Starlike object zig-zagging in the night sky

a reply to: TellEmRye

For what it's worth: I saw the exact same thing in the south of France in 2011. As a lot of people in this thread, apparently.
Only for 5 around minutes though. One other friend witnessed it with me, the other five didn't bother to come and watch when I urged them to come.

Certainly no helicopter, no autokinetic effect, no satellite (the zigzag! and closer to earth), no chinese lantern, no drone...
I took a picture, yes, but it didn't catch the object, nor the stars - just black sky.

For comparison: flight pattern best to describe as an overflying phosphorous light emitting bird.

a reply to: TellEmRye

Yup had a similar experience, friends and I having a drink on their back porch saw a very fast moving triangular formation of lights. Everyone was wtf was that.
Bit of research later yeah there is a known group of spy satellites in that grouping, found it on a sat tracker.
My friends still wouldn't believe me they swore it was an alien craft The same mates that though an aircraft contrail was a missile launch of some sort O_o

Im at a loss for words .. I have seen this exact same thing with exact same description to your experience all summer long on Vancouver island in British Columbia, Canada.
I have been called crazy .. I have tried to Video tape it take pictures ect .. but nothing ...and I have literally been losing sleep over the fact that I have witnessed such a crazy unexplainable phenomenon.
Just a shout out to you and your bravery for telling your story.
I was so confused that I called local authorities and was told they were told to tell me it's a kite.
Explain that one.
Very disturbing to know we know nothing at all these days....a reply to: TellEmRye

I had a friend call me once for this kind of sighting, so I drove out and had him point to it, it was still there of course.

He swore it was a UFO, but it was his tired eye muscles making the star light hop around like it was moving and jumping around.

It can be pretty convincing if you don't realize it's just tired eye muscles.

originally posted by: IslanderJen
Im at a loss for words .. I have seen this exact same thing with exact same description to your experience all summer long on Vancouver island in British Columbia, Canada.
I have been called crazy .. I have tried to Video tape it take pictures ect .. but nothing

Did you try the method I outlined earlier in the thread?

originally posted by: IslanderJen
and I have literally been losing sleep over the fact that I have witnessed such a crazy unexplainable phenomenon.

It's not "unexplainable" at all. There is a very simple explanation which fits the observations: The "autokinetic effect".

Unfortunately the people here who do not understand the subject, and that what we see is not always what is actually happening, seem reluctant to accept any rational explanation, even though we have good evidence that this in fact the case.

The post below yours for example, where NoCorruptionAllowed stated that his friend saw movement, but he saw none. Why would this be, unless there is an illusion going on?

Having observed the effect myself on multiple occasions, and captured images of an apparently zig-zagging object, why would the images not show and sign of zig-zagging unless the apparent motion was an illusion?

Again, I submit that there is hard evidence that people are not "immune" to illusions. We know this to be true, so why should the autokinetic effect be an exception? Are we too arrogant to accept that human vision may not always be flawless/perfect?

Have you ever got up too fast, and seen spots in front of your eyes/all around you? Were those spots real?

originally posted by: IslanderJen
I was so confused that I called local authorities and was told they were told to tell me it's a kite.
Explain that one.

The local authorities are not trained to identify atmospheric phenomena, and in most cases will know no more about the subject than an average random individual. So there is no surprise you got fobbed off.

Here's an assignment: Stare at a bright, stationary point on a dark background. It could be a star in the night sky, a faraway streetlight, or a dot of white-out on black construction paper. Whatever it is, if you stare at it long enough, it will start to ... move.
Dancing Dots?

You're not losing your mind. In fact, you've been in good company throughout history. At the turn of the 19th century, long before your personal dot started to dance, German astronomer Alexander von Humboldt ran into this same phenomenon. Stargazing without his telescope, he perceived some stars in the sky to be moving. He decided this was an important discovery, and termed it "Sternschwanken," or "swinging stars."

It took decades for the scientific community to realize that von Humboldt hadn't unearthed secret star movements so much as the secret movements of his own eyes. See, the human eye moves a lot throughout the day, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes involuntarily. When you have a stable point of reference in your field of vision alongside the bright dot, your brain can edit out your eye movements, removing any blurring or twitchiness in what you see.

Get close to your screen and stare at this dot for 30 seconds. Can you see it move?

Source: click here

So no, not "UFOs", just objects such as stars and satellites + the autokinetic effect, which can make almost anything appear to move under the right circumstances.

Appearances are not always what they seem to be, no matter what anyone claims. The fact is that, the way our visual system works is prone to errors under the right circumstances. Understanding how our visual system and optical illusions work is a significant (but almost completely overlooked) part of the overall UFO "puzzle" IMHO.



Further reading:
WHAT OPTICAL ILLUSIONS SHOW US ABOUT VISUAL PERCEPTION