Unidentified Bright Object Seen in the Sky

A family member last evening (Jan 26 2012) saw a very bright yellow ball shoot straight up over a mountain up past the clouds. This was over Vernon British Columbia Canada. I could not find any other thread or post on it or even it mentioned anywhere else on the internet that I could find.

My relative described it as yellow, and it was very bright as bright as the sun and from her perspective looked almost as big as the sun. It took about 1 to 2 seconds to clear the distance from the top of the mountain into the cloud cover out of her sight. Her daughter did not see it directly, but did say she saw a flash.

She asked me to try and figure out what it was, hence why I am starting this thread. I could not find any general explanation for it. First I thought a meteor or meteorite but it did not have long tale only a very short tail. It was also going straight up not down, and not up on an angle. I am not sure, but considered that it could be a meteorite or object in high orbit going really fast and that she was just at the right angle to be looking at it for it to appear to be going straight up and the cloud cover stopped her from seeing it arc down after it passed above her, but I don't know if such an orbit or angle is possible.

I can't say a plane or helicopter, her husband was a pilot resulting in her seeing tons of helicopter and plane flights in person as well as flares; and it was not any of those. The pure brightness of it rules out any type of light you would see on a conventional aircraft.

I am not saying it is extra terrestrial, but it is at least unidentifiable as far as I am concerned.

I am wondering if any one else has seen it or if there is plausible explanation for it. I am not well versed in atmospheric science, aircraft or astronomy. So, my knowledge on any of these subjects is really limited, but out of what I do know I can not come up with an explanation on my own for my relative.

Other details I can list that she told me about it:
-No sound she could hear
-She was looking almost completely to the West and a bit North. She lives about 15 Km East of city center of Vernon out in a rural valley, just before the municipality end of Coldstream, putting this thing over top of Mount Vernon which is North East of the Vernon City downtown/center.
-There is an airport West side of the city.

Other then this I don't know what to say

Also just a correction. I double checked the distance to the city center and its about 8 Km not 15 Km.

reply to post by halfmask


I'm not in Canada.,But Tonight there was a HUGE orange light in the sky in Phoenix Arizona. The light was stationary with another smaller black ball next to it with white light coming out of the black ball. It was the color of the sun setting. It must have stayed still for about 30 minutes then went out and then came back on then they both Then they both disappeared. I feel like a jack ass because I was at walmart and didnt have a camera. I would have left to get a cam and take pics for proof. It was more important for me to stay and watch it and prove it to myself. I dont care if no one believe me I know what I saw.

reply to post by LongbottomLeaf


Hm it could be related or at least similar. I did not see the one myself, but the description of the size and brightness of both cases is interesting. Most UFOs I have heard of aren't that big and not that bright.

Too bad you couldn't get a pic of the one you saw, it being stationary.

The one my relative saw by her description even if you where holding a camera in your hands you couldn't take the pic it moved way too fast.

Also just seeing it on another thread, apparently there was a mysterious shaking in Victory B.C yesterday (Jan 26). which is about 7 hours drive West and a bit East from where my relative lives. I wonder if its related. If the shaking was an earth quake, could it be earth quake lights my relative saw?

reply to post by halfmask


Surely is strange. It may have been the same object or the same time of object. I feel like a boob for not having a camera though Its a major city maybe someone got a pic...I would hope. But these people down here arent too bright....

reply to post by halfmask


It may have been erathquake lights. I'm not sure if they move or are stationary. I'll go check up on that.

au.news.yahoo.com...

could have been bits of this? Just a thought.

reply to post by CaptainBeno


No, that could have only been seen using telescopes, not with the naked eye.

It sounds like a meteor to me, bolide probably, just the viewing angle of the observer would have gave the illusion of it going straight down.

Originally posted by halfmask
First I thought a meteor or meteorite but it did not have long tale only a very short tail.

Not all meteors have tails, or at least visible tails.

Some appear to have no tail at all, and others just have a wake.

1. METEOR WAKE

A luminosity just behind the meteor. It moves with the meteor
and forms a kind of tail. The wake is often present in bright
fireballs, which are then sometimes described as a comet-like objects
by the witnesses. In this sense, the meteor can be described as
consisting of meteor head and meteor wake. At a given position,
the wake duration is only a fraction of second.

The spectrum of meteor wake is different from the spectrum of meteor
head. The wake spectrum consists chiefly from low excitation lines.
Typical lines belong to Na I, Fe I, Mg I, Ca I, i.e. to the atoms
released from the meteoroid.

After a meteoroid fragmentation, small fragments decelerate more
rapidly and stay behind the main body. They may look like a wake of the
main body but this is not a true head+wake, rather a multiple meteor
with similar spectra in all parts.

2. SHORT-DURATION METEOR TRAINS (OR TRAILS)

Luminous trains left behind the meteor for up to about 3 seconds. They are
often observed visually and by video techniques in fast
meteors like Perseids. They are present also in faint meteors, of
magnitude +4 or so. In fact the ratio of the train/meteor brightness is
larger in faint meteors than in bright meteors. The train is not
connected with the meteor. In fact, it forms at a given position
with some delay after the meteor passage. The the train is also
considerably shifted to higher altitudes than the meteor which produced
it.
The short-duration trains are formed by only one spectral line,
the green auroral lines of neutral atomic oxygen at 5577 A. This
is a forbidden line. The luminosity is produced (very probably) by
the atmospheric oxygen.

Originally posted by halfmask
It was also going straight up not down, and not up on an angle. I am not sure, but considered that it could be a meteorite or object in high orbit going really fast and that she was just at the right angle to be looking at it for it to appear to be going straight up and the cloud cover stopped her from seeing it arc down after it passed above her, but I don't know if such an orbit or angle is possible.

A meteor that grazes the upper atmosphere can (or "earth grazer") appear to move straight up and away from the horizon. It's not really traveling up and away from the ground of course, but because of your perspective, and because we live on a sphere surrounded by an outer sphere of atmosphere, a meteor that grazes the atmosphere at a low angle can appear to do this.

>
-=-------
Jun,
If I understand your description correctly, it sounds like you are describing
what I call an earth grazer...a meteor that has it's radiant right at or just
below the horizon can do this...the meteor usually appears quite long.
George Z.

Source: METEOROBS (The Meteor Observing mailing list)

Consider this diagram It's exaggerated, but demonstrates what is going on.:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/95efe8242439.jpg[/atsimg]

The green part of the meteor represents the start of the meteor or when it first became visible, as it often the case with fast meteors. The red lines represent the lines of sight of the observers. The upper/outer blue ring represents the upper part of the atmosphere where meteors first become visible.

If you are the observer (B), it will look to you like the meteor has fallen (downwards) just behind the mountain, but the observer (A) who is observing the same meteor from a few hundred miles from your location, and over the horizon will see something completely different. He/she would see the meteor apparently going up, and away from the horizon!

I have seen perhaps a few dozen earth grazers since I became interested in observing meteors almost one and a half decades ago, and they have all been impressive. They are quite rare to see by chance, but if you know when to look you can see them during many of our annual meteor showers, if you are lucky. Your relative was certainly lucky that she caught one.

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


So, that observation angle does happen with Meteors, my initial thought seems to have been right. The object being an Earth Grazer then is the most likely explanation. Thanks CHUD its greatly appreciated you looked that up.

Just one question remains to be sure; Do Meteors in general or Earth Grazers specifically burn bright yellow? If they do then this mystery is pretty much solved.

The visible light produced by a meteor may take on various hues, depending on the chemical composition of the meteoroid, and its speed through the atmosphere. As layers of the meteoroid are stripped off and ionized, the color of the light emitted may change according to the layering of minerals. Some of the possible colors and the compounds responsible for them are: orange/yellow (sodium); yellow (iron); blue/green (copper); purple (potassium); and red (silicate).

from Wiki

So, indeed they can burn yellow, the explanation fits perfectly.

reply to post by woogleuk


yep gotya, what I meant though was perhaps the meteorite has a collection of smaller friends following behind it....."groupies" that were drawn into earth. I.e did not have the mass of the larger object and got trapped my earths gravitational force?

Just a thought?

Kinda like this little fela......youtube link above!

Originally posted by LongbottomLeaf
reply to post by halfmask

 

I'm not in Canada.,But Tonight there was a HUGE orange light in the sky in Phoenix Arizona. The light was stationary with another smaller black ball next to it with white light coming out of the black ball. It was the color of the sun setting. It must have stayed still for about 30 minutes then went out and then came back on then they both Then they both disappeared. I feel like a jack ass because I was at walmart and didnt have a camera. I would have left to get a cam and take pics for proof. It was more important for me to stay and watch it and prove it to myself. I dont care if no one believe me I know what I saw.

Welcome to the club I do not give a &^%$#$%^& what you think

I know what I saw

Originally posted by LongbottomLeaf
reply to post by halfmask

 

I'm not in Canada.,But Tonight there was a HUGE orange light in the sky in Phoenix Arizona. The light was stationary with another smaller black ball next to it with white light coming out of the black ball. It was the color of the sun setting. It must have stayed still for about 30 minutes then went out and then came back on then they both Then they both disappeared. I feel like a jack ass because I was at walmart and didnt have a camera. I would have left to get a cam and take pics for proof. It was more important for me to stay and watch it and prove it to myself. I dont care if no one believe me I know what I saw.

reply to post by halfmask


You're welcome halfmask.

Yes, they can be different colours (Here's a link to a green grazer I was lucky enough to photograph a few years back), but the source you posted is a little misleading/inaccurate. I posted a reply on this same subject a little while back that can be found here.

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
As for the colours, yes, meteors, especially brighter meteors, can often have vivid colours, but it's not quite as simple as composition of the meteoroid alone, as I explained in this thread here a few weeks back. The green color you saw was most likely due to the OIII forbidden emission line of atmospheric Oxygen (see below). Copper is not generally found in meteorites or in the spectral emission lines of meteors as far as I'm aware.

I don't believe there is much evidence to support the idea that meteor
color (as seen with the eye) has much relationship to the meteoroid
composition- at least, when we are talking about fireballs. There is good evidence, however, that the color is mainly the from ionization of atmospheric gas- especially oxygen. I've personally collected images of
several bright fireballs through a 501 nm narrow band (6 nm) filter,
which argues for a very strong [OIII] component to the light.

FWIW, a quick review of the meteor reports (nearly all fireballs) I've
received in the last 11 years shows this:

9110 reports total
3735 (41%) report some sort of color
3069 (82% of those reporting color) report some shade of green

I've long since concluded that bright fireballs are almost always green.
The exceptional cases are those which are not (and these are almost
always reported as white).

The only other color that tends to show up in witness descriptions is
red/orange, and a close look reveals that this is almost always at the
end of the path, when it is easily explained as the output of a cooling
blackbody radiator.

Chris

*******************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory

Source: METEOROBS (The Meteor Observing mailing list)

Try this google search for lots of reading on the subject.

reply to post by halfmask

Based on your description, my guess:

Distant fighter pilot climbing to altitude. You would not hear the noise based on distance, wind direction, and attitude of the aircraft.

reply to post by halfmask


I don't have an answer for you, but I just wanted to say that when I was little, my whole family saw something similar, only there were two; one behind the other. They were circular, no tails, moved FAST and probably only about 500 feet up. That's been well over 25 years ago, but I still remember. I actually think there were probably more than two, because I remember seeing a flash before the other two came over the hill. It was weird. Don't have a clue what they were and probably never will.

reply to post by Trillium


And thats all that matters