A spooky story - your assessment, please

[Skybird]

- SOLVED -

Guys, this may sound like the X-files, but it is real, and I'm telling it as true and honest and sober as I can. I am no easy-minded UFO-believer, and am willing to accept reasonable explanations, but for what I just saw in the sky, I cannot find an explanation.

First: does anyone have any knoweldge about possible space debris entering the atmosphere this night? I mean a huge number of objects that would fall down to earth, burn for several seconds up to 1-2 minutes, travel the horizon almost laterally, and would be visible to the human eye at night, shining much brighter than usual airplane lights even with landing lights on, and in intense orange (not white, not yellow, not red), but orange as intense as in flames burning from wood, or coal that is an amber?

I checked the local news via Westfälische Nachrichten and Münstersche Zeitung, if some kind of irregular airtraffic or an airshow or a party with launching lantirns had been announced, I found nothing. I also googled for Space debris coming down and burning in atmoshere, and found nothing. But it is possible in all cases, that I overlooked the according news, of course.

I live here since 8 years, and I am familiar with how landing helicopters and their lights look like when they land at the central hospitals where they have landing platforms, several kilometers away. I am also completely aware of how aircrafts look with lights on, and that landing lights can be surprisingly bright even over a distance, since the airport of Münster-Osnabrück is north-east from here, maybe 18-20 kilometer away.

It is saturday, so I checked the news wether there was any public party announced where they maybe have launched burning lantirns, like they do in Asia sometimes. however, I have problems to think of highflying lantirns, due to the formation, and especially the wind direction.


I felt the wind and estimated it to be from North-west to south-East. we have an incoming storm front, and I checked on weather radar via internet that indeed the rain is moving at us from north-west to South-East. Currently, it still is dry, but that will change soon.

This is what happened:

I was looking TV. Left of the TV is a huge window with a great balcony behind, and the direction is almost exactly 270° (West). It is the backside of the house, second floor, with plenty of gardens, and estimated 700 meters away a huge office building. I include a pic what it looks like at day (tomorrow I'll shoot it). It was night, and little lights there. My place is at the outer part of the city, in the north. So that viewing line is from east to west, at the northern border of the city's main areas. The weather is calm, some winds, generally many areas of scattered cloud layers currently, sometimes you see the stars, sometimes not.

some minuts before 2200 local time I randomly glanced outside the window, and saw a column of orange dots moving on the dark sky. There were 6-10 in sight at any given time, and they moved, with a speed that they covered an arch of 22.5° (I mean roughly the half of 45°, that is), at around ten seconds. It seems there were what I perceived as "waves". I observed the whole thing for maybe around 10 minutes, then there was nothing anymore. No sound or noise as well.

I would say it was too fast for an airliner as long as the airliner was not flying extremeoly low, and close. also, since then do airliners dogfight in groups of half a hundred? They moved from maybe SSW to NNE, that would mean that they had the wind almost at 90° angle coming from their left side, and at igher altitiude I think it currently is a very strong wind, due to the incoming stormfront. They moved with synchronised speed and varying distance to each other, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs or what appeared to be loose groups of three. They disappeared after always having covered the same space, and having followed the same track, and I strongly assume that they were covered by clouds, then, so they were above the cloud layer. I stepped outside. First I thought of airplanes, but it was different than all planes that usually fly here. I thought of lantirns, but they were not affected by the wind and even resisted it, and they moved too fast, and too much in synchronity. We have a lot of balloon flying oiver here, and the things simply do not move that fast. There kept coming more and more of them. I was too stupid to count them, and I also do not know when it started, so any count would not mean anything anyhow, but I would say that all in all 50-70 such dots moved through the visible part of the sky. Maybe a dozen more.

I jumped inside and got binoculars 9x63. I could see the orange dots clearly in them, but I saw no red blinking lights, no red and green position lights, and no white blinking lights. I saw an occasional, very fast moving bright blue light, which seemed to zig-zag, but it was so fast that I only saw it for half a second, and thejn it as gone again. I did not see it without binoculars, but I do not think it were reflections in the optics only - the lenses are well-coated, it is a night-use binocular for hunters. I also did not see any form or shape like that of an aircraft around those orange dots.

I jumped inside again, and got my camera. It is nothing special, a digital compact camera with 8 MPix, and I leaned against the wall, and took two shorts, 1", 5.0, 4x tele 23.5 mm. I give the pictures, I have increased brightness and contrast so to make it better visible, but it is not much. the vague scheme at the bottom is the front of that office building. The dots would have moved from 8 o'clock position, to 2 o'clock position, in scattered column formation.

Gentlemen, i do not say that this is an UFO phenomenon, all I say is I could not find out what it was, and have no idea how to explain it. I may be proven wrong, but due to the wind direction, the formation pattern and the speed, I rule out flying Asian lantirns, also: we have an incoming stormfront over here, the winds gets fresher with every quarter of an hour. I also rule out airplanes. Clouds of space debris is just a vague hypothesis by me, but it does not really convince me: I would assume that it would look different, and would not be in sight for so long, and burns miucz more with a white fire, than a warm orange. I do not think that it were lasers from some lightshow, since the dots were visible in the open, unclouded sky, so there is no cloud they could project on. However, in front of the formations, where they started to become invisible due to clouds, soft light shimmer was dancing around, like from a pocket torch against a low cloud - or a lightsource inside the cloud. I take the path that I can explain and vote for the pocketlight, then. But it must have been a damn huge thing of a pocketlight, then. Maybe it was another observer who was curiosu and thoizght that a light maybe would help. I saw that effect before, we have a local fair at the city every three months, they do fireworks, and sometimes there is something like a lightshow against the clouds. This looked different.

And another thing that maybe gives a hint. Coming from the behind me, that would have been the ESE, I noticed the blinking white lights of a highflying airliner flying straight to the WNW, which is nothing unusual here. By size iof the dots, the spoace between the winglights, and the speed at which it moved, I conbclude it was an airliner, highflying. what is unusual is that that thing suddenly started to bank sharply to the left and broke away from the moving orange dots, to which moving column it approached at a right-angled course, almost - as if the pilot saw those things in front of him and wanted to qickly brake away from further approach to them, and sharply turned to the left. Due to the night condition, i could not estimate neither height nor range of either the plane nor the orange dots. I nevr say an airliner doing a sharp brake over the city. Sometimes they do gentle, soft turns towards the airport. and airport that I think has no night operation permission, btw. This manouvre looked too sharp for routine business.

I am a realist, and a born sceptic. simply believing in something is not for me. My status is not that I conclude to have seen UFOs. My status is that currently I do not rule out anything, and don't have any clue at all what the heck went on. The rational, scientific, technical, weather-related and traffic-related explanations that I tested on the obsevation, failed. but i cannot rule out that that is because my knowledge on science, technics, weather and airtraffic is not complete. So what I say is: I cannot explain this phenomenon, and I don't know where to put it.

On me, I have had strange and anormal experiences years ago, but in a different context (meditation), and of a different and far more intense quality, and different form. however, I did not meditate today, and I am not on drugs, and had just one glass of red whine - like almost every evening. since I am used to that, I never feel any effect from one glass of whine that qualifies for a description of being - even just slightly - drunk.

Any information? any idea?





The day pictue follows tomorrow, I thought I had one left somewhere, but it is either gone, or I do not find it.

[Kipparikalle]

They look like a bullet traces to me, although, the title is kind of silly.

I guess its just another randomn bursts of small meteors burning in the orbit, these happens quite often (even here)

Nothing unusual or UFOish, just crap burning in the orbit

[SandyCaesar]

Hmm. At first glance they look like window reflections, but since you saw them outside that rules it out. 50-70 dots is a hell of a lot--it pretty much rules out aircraft afterburners, since that would mean a few wings' worth of fighters, and that would definitely make the news.

I don't know much about meteorology, but--is it possible that the wind direction at whatever altitude these things were at is different from the wind direction at ground level? Maybe flares of some kind?

Space debris--I would think that the trails look different from that, judging on photos that I've seen, but as I've never observed anything in person my opinion should probably be discounted. High-altitude supersonic flights, large-scale, perhaps, but very unlikely.

And one question: there's a blue dot on the photos. Did you observe that as well, or was it something reflecting off the lens?

[Kipparikalle]

Have you ever seen a meteor burning in the orbit? I have, and I can tell you they go really ****ing fast.
Depenting on the Skybird's info given, yeah. They're meteors

I'm sure this will be on the news on the morning or so

Cuz' 50-70 is a lot

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Kipparikalle

They look like a bullet traces to me, although, the title is kind of silly.

I guess its just another randomn bursts of small meteors burning in the orbit, these happens quite often (even here)

Nothing unusual or UFOish, just crap burning in the orbit

Are moving incoming meteors that slow - roughly at the speed of an airplane? Exact speed I cannot estimate, since I have no idea of size, altitidue and distance. Also, do swarms of meteros come down in column formation? WouldnT they loose altitude, instead of apparantly keeping altitude? I have seen shooting stars before. They were white, and extremely fast, and lasted for just a second.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by SandyCaesar

Hmm. At first glance they look like window reflections, but since you saw them outside that rules it out. 50-70 dots is a hell of a lot--it pretty much rules out aircraft afterburners, since that would mean a few wings' worth of fighters, and that would definitely make the news.

I don't know much about meteorology, but--is it possible that the wind direction at whatever altitude these things were at is different from the wind direction at ground level? Maybe flares of some kind?

Space debris--I would think that the trails look different from that, judging on photos that I've seen, but as I've never observed anything in person my opinion should probably be discounted. High-altitude supersonic flights, large-scale, perhaps, but very unlikely.

And one question: there's a blue dot on the photos. Did you observe that as well, or was it something reflecting off the lens?

the blue dot in the pic is a burning light on a control panel inside that huge office building. However, before reading you I edited my post meanwhile to include that there were a fast-moving, zigzagging blue light indeed. the orange dots had no trails, it appears as that only because my hand was shaking and I was in a hurry (1 second exposure). The shots were taken in sub-optimal conditions, really. The orange dots in the sky were really almost round, and had no trails, flew in a line, and at constant speed. I thought of space debris as well, I never saw space debris falling, but I cannot get my imagination of that into correspondence with my observation tonight. Not even roughly.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Kipparikalle

Have you ever seen a meteor burning in the orbit? I have, and I can tell you they go really ****ing fast.
Depenting on the Skybird's info given, yeah. They're meteors

I'm sure this will be on the news on the morning or so

Cuz' 50-70 is a lot

No, I did not say they were moving that fast. I would estimate them to be in the range of aircraft speed. Wether 150 knots or 400 knots depend on wether they were close or distant, high or low - but that I could not estimate, since it was dark, and I did not see any schemes or forms.

Shooting stars I rule out with determination. I know how these are looking.

[Skybird]

A schematic drawing of directions. Ignore distances, they are not realistic

[mapuc]

It looks like an afterburner on a fighter

But I'm not sure

Until we have figured out what it is, it's UFO's

Markus

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

It looks like an afterburner on a fighter

But I'm not sure

Until we have figured out what it is, it's UFO's

Markus

No noise, and nightly silence all around.

And several dozens of afterburners? It seems half of the german Luftwaffe had a meeting up there, then. But at 22:00?

I must rule out afterburner. Also, for that they moved not fast enough. I remember the fighters that often flew over my flat in Osnabrück, in the very early 90s. A low-flying jet on afterburner is faster than this was. And he makes noise that you could hear over even greater distances at night - even more since the wind came from a direction were it would helped the noise to be heared.

[Skybird]

I searched and checked on that lantirn thing. These are made of rice-paper that does not burn, and they look orange like what I saw indeed. They burn for around 5-10 minutes, and usually fly at 50-200 m altitude, then gently decent back to the ground

However: the things I saw moved quite fast, not as fast as shooting stars or jets on afterburner, but faster than small or big balloons in the wind. I estimate it in the range of aircraft speeds, 150-350 kn. Also, the wind blew (and blows) at a right angle to the direction at which the orange dots were moving. Also, the formation kept it's spacing quite precisely. And finally, I would not say they were just 100 m or 200 m high, but more - much more.

Then, in Germany they are forbidden to be launched inside a 50 km zone around airports. But the airport Münster Osnabrück is much closer.

And finally, the sheer numbers. I even do not know since when they had shown up before I became aware of them, but I have seen at least 50-60 of them, I estimate. Usually, private person buy these rice-paper lantirns and launch them in numbers of 2, 10, or 20. After the Tsunami, they used them by the hundreds in Asia, but that were public events of rememberance. At least the local news holds no report about such a public event this night.

currently the rice-paper lantirn is the best optioin I have for an explanation, but it is a theory that has some unexplained contradictions (speed, altitude, wind, legal implications, huge numbers). I can't rule it out, but see the probability currently as low. and there is always that evading aircraft on my mind. I nevber have seen an aircraft doing such a sharp turn over the city. There are also no navigation marks dermanding them ihn the vicinity. Next major VOR is some dozen miles in the east - OSN - and even there such banks are not planned according to high and low altitude enroute charts, I checked that. the approaches for (I think at night: closed) airport Münster-Osnabrück also look differentl, and the plane was too high to land at FMO anyway.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Skybird

No noise, and nightly silence all around.

And several dozens of afterburners? It seems half of the german Luftwaffe had a meeting up there, then. But at 22:00?

I must rule out afterburner. Also, for that they moved not fast enough. I remember the fighters that often flew over my flat in Osnabrück, in the very early 90s. A low-flying jet on afterburner is faster than this was. And he makes noise that you could hear over even greater distances at night - even more since the wind came from a direction were it would helped the noise to be heared.

Then your right. It's not any afterburner. Don't know ´bout Germany, but in Denmark and Sweden it's not allowed to use afterburner or fligh faster than sound over cities in peacetime.

Have you contactet your lokal UFO's club(or what you call it)?

markus

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Then your right. It's not any afterburner. Don't know ´bout Germany, but in Denmark and Sweden it's not allowed to use afterburner or fligh faster than sound over cities in peacetime.

Have you contactet your lokal UFO's club(or what you call it)?

markus

No. Can't stand professional UFO believers. Can't stand professional UFO sceptics either. I kick them both. My status is unchnaged. I do not say it was a fleet of UFO. I say: I cannot explain and thus: I don't know what it was.

[Task Force]

Possiably a commet. Even something the size of dust comeing in from outer space can cause that effect. Could have been something entering the aptmosphere. Or just getting to close and exiting agian. I believe there are other living things out there, cause if there isnt. Thats a alot of wasted space. But I dont believe in UFOs, we would have seen more by now.

[SandyCaesar]

Well, there's the technical definition of a UFO: unidentified flying object. Any blip on an AWACS screen that hasn't been ID'd yet is technically a UFO. As we haven't figured these out yet, they're UFOs.

BtW, I noticed that on the second photo, the red dots are blurred--you attributed this to camera movement. However, interestingly enough, the blue dot is stationary, where in the first shot it was moving, too.

You said 2200 local time? The sky seems surprisingly bright for that--I assume the photos aren't retouched, since the overcast sky here (1600 local) looks exactly that color.

Random shot in the dark: maybe there are less light sources than what you saw, and a percentage of the lights are reflections/refractions or other optical phenomena. If so, it makes the hypothesis that these are afterburning aircraft very very far away at extreme altitude a little more plausible. The distance and perhaps atmospheric conditions might've mitigated the noise factor to the point that no one in the area would ID it as engine noise.