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Light is weird. But I usually stop delving into the weirdness of light with the wave/ particle thing. While that’s not strictly a light thing it’s easiest to play with in light, and it’s almost guaranteed to give you a headache if you start playing with it.

Light as well as angles can play some interesting visual tricks.

One early evening on my way home, I saw a silvery shimmering object in the sky that appeared to be hovering in a stationary position over the highway. To my eyes it looked saucer shaped and then it then suddenly changed direction and sped off very quickly.

What I actually saw was a jetliner coming in for a landing, at an altitude just high enough to catch the last rays of the setting sun and at an angle and in enough darkness that obscured its wings and with my relative speed and angle with the aircraft’s relative speed and angle, for a moment made it look like it was hovering saucer.

As I’d been commuting back and forth to work every day and passing by and right underneath a major flight path for BWI airport I knew what it was but if I’d been of a gullible nature or pre-disposed to believe in UFO’s, I would swear to you that what I saw was a flying saucer.

But perhaps I’m just a naysayer. ;),

The wave/ particle thing isn’t just a visual trick, it’s a serious reality questioning piece of weirdness if you’re bored and don’t mind getting a headache:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality

Now as for your plane. That kind of stuff happens a lot. Light hits at a weird angle, people watching don’t realize where they are in relation to local flight paths, people don’t realize how bad your depth perception gets at long distance especially without intermediate object. I live in an Air Force town, there’s always something up there, and sometimes it looks a little odd. Usually I’m more concerned when they’re in the wrong place, especially since 9-11 “why is a plane there” has become the biggest concern when looking in the sky.