Odd Occurence during Last Nights Eclipse!!

Well community, I finally saw something that actually made me decide to post in this forum. I mostly am very skeptical about this subject but last night I was outside watching the Eclipse when I noticed something very odd. I saw with my own two eyes a set of "Planes or something" flying in a flight pattern in front of the moon at an altitude way above anything Ive ever seen before. It seemed to be as if there were 7 planes crossing in front of the moon from left to right at speeds I have never seen any plane reach. Anybody see this as well???

Also for all the space scientist in here can someone explain to me why during the eclipse all the clouds in the sky were drawn to the moon's direction as if they were being pulled away from the sun and the sky was completely clear, everywhere but for the sphere of clouds collected around the moon. I found this very odd!!!

Would appreciate an eductatiuonal response to what I saw..

Thanks,

Well given that the peek of some of the highest cluds reaches around 60 000, depending on your location all of the clouds will be different... Where I live you couldnt see the eclipse because it was completely covered.

Originally posted by Justmytype
"Planes or something" flying in a flight pattern in front of the moon at an altitude way above anything Ive ever seen before.

Ask yourself this question- if they were flying so high, how the hell did you manage to see them? Unless they were super-jumbo jets of death, instead of flying really high and really fast, they were flying at a normal altitude at a normal speed. The fact that you could tell they were planes and not just white specks in the sky tells me they were alot lower than you think they were.



[edit on 10-28-2004 by Esoterica]

Well, I watched the eclipse from beginning to end and didn't notice either of those phenomena. I did notice more air traffic than usual, but I assume that it's because I usually don't have my eyes fixed to a single point in the sky for such a long period of time. As for the clouds, they appeared to move east/west of the moon from my perspective... so nothing strange here. Just a beautiful eclipse.

At one point, the clouds around the moon seemed to form an eye here.....that was about as unusual as it got...which isn't much, but it looked neat.

Originally posted by Justmytype

Also for all the space scientist in here can someone explain to me why during the eclipse all the clouds in the sky were drawn to the moon's direction as if they were being pulled away from the sun and the sky was completely clear, everywhere but for the sphere of clouds collected around the moon. I found this very odd!!!

Would appreciate an eductatiuonal response to what I saw..

Thanks,

I could give three reasons that would explain this:
1) the moon has a gravitational pull. This is why it effects tides and weather patterns. While we like to think of clouds as air, they are water, and hence are objects subject to gravitational forces. From my experience, it is not uncommon for clouds to group around the moon on occasion.

2) It is possible that there was a very light cloud cover everywhere that was simply more noticable in front of the bright shiny object. (this could happen, but it sounds like the clouds you are referring to were slightly more obvious.

3) it's a coincidence. The clouds weren't like that where I am, it could have to do with the angle you were at.

I have no idea what to say about the planes. I will spare you my paranoid rantings.

A couple questions...

Where were you? US? Europe? State? Country? A precise as possible would be nice. I could look up past weather for you so you could see the trends.

Here in Michigan the winds were predominantly out of the east. Leaving it fairly clear around the Sun while the Moon was clouding over. As for extra air traffic or the planes, you may have just lost track of time and things seemed to go by faster. And not to sound mean, did you take any hallucinagins? (spelling on that, anyone?)

Esoterica

I used planes to describe the movement as If you were to look into the sky at an air show and watch a group of F16's flying overhead. The objects where not clearly visible so "I highly doubt" they were flying at normal air speeds or normal altitudes because looking through my binoculars they seemed to look like brown specs moving East to West in front of the moon.

oh another thing, when posting lose the sarcasm it just shows lack of intelligence on your part!

I had my ETX90 trained on the moon for the duration of the eclipse and never noticed anything unusual except for one thing:

How come the earth's shadow on the moon during an eclipse is not as dark as the shadow cast on the moon say during the 1st quarter stage. Meaning, with my naked eye, I could see the outline of the entire moon even though less than a quarter of the moon had visible sunlight on it.

Casn anyone answer that?

Originally posted by Justmytype
Esoterica

I used planes to describe the movement as If you were to look into the sky at an air show and watch a group of F16's flying overhead. The objects where not clearly visible

Then you should have amde that clear in your initial post. Apologies.

so "I highly doubt" they were flying at normal air speeds or normal altitudes because looking through my binoculars they seemed to look like brown specs moving East to West in front of the moon.

They may have been satellites. Not sure if they'd show up 'brown' or not, since I am ignorant of whatever (if any) a effects a lunar eclipse would have on something like that.

oh another thing, when posting lose the sarcasm it just shows lack of intelligence on your part!

There, that should go well with your beverage of choice.

Just joshin' yah, lighten up a bit. The world need not be neat and proper all the time.

Not trying to get into things here, but I've viewed F-16s dog fighting at high altitudes many times before. The do it out of the Alpena ANGB and fly out over Lake Huron. Anyway, If they were flying in front of the moon, something that small, that high would be lost in its glare. Pretty much any plane that high would have the same effect. As for a sattellite, the same would apply.

nyarlathotep
There is no shadow cast on the Moon by the Earth except during a Lunar Eclipse. The darkness during the non-Full stages of the Moon is from no light being cast on the Moon from the Sun.

EDIT: Read this: Astronomy: The Solar System. The bits on the Moon may help.

[edit on 10/28/2004 by cmdrkeenkid]

Thanks cmdrkeenkid for that explanation, that makes a lot of sense now.

OK OK see this is why I dont post in these forums because I am to dam ignorant when it comes to knowledge from up above.... Oh yeah, guess next time I shouldnt eat the shrooms either...LOL just joking..

Oh by the way my location is Vernon, NJ

How come the earth's shadow on the moon during an eclipse is not as dark as the shadow cast on the moon say during the 1st quarter stage. Meaning, with my naked eye, I could see the outline of the entire moon even though less than a quarter of the moon had visible sunlight on it.

2 different things. As you state, during the eclipse, the dark part of the moon is the shadow of the earth. When the moon is in it's quarter, it is not the shadow of the earth causing the dark region, it is just that the sun shining on one side of the moon so all you see are the sunlit portions.

During the eclipse, you can still see the moon even when it is in shadow because sunlight is defracted around the earth by our atmosphere, causing some light to sort of "bend" around the earth and reach the moon.

Without this effect the moon would be completely invisible. At the same time the atmosphere filters the light, letting the long-wave part pass. Long-wave light appears red to us - hence the red color!

We had a double eclipse here..

The Earth blocked the Sun from the Moon, and the clouds blocked the
moon from the Earth. Except for a nice 10 minute window, right after the FULL eclipse...Nice Coppery shade..

As far as things flying in front.. of the Moons disk...I once saw a bundle, bunch, Bouquet, whatever you call it..of Helium balloons fly in front, while I was looking through Binoculars..That was a bit freaky..

There had been a bunch of the bundles cut loose from a car dealership, one
happened to get between me and the moon..

sillouettes on the moon are quite cool..

Oh by the way my location is Vernon, NJ

Check your local news... I saw two different sources report a double UFO sighting, and neither are now showing it...

We had a nice clear view of the moon here in FL...no clouds, real nice.

We had a great view in NYC at the beginning. After it went to totality clouds slowly started rolling in and shortly afterwards the moon was completely obscured. The first half was perfectly clear though.

There were 5 of us out watching we had a telescope and binoculars. In our area there was a large wide thin broken type cloud that parked itself just of all places in front of the Moon. The Moon when shining through cast a large yellow/golden glow. We think that chemtrails were sprayed prior to the eclipse which gave it this effect.

I also saw 2 objects go past the moon last night, in a South to North trajectory. They were black, and I couldn't make out their shape. I was also using a telescope.

My guess is that they were satellites.