what it was and its still a mystery. I was not going to post about it, but saw this thread and figured I should say something.

It was not new the size of any moon I have seen....but it was still totally awesome and baffled me completely. It also did not seem to set.....we watched it for about a hour and it slowly dimmed away.

I told them I guess it could of been a satellite....but the satellites I have observed I could either watch them move or they dimmed out of site within minutes.

I stepped out tonight to make sure I observed Venus and the crescent moon together tonight because that light I saw last night after Venus had set was in the same direction as Venus is right now, but the light I saw last night came after the time of Venus setting. So anyways, the Moon tonight looks really weird, almost as if there was a sphere behind the Moon. Ya know how the crescent moon has 2 points on it....well the points seemed to have 'double points', at the top and bottom. Was really weird. My logical mind had to shrug it off as a optical illusion.

edit on 11-9-2010 by LeoVirgo because: (no reason given)

I'm pretty sure it was Jupiter.

Originally posted by Mooradian
I'm here in NJ and my house faces west, and the 15 years I've lived in this house the moon rises from the east..

What I JUST SAW gave me chills. Something bigger than the moon, yellow-orangish, partly covered by overcast just descended rapidly (not aircraft speed, but the speed the sun descends when it is right by the horizon). I tried to snap a pic of it but it is below the trees and has dissapeared? Should this be in the UFO forum?? I'm sure it wasn't a spaceship/aircraft. Nibiru? It was alot bigger than the moon, and from the opposite direction!

VENUS AND THE MOON: Around the world on Sept. 11th, sky watchers marveled as Venus and the Moon converged for a beautiful close encounter. In South Africa, it was a full-fledged occultation. "The Moon passed directly in front of Venus, completely covering the planet," reports Kerneels Mulder. "I was lucky enough to capture a series of images as Venus re-appeared from behind the Moon in broad daylight."




Take a close look at Venus in the full-sized composite. Like the Moon, Venus has phases, and on Sept. 11th it was only 35% illuminated. With the Moon itself at 19%, this was a close encounter of crescents.

i think this is what you were talking about?

I was driving west a few weeks ago and saw the moon look the way you described it. It was very near the horizon and it appeared reddish-brown. Definitely the moon but it was the first time I have ever seen it look that way and it freaked me out too.

Originally posted by Mooradian
reply to post by 12voltz

 

it was at about 9.. it was already very dark and the sun was already down... moon was rising from the east and i saw this huge orange ball, NOT VENUS, slowly descend towards the horizon liek the sun does before it finally slips below the horizon. it was not venus... itr was larger than the moon.

If it was 9 then the moon was low in the west, which is probably what you saw. The moon was a very slim waxing crescent. It was pretty overcast for me as well that night and it had a ghostly appearance at times, but through the telescope it was very clearly the moon.