A spooky story - your assessment, please

[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]

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.