UFO sighting over North East England

I was walking the dog tonight in a small town just outside of Newcastle in the North East of England... I looked up at the sky to see a bright light, much like a bright star, slightly bigger and brighter though. I watched it for a few seconds and it appeared to be moving! Strange I thought so i continued to watch it and sure enough it was slowly drifting along. I use the word 'drifting' as it didn't seem to be moving very quickly at all.

Today in Northern England it's VERY windy and there are lots of weather warnings, and I observed this light slowly moving against the wind and so I can rule out any sort of chinese lantern as it would be moving with the wind not against it.

I continued to observe it for a few minutes and it didn't have any flashing lights like a plane (planes do fly over my area and I see them a lot... this wasn't a plane) I looked around the sky and sure enough I could see a plane flying in the distance, the lights were completely different. This was one single very white bright light.

I took a video on my iphone and have uploaded below. i apologise for the rubbish aiming but I couldn't see the light on the screen so was searching for it. I actually didn't think I'd captured it at all until I got home and loaded it on my pc.

As the light wasn't doing much other than slowly (and I mean VERY slowly) drifting along I turned the corner and continued to walk the dog... walked another 5 minutes but continually watching this thing move along and eventually I got all the way home and again it was still there just merrily drifting along.

I ran in the house and grabbed my DSLR with a 200mm lens and ran out the back to shoot it in more detail. I unfortunately think I lost it and took pictures of a star instead. After a few minutes I realised this star wasn't moving and indeed must have been a different point of light in the sky. At that moment I was about to come in, stared at this light one last time to check it wasn't moving and saw a quick streak of light shoot across the sky under it!!! Probably just a shooting star but really weird as I was staring in the only part of the sky I could have seen it. It just appeared for a brief moment and vanished again.

Definately the strangest thing I've ever seen (the 1st bright light not the shooting star)

A couple of things I would love to have answered if possible are:

1) Just say I was looking at a star and the fast wind and moving clouds (there were a few but not many) gave the optical illusion of the star moving in the opposite direction, could I film the star on an iphone?

I know I saw what I saw, but I guess my mind is making me doubt myself now!!

2) Has anyone seen anything like this before?

Ok here's the video... it's rubbish but I know everyone (including me) says no video or pics then it's probs just a tall tale

sorry i dont know how to embed it... could someone do it for me?

youtu.be...

There ya go!

Not sure exactly what your seeing but I don't see anything that screams UFO to me

The little flash at the beginning looks to be a lens flare from the light source at the bottom.

...Beat me to it....




Edit to add: I don't see anything that looks like anything...except the streetlight...that is quite bright!

I can only see lens flare if iPhones can suffer in the same way "proper" cameras can?

reply to post by ajax_andy


I think i can see the small white light you are talking about .

I guess it could have been a satellite or maybe the ISS?

reply to post by ajax_andy


Hi Andy,

I am also in Northumberland and have had strange goings on with the army here for the past week. Otterburn Ranges are near here but it still doesnt explain what has been going on. The start of last week there were huge flashes (like a transformer going - it was a blue/white light) in the sky on the way home from work. Prior to this i have heard and seen helicopters and jets going back and forwards for about 3 days. Have you seen/heard any of this?

Im not sure but your UFO may be a satalite? I have seen loads of them while monitoring the sky round here. The video isnt the best so im not sure.

Sam

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
I think i can see the small white light you are talking about .

I guess it could have been a satellite or maybe the ISS?

edit on 8-12-2011 by PhoenixOD because: (no reason given)

Yes it's the little White light... Not lens flare as others have said but I thought people might suggest that. The vid needs to be played full screen for those who can't see it.

I wondered ISS but it's never been up there b4

Originally posted by mileslong54

There ya go!

Not sure exactly what your seeing but I don't see anything that screams UFO to me

The little flash at the beginning looks to be a lens flare from the light source at the bottom.

edit on 8-12-2011 by mileslong54 because: (no reason given)

Thank you for embedding it for me

No it's more visible towards the end of the vid... It's a small White dot

reply to post by samzy


Yeah rubbish vid I know... I couldn't even tell if I had captured the light at all on the screen so was aiming blind

Hey Andy,
I doubt very much it's a UFO as I am a star watcher myself.
If you check the website www.heavens-above.com..., you can check out what satellites or space stations (like the ISS) can be visible from your location. I just checked out Newcastle, Gwent. There is the Genesis I satellite which happened to be visible from you're area this evening between 1900 and 2000 at mag 5.8 (a MAG is how bright a star or stellar object can be seen from earth). This means it would be quite dim, but still visible to the naked eye. And the fact your are saying it was drifting slowly, would convince me that it's what it was. It would be different if ou told us it was moving erratically in space changing direction and speed constantly then vanish or shoot off in space.

I don't know if you can follow this link as you may need to be logged on to heaven above, but here is the Genesis I visibility schedule for Newcastle: www.heavens-above.com...

I hope I shed you some light.
Kind regards,
Fluke

You should first eliminate the planet Jupiter from the equation. It's the brightest object in the night sky right now (after the Moon). It's visible all night and looks like a torch shining in the sky. In a cloudy/windy setting, it seems to move, but not as fast as it appears to. It will transit from East to West as the night progresses.
WG3

reply to post by ajax_andy


The lens flare is referring to the first second to the left there is a lens flare that pans with the camera as the filmer point the camera at the sky away from the light, at 8 to 9 secs in the camera man bring the camera back down to the light source again and the same lens flare can be seen again.

reply to post by mileslong54


Try watching it in full screen and you will see a white light to the left of the street lamp and not the orange lens flare.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


Yes thank you, I have seen the white light just clarifying that the redish orange light is a lens flare. I have no clue what the white light is but a satellite would be the best guess I could offer

Right, if my post was too long to read and was ignored... check the following link out and read. And I quote:
"you should not have to wait more than 15 minutes before you see one of the more than 35,000 satellites now in orbit around Earth. [...] Most of these "satellites" are actually just "space junk"ranging in size from as large as 30 feet, down to about the size of a softball..." and so on

www.space.com...

reply to post by flukefox


Thanks but Newcastle Gwent is a different place to Newcastle Upon Tyne where I saw the light... Although I wouldn't rule out a satellite of some kind

Originally posted by waveguide3
You should first eliminate the planet Jupiter from the equation. It's the brightest object in the night sky right now (after the Moon). It's visible all night and looks like a torch shining in the sky. In a cloudy/windy setting, it seems to move, but not as fast as it appears to. It will transit from East to West as the night progresses.
WG3

I think this is probably the most likely explanation tbh, the moving clouds could certainly give the impression of movement in the opposite direction... It's possible my eyes just fooled me, but would I be able to capture Jupiter on an iPhone camera?

OP, I would certainly suggest option 1 as the most likely scenario, but change star to Jupiter. It is ridiculously bright at the moment from late afternoon onwards.

The fact that it was 'moving' directly against the wind, but didn't seem to make much progress in the time it took you to take the dog for a walk suggests to me that this is the most likely case. Factor in the windspeeds we have at the moment and the optical illusion is certainly enough to fool the brain. I was in fact standing outside my door having a smoke, gazing at Jupiter and marvelling at the cloud illusion less than ten minutes ago. I knew what was occuring but yet it was still hard for my brain to convince my eyes. I'm in Lancashire by the way where the winds are currently up around force 9. I'm guessing you have fairly brisk winds too. My apologies if I am wrong.

To the later poster who mentioned the bright flashes, there was another thread on here a few days ago about that. I didn't follow it, so don't know what the conclusions were, but it may be worth searching for.

reply to post by cheesyleps


I think you're right, the winds here are ferocious and the fast moving clouds have played tricks on my eyes.

Thanks to everyone for their efforts here and I think I've been foolishly tricked by the unusual weather conditions and an unusually bright planet in the sky

One of my facebook friends filmed something sinilar in east yorkshire the other day while walking his dog. It was the day after I saw a euro fighter flying over our city. Never seen one before and that was flying realy slowly for a jet. I thought it was strange because Iv never seen a jet fly slow before at all.