America or aliens. I saw something.

A while back l walked out of my room in the backyard and as always looked up at the stars. Suddenly l saw something that looked like a very far away speck zapping in a sudden white dot that disappeared just as fast as it appeared. Not even 5 seconds later just little higher there was another one. Can anyone please explain and hopefully give proof. It happened so fast, l couldnt even take my phone out of my pocket to take a pic.

reply to post by GalacticAtlantis


sounds like a comet

hold up ill find a video

reply to post by GalacticAtlantis


Meteor shower? We just had the leonids I think. I believe they were supposed to peak just a little bit ago. Here's a list of annual meteor showers: mandrake1975.hubpages.com...

reply to post by GalacticAtlantis


There are a few possibilities that spring to mind.

Meteors or a meteor shower might explain what you saw, but it sounds to me more like you saw something in orbit glinting. As well as satellites, there are many pieces of space-junk orbiting our earth. Many of these are tumbling/rotating, and can catch the sun briefly. When this occurs, you can often see a series of almost random flashes/glints. There have beeen a few threads posted here on ATS which refer to observations similar in nature to your own.

It certainly would not be a comet, since these do not appear to move when observed in real time, plus naked-eye comets are quite rare, and there are none around at the moment.

To narrow down the possibilities, it would be useful if you could say what time and date you observed this.

As for proof, it would be quite hard to prove either way what you saw. It would probably be easier for you to prove it to yourself by photographing the phenomena. You'd need a DSLR with a fast lens, tripod, and cable release. I've often photographed these "flashers" whilst trying to photograph meteors, so it can be done.

Not saying the following video illustrates what you saw or not but consider there are a lot of satellites in orbit spinning around to momentarily direct a solar flash from their solar panels. They move fast through the sky for instance the ISS will traverse your view of the sky in about 3 minutes. During a solar flash the ISS will appear brighter than Jupiter, which momentarily makes it brighter than any star in the night sky.

reply to post by GalacticAtlantis


YES!! Finally! To those speculating that these are some sort of comet/meteor/satellite reflections, NO. These are noticably closer to the ground than that, maybe 75-100ft--ish? And they're kind of a white/blue-ish white color, I saw my first one a couple weeks back, stood there for about a half hour waiting to see if it'd happen again...nothing.
Then, just a few nights ago I was out on the porch with my fiance having a cigarette and we BOTH saw one. VINDICATION!

Come to find out, about 10yrs ago, my little sister had seen two! She said she saw them "playing in the treetops" when she was out back jumping on the trampoline. She never said anything because she didn't think anyone would believe her. I have no idea what these things are but the night we both saw it, I came inside and immediately opened up ATS on my laptop looking for other "flashes in the sky" threads. Some came close, but didnt really capture it.

reply to post by starsyren


How do you know that you were seeing the same thing as the OP?

How do you know they were/are not "comet/meteor/satellite reflections"? Have you ever observed any of these phenomena with your own eyes?

How can you estimate the distance/altitude of an unknown light source or object in the night sky with any certainty?

Sounds like shooting stars/meteor shower to me.

And as for saying they are too close to the ground. Yes, I have seen a shooting star appear very close. It had a beautiful green light to it. Broke into a million pieces like a fire work. Very pretty.

No definitely non of that l saw those b4. But these are new. It happened in a second. Moved from 1 spot in a short white line into the white dot. In 1 second. It sounds like a shooting but l assure u it didnt look like 1. Nor like flashing satelites. It moved incredibly fast.

I guess these are like little blu-ish flashes that happen near ground and not necessarily in the sky? It's like a strobe almost. Flash there, then two feet over, etc. They can happen within tree-cover or even down in the grass.

If that's the case then I've seen that one or two times, maybe even indoors. Never had anyone else validate it in my case, so summed it up to sleep deprivation or a neuron misfiring.

It would be hard to say something like St.Elmo's Fire, as there's no weather that would stir up any electrical activity when I've seen this. Not to mention fireflies don't tend to be active outside of their breeding season when it's cold out.

I also came up with a more fanciful hypothesis for such lights involving quantum tunnels the size of a pin-prick, and curiously enough there's a sci-fi book called "The Light of Other Days" which fits that one. No way to prove it, but it's kind of fun to imagine.

Originally posted by pauljs75
I guess these are like little blu-ish flashes that happen near ground and not necessarily in the sky? It's like a strobe almost. Flash there, then two feet over, etc. They can happen within tree-cover or even down in the grass.

Well the OP said he was looking up at the stars when he saw them, so I would say that suggests that what he saw was in the sky.

I would suggest that if you want to talk about flashes seen on the ground (or something connected to the ground), it might be better to start another thread, rather than complicating this thread..

Originally posted by pauljs75
If that's the case then I've seen that one or two times, maybe even indoors. Never had anyone else validate it in my case, so summed it up to sleep deprivation or a neuron misfiring.

There is always that possibility with random flashes, as well as cosmic-ray hits, which can also be perceived as flashes. Those would be few and far between, so might explain what you saw... assuming you did not see two or more in series.

In my case, I have seen "flashers" make a series of flashes (between 2-4 usually), repeated after having gone "silent" for a portion of its path, then repeated again, etc with up to 10+ flashes in total.

More often than not it's just 2 or 3 random flashes, but always in a straight line. If you photograph them with a good enough camera, as I have, you can see the path of the satellite/junk (which is usually too dim to see with the naked eye) in between the flashes.

When I have observed these flashes or glints, they often resemble camera flashes off in the distance, but they can be slightly more prolonged in my experience.

Flashes from satellites or junk can only be observed at certain times, so it would be fairly straightforward to rule them out, if people on here would be willing to post the time and date when they observed the flashes... but I think most on here would rather ignore the fact that it might be something fairly mundane like junk, and go for the much more exiting possibility that it must be something covert/ET/conspiratorial, which is why I think moving the thread to this forum was a good idea.

Perhaps if these "mysterious" flashes that no one else sees (ignoring the fact that many amateur and professional astronomers see them all of the time, and all around the world, and that they are well documented) started to randomly flash off the linear path they always (IME) take, there might be something more to it, but I have not seen that here...

Regarding the fact that these flashes might appear to be relatively close to someone observing them on the ground, it is well known that even a steady lone light at night can play tricks on the eye, let alone a brief fleeting event like a flash.

In fact, current "best" theory on how our brain process information from our visual (and other) senses, although still sketchy on how it's exactly done, virtually everyone agrees that every time anyone looks out into the night and sees a light off in the distance, it is inevitable that illusions are involved.

People have eyes that are primarily evolved/designed to work in daylight and at close range. Likewise, when the visual information from the eyes is processed by the brain, which has also evolved to work better in daylight when there are more visual cues, the lack of visual cues associated with viewing objects/lights at night/in the dark pretty much ensures that the brain will make up information that is not there to fill in the gaps that would normally be there.

This has implications for all UFO sightings where the UFO is reported as being relatively close by the the observer.

For those who would like it from another source rather than some random member of a conspiracy forum, here are some extracts from other sources.

As you can imagine, it's v ital that pilots are aware of how easily the eyes can be deceived at night.

Night Sight Skills

The ability to judge distances and heights at night is difficult at night. The absence of haze or its presence can cause illusions at night. Lights will vary in intensity and cause illusion effects. A misidentified light source can cause total confusion. A single light gives no altitude information. Multiple lights may be in different geometric visual planes. Freeways become visible while country roads disappear. Aircraft and lighted towers become visible for miles. Airports have beacons. The most common illusion is a narrow runway that appears to be longer than it is. the narrow runway may make you think that you are too high. Have a set procedure; allow an extra wide downwind at night. Know the length of your destination runway. Required FAR knowledge on all flights! All illusions are made worse at night.

Source: flying at night

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I'd be interested to know if there is anyone here who has not seen the moon when it is on or close to the horizon, and it looks huge. If you have, and ever wondered why this is, the reasons are very similar to why people are very bad at judging distance at night. The page which I took the extracts below from is well worth a read.

Explanations of illusions must be taken with appropriate skepticism. Many are of the nature of "plausible hypotheses." Most are not (as yet) such that they can be independently verified in terms of physical processes in the brain. Also, we know that our visual perceptions arise because our brain synthesizes multiple cues. Our brain weighs these cues; some dominate in certain conditions, while others are "weaker" and are ignored. But the weightings shift in strength according to the nature of the stimuli. Many classic visual illusions arise from conflicting sensory cues of nearly equal "strength".

....

When we judge the size of an object near the horizon our perception is influenced by familiar terrestrial objects in the field of view (trees, houses, roads). We know from everyday experience that many of the recognizable things we see in the distance are quite far away. But when our gaze is upwards, we have no reference cues for distance, and judge things near the zenith to be closer than those on the horizon.

....

Perceptions are influenced by our past experience. One model of visual perception postulates that when we perceive a new and unfamiliar phenomenon our brain interprets it by comparing it to a mental map or model of our memory of previous sensory experiences. Of course, this represents just one of the cues that the brain must sort out, weighing it against other cues. Conflict between sensory cues is the basis of many common visual illusions.

....

This is the same as saying, "What is our judgment of actual size of two things at different perceived distances, even though they have the same angular size?" The answer is that the one assumed nearer is judged to be smaller. This conclusion is consistent with the mental judgment that the horizon moon is farther from us.

This process supposedly operates even (especially) in the absence of any other visual cues. But the process is confused when we have our heads in an unusual position. This may be the result of our knowledge of the orientation of our head, from visual cues, and perhaps from information from the balance-sensing mechanisms of our inner ear. When there are competing sensory cues, our judgment of angular size can be altered by them, which may account for the confusing results of experiments designed to show that visual cues are the sole reason for the moon effect.

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The hard-wired hypothesis supposes that natural selection has shaped those brain mechanisms that process and interpret sensory data, devoting more resources to those things that are important to survival. This results in brain resources being biased toward things seen in front of us, fewer resources to things overhead. Similar imbalance of perception details are present in animals.

....

How does this impression square with the situation in real (physical) space? The physical distance to the most distant object one can see on the horizon depends on the elevation of the observer's eye above the water. One can derive the formula for it, in terms of the earth's radius. For an eye elevation of six feet, the things we see on the horizon are actually about 3 miles away. Alto-cumulous clouds are about 2 to 3.5 miles overhead. So, physically, the distances are nearly the same, yet the overhead clouds seem much closer to most people than those near the horizon. This calculation may not seem quite fair, for we can see clouds that are physically well beyond the surface horizon, perhaps 10 miles away, due to their height above the earth surface. But can any reader and observer honestly claim that the clouds at the horizon seem farther away than the horizon? I've never found anyone who would make that claim.

....

We have a strong impression that the cloud cover "joins" the horizon. Can this simply be that there's absolutely no visual cue to suggest that they are at different distances? Our brain may be making the simplest reconciliation of the situation.

....

The moon illusion is consistent with what would be expected from evolutionary considerations. We have evolved cognitive processes that provide high quality visual information from nearby things, and things on our level that we can walk to and experience from various angles. These are all important to survival. Things seen high above, in the sky, or even those seen below, as when looking over the edge of a cliff, are less important. Therefore distance discrimination and detailed judgment of other visual properties of overhead objects is compromised.

Source: The Moon Illusion

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Just to be clear, I'm not saying all flashes seen in the sky are caused by satellites. There are plenty of potential causes, including some exotic ones, but with the amount of junk that's in orbit, junk has to remain a distinct possibility, unless there is something else that suggests it's not? If there is, as I said before, I'm not seeing it here.

Weird things happen up there with stuff called stars and satellites, planets, space junk, and air-craft, and SECRET unknown air-craft that are NOT 'aliens buzzing around...

Judging by your user name, I take it that you probably look up at the sky often in hopes of "seeing" something thats really not there at all, or something that really isnt that unusual at all.