Light in California sky

3 March 2010 | Me

[Randy Larsen]

Did anyone else see the blue-green light shot across the southern sky?

[OrioleFan]

Blue-green was the color of Rearden Metal in Atlas Shrugged.

[thecodont]

Blue-green was the color of Rearden Metal in Atlas Shrugged.

Yes, but for some reason they made it blue-violet in the movie.

Sky and Telescope says the next big meteor shower is the Lyrids, but its peak (April 22) is over a month away.

[Strategerist]

meteors appear much, much closer than they actually are; it’s a very strong optical illusion, and stronger the brighter they are.

People routinely will assert that a meteor “must have hit just over the next hill” when it never got closer than 50 miles to the surface.

You’ve almost certainly seen a bright fireball; you can report it here (they then can take multiple eyewitness reports and calculate the speed, path, and and where the meteor came from.) You can also check other reports.

http://www.amsmeteors.org/fireballs/

[doorgunner69]

I've got a 'bright lights' story that would knock your socks off, but no one would believe me if I posted it.

Maybe if it involved abduction and an anal probe?

Hey, got to keep the DU trolls interested...........

[Delta Dawn]

Did a spaceship land and the aliens stepped out, took one look at you and said, ‘you are not the droid we were looking for’, and then left?

[SunkenCiv]

Yes, I was testing a top secret craft back-engineered from a crashed UFO. But don’t tell anybody.

[Windflier]

Did a spaceship land and the aliens stepped out, took one look at you and said, ‘you are not the droid we were looking for’, and then left?

Damn, how did you know? LOL

[Strategerist]

There are multiple fireball reports from California and Nevada tonight:

http://www.amsmeteors.org/fireball2/public.php?pending=1

[Windflier]

Actually, there’s no way in hell that I’d approach an alien craft if I saw one landed. I might snap a few pics from a distance, but I’d be outta there pretty quick.

[SunkenCiv]

I’m glad this came up, thanks to all for the planets subthread. I’d seen the Jupiter (which is unmistakeable) and Venus which I’d taken for Mars, because it looks fairly dull by comparison with Jove, and seemed too high in the sky to be Venus; this is the year of the second of two transits across the Sun, next time will be 150+ years from now).

March 2012 guide to the five visible planets
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/visible-planets-tonight-mars-jupiter-venus-saturn-mercury

[SunkenCiv]

I agree.

[Windflier]

Maybe if it involved abduction and an anal probe? Hey, got to keep the DU trolls interested....

Lord knows, they're not interested in finding out the truth about their messiah. Now that's the alien they ought to be investigating!

[Randy Larsen]

Thanks!

I reported what I saw.

[The Cajun]

This was a next to nothing observation on my part as compared to most of the observations I've read about here and other places.
I was behind my workshop around 1:00 AM, having the last cigarette of the day (wife won't let me smoke in the house), when I noticed an unusually bright star twinkling in the south, southeast.
The first odd thing that attracted my attention was its' brightness (about three times as bright as Venus, maybe a little more).
The sky was crystal clear and there is not very much light pollution (I live in the sticks, thank goodness).
This thing was going from white, to blue-white, to super bright blue-white (brighter than a welding arc up close), to nearly fading out and then repeating (this is how I remember the colors [ sure of colors and sequence]).
It was about 30 to 40 degrees off the southern horizon and not moving. I was so entertained by the thing, I fired up another cigarette and debated on opening up my workshop and getting the small telescope (el cheapo I won at a company party, 60 power normal/120 with barlow lens).
I use it for long-range target practice, saves a lot of walking to and from target. Thought it could be the landing lights of a plane coming in my direction or a chopper with search lights on. The thing just hung there with no apparent movement.
I finally decided to get off my butt and get the telescope, as I stood up this thing shot to the west as fast as a hauling meteor.
I mean from south, southeast to western horizon in a second to maybe a second and a half at most.
If it was a craft, some body's got the inertia and/or mass thing figured out pretty damn good.
No Idea of its' distance or size, just guessing I would say at least 5 to 6 miles away (that's just a wild ass guess), viewing duration 2 cigarettes (5 to 9 minutes ???).
This happened in Sept. 2002, so it took me 55 years to finally see something UFO like.
My biggest regret is not going get the scope from the start or going get my wife to come out and have a look. It sure would be nice to have someone who would say "Yep, I saw it to".
A lot of people here say "why didn't the witness do this or do that". I can tell them it is very, very easy to be a goof and do nothing constructive as to identifying the object. It just took me too long to finally realize that it probably wasn't a plane or chopper before it flashed to the western horizon.
Read the New Orleans paper and the local paper for a week or so to see if any other person saw it, looks like I was the only "nut" out looking at the sky that night, LOL. But really thinking about it, I didn't report it, why would anybody else report it and take the risk of being called a nut.
Over the years have played and replayed this in my mind a bunch, still have no good explanation of what the heck it was.
Anyway that's the "Old" Cajun's account of a light in the sky doing something I think was weird and not easily explainable ;^)

[Randy Larsen]

I did report this one.

I’ve never seen anything move that fast in my whole life!

[The Cajun]

That's why I told you what I saw.
The speed sounds very similar.
Worked many nights and when I was younger, went bass fishing at night and frogging in the marsh.
Never saw anything strange or unexplainable in the night sky.
This was weird. Can't say what it was other than a spot of bright light that hung stationary for a good while then hauled ass like nothing I have ever seen before or since.

Still kick myself for not going get the scope.

[gunsequalfreedom]

Funny

[skinkinthegrass]

!

[Spunky]

It appears that others have seen something too.

Lights in Sky

[Bernard Marx]

Some of the best is yet to come in a few days' time. Using your same source, here's what's coming soon:

Mid-March Conjunctions

Venus and Jove will be closest -- only 3 degrees apart -- on the 14th, and the crescent moon (and even the pleiades) will get back into the act for some spectacular sky shows starting on the 23rd.