Triangle Formation of Moving "Stars" Over Dover, Arkansas

earthfiles ^ | april-22-2002 | by Linda Moulton Howe

[green team 1999]

Triangle Formation of Moving "Stars" Over Dover, Arkansas

© 2002 by Linda Moulton Howe

The Piney River valley ten miles north of Dover, Arkansas and northwest of Little Rock has a long tradition of mysterious moving lights and green fog.
Local residents call them the "Dover lights."

April 22, 2002 Dover, Arkansas - A week ago on Sunday night, April 14, 2002, I was in the Ozark National Forest of northwest Arkansas with eight other people. There was no moon and the clear sky was vivid with stars at 11 p.m. Central Daylight Time. We were there to look for the mysterious lights that have long been reported in the Piney River valley ten miles north of Dover.

Four of us were at one end of a long wall above the valley. With me was retired TV broadcast engineer, Brent Cater, from Clarksville, Arkansas; Don Kreinbrink, an industrial equipment service engineer from Southaven, Mississippi; and Deanna Ming, a TV technician from Memphis, Tennessee. Five others were at the other end of the wall: Bob Martin, a pilot and aircraft mechanic from Olivette, Missouri; his wife, Nancy, a corporate marketing assistant; JoAnne Scarpellini, a retired research assistant of neurology and neurochemistry at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, and a MUFON field investigator; Steve Kuelbs, a maintenance engineer from Wood River, Illinois; and John Brill also from Illinois who was recovering from eye surgery and could not see the event.

So there were eight of us who witnessed what happened. I was staring down into the dark valley looking for light activity when I heard Bob Martin's voice from the farthest group say, "Oh, my God!" We all started asking what? where? because the night was so dark we couldn't even see each other. Bob ran to us and said, 'Look up!' in the sky. I was astonished to see what looked like three "stars" moving very slowly through the surrounding field of stars like nothing I've ever seen before.

Don Kreinbrink turned on his analog video camera and recorded one relatively clear frame of the moving triangle.

Analog video frame enhanced to highlight three star-like points of light moving slowly northeast to southwest from the Auriga constellation towards the Leo constellation where they stopped after traveliing for three minutes. Spanned nearly 10 degrees of sky, altitude unknown. Estimated time was 11:02 to 11:05 p.m.Central Daylight Time on Sunday, April 14, 2002.
Location was the Piney River valley overlook ten miles north of Dover in the Ozark National Forest of northwestern Arkansas. Video © 2002 by Don Kreinbrink.

Interviews Audio Excerpt from Don Kreinbrink's videotape:

"They're (triangle of moving 'stars') are huge! I think you need to look further south. See those two bright stars? Holy shit!

It's huge and it's just creeping! If that's a triangle, it must be miles across!

Holy mother! Isn't that cool?

Is it blocking stars?

It has to be a formation, it's so big. It cannot be one thing, can it?

You guys, I don't believe this! It's huge! It just disappeared right there. It stopped. It's amazing!"

Eyewitnesses at the Piney River valley overlook north of Dover:

Brent Cater, Retired TV Broadcast Engineer, Clarksville, Arkansas: "It took me a few seconds to get oriented and to find these lights. And what I did see when I finally did see them were three lights in a triangle formation, very high up in the stars, seemingly and I estimated that I saw them for 10 or 12 seconds total (out of approximate 3 minute event), and they seemed to stop, all three lights seemed to stop almost directly overhead. When they stopped, I lost sight of them in the star field. If they weren't moving against the star field, they were very hard to see."

Don Kreinbrink, Service Engineer, Omron IDM Controls, Southaven, Mississippi: "Those points of lights looked just like the stars. And they formed an asymmetrical triangle. They didn't seem to be all arranged evenly. They were just looking like stars moving among the stars. I was very impressed with how large it was and how slow it was moving. As soon as I spotted where it was, I fired up my video camera. The screen on that camera is very bright and it doesn't do much for helping you see at night. So, I was sort of blinded by the screen on my video camera, but I pointed it as best I could up to where the three points of light were and tried to get something, but there was no way to see on the video camera screen the objects, it just doesn't show small points of light very well."

Bob Martin, Pilot and Aircraft Mechanic, Olivette, Missouri: "Can you describe how you estimated how much of the sky the triangle covered?

Holding my hand up at arm's length, they (three points of light) would probably just fit inside it. A little smaller than my hand.

Your hand would span about 10 degrees of sky?

Yeah, that's probably a fair estimate.

Depending upon how high that would be, a 10 degree span could be hundreds of miles in distance between those points?

Yes. It ("star" triangle) could have been huge because I really had no reference point for them up against the stars. They were just big and bright and could have stretched for miles.

That would tend to support the idea that this was a formation of three objects moving in exquisite precision over three minutes, not any kind of a large object, especially since all of us seemed to see stars in and around the moving stars.

Yes.

In all of your experience as a pilot and looking at the sky as an amateur astronomer, have you ever seen anything like this before?

Not quite like this, no. I've seen lights I couldn't explain in the sky and various objects, but I've never seen them hold a formation like this."

Nancy Martin, Marketing Assistant, Swan Corp., Olivette, Missouri: "They were moving too slowly to be satellites and they moved to almost directly overhead and then they faded to a brownish color and then flickered out.

Did you, watching through binoculars, note if all three lights stopped and then faded out together? Or did one fade out and then another and another?

They seemed to fade out just slightly behind each other.

Meaning a little off beat, not in sync?

Right, that's what it looked like to me.

Was that brown color as if light was being extinguished?

Yes, like they were fading. It was 11:05 p.m. CDT when they flickered out. That's when I said, 'It's 11:05.' And JoAnne Scarpellini said, 'OK, look for fighter jets.' And sure enough, there appeared one."

Bob Martin: "And about five minutes after the lights went out, I noticed an F-15 flew overhead with an extremely bright strobe light, following their same trajectory. And this guy was flat out flying. I mean, he was probably subsonic. I bet he was doing over 600 knots."

Deanna Ming, TV Studio Tech, Memphis, Tennessee: "I think it was something alien. It was a beautiful sighting, it wasn't frightening. I think it was because it was at such a distance. And I'm really glad I saw it. I would really love to understand more of what was going on. I think it was something that was attempting to be hidden, but maybe we were supposed to see it. I'm not sure."

Steven Kuelbs, Maintenance Engineer, Wood River, Illinois: "It was very exhilarating in that moment. I never felt so alive! I was witness to something special and adrenaline was going through my veins! I wanted to see more."

JoAnne Scarpellini, Retired Researcher Assistant in Neurology and Neurochemistry, Washington University Medical School, St. Louis, Missouri: "My first thought is: what are they? What kind of mechanics are here? Who has something that we - or at least as far as I know - don't have a clue as to propulsion, because these things can stop in flight and then continue. And I'm sure it wasn't a helicopter and I think that's about the only thing we have that can do that. What are they here to do? How long have they been here? Why are they doing it? There's just no end to the questions."

Cluster Satellites

There are NASA satellites called Clusters launched in July 2000 to study the magnetosphere. There are four of them that travel polar orbits together north to south and I wondered if cluster satellites could explain the strange triangle formation. So, I contacted Melvyn Goldstein, Project Manager of Cluster Satellites at NASA Goddard, Greenbelt, Maryland.

Melvyn Goldstein, Project Manager, Cluster Satellites (study magnetosphere), NASA Goddard, Greenbelt, Maryland: "We pulled up the orbit here and starting on April 14 and running through the 15th, the spacecraft are predominantly in the day side of the earth and throughout the entire day of April 14 to the beginning of April 15th, they are out in front of the earth on the day side. And it isn't until very late on the 15th, which is Monday, that they actually go into the night side of the earth, so it doesn't seem plausible.

So, the Cluster satellites could not explain that Sunday April 14, 2002 sighting?

No, I don't think that's going to be viable as an explanation. I really have no idea what phenomenon these people saw. There aren't that many satellites that are visible by naked eye, but there are a few.

But we just eliminated the Clusters.

Yeah. Clusters are almost impossible to see with the naked eye. It's been seen with telescopes, but I would be very surprised if somebody actually had managed to see it with naked eye or even with binoculars."

More Information Space Station and the Space Shuttle?

"Could either appear as a triangle that was moving for three minutes?

The space station is big and the shuttle is big. It depends on what is reflecting. I don't know. Three is kind of a queer number, but the space station has big modules. You won't see the scaffolding between them.

Also, there are 60 iridium satellites up there in very low orbit. Sometimes they clump together, but I think they are virtually impossible to see with the naked eye, even with binoculars. I have only read one report of even a telescope finding them. They are not all that reflective and about five or six yards across."

Earthfiles Request:

I would appreciate hearing reports from eyewitnesses anywhere in the world who have seen similar patterns of "stars" moving and stopping in the night sky. My e-mail address is:

earthfiles@earthfiles.com

Thank you,
Linda Moulton Howe

for information and discusion only,not for profit etc,etc.

[green team 1999]

i added brightness to image and still could not see the craft.

[FreedomCalls]

NOSS Triplets

NOSS Triplets

Naval Ocean Surveillance System-2nd Generation Satellites

Introduction

One of the interesting sights in the sky is the apparent formation flying of satellites associated with the Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) satellite group. There are three groups of the 2nd generation NOSS satellites each having three satellites in close proximity to one another. It's speculated that they might maintain formation with the use of connecting wires or solar sails. More likely, their position is maintained by low thrust engines. It's believed these satellites use radio interferometry (or a similar technique) to locate and track ships at sea by their radio transmissions. Normally these satellites are relatively dim to the naked eye but on occasions can be seen in dark skies.

Details

The three known groups of second generation NOSS satellites are:

Common Name      Cat. No.       Int. Desig.           Launch Information

NOSS 2-1          20691           90 50C           Titan IV Cape Canaveral June 8, 1990 
NOSS 2-1 (D)      20692           90 50D
NOSS 2-1 (E)      20642           90 50E

NOSS 2-2 (C)      21799           91 76C           Titan IV Vandenberg     Nov 8, 1991
NOSS 2-2 (D)      21808           91 76D
NOSS 2-2 (E)      21809           91 76E

NOSS 2-3 (C)      23908           96 29C           Titan IV                May 12, 1996 
NOSS 2-3 (D)      23862           96 29D
NOSS 2-3 (E)      23936           96 29E

All were launched aboard Titan 4 booster rockets as secondary payloads. The final orbits obtained were approximately 1100 km in altitude with a final inclination of 63.4 degrees. Over time the orbits have become more elliptical.

The standard magnitude (1000 km distant, 50% illumination) for these satellites is approximately magnitude +6 making them barely naked-eye visible in a very dark sky. At times the magnitude increases (brightens) allowing the triplet formation to be more readily observed.

The earlier generation of NOSS satellites (NOSS 0, 1, 2 through 8) are normally not naked-eye visible but at times can be observed without optical aids. Some of these are also close-grouped flyers.

Informational Links

NOSS-2nd Generation by FAS .

Description of the NOSS 1st and 2nd Generation Satellites from FAS .

Encyclopedia Astronautica on NOSS-2

More information on the NOSS groups from David Hastings' Military Space Page listed under "surveillance" for satellite types.

SPACEWARN bulletins 458 and 512

Paul Maley , who is an experienced satellite observer, has produced an excellent web site on satellite observing including a picture of a NOSS formation.

See SeeSat-L archive.

One can search for additional information and observations related to the NOSS satellites, which includes the SeeSat-L archives by using a search engine such as Google and search on the word "NOSS".

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Links: to the VSO Home Page, the observing guide, shuttle details, the satellite predictions themselves.

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Produced by Jeff Hunt ; Neil Clifford & Bart De Pontieu

jeff@satellite.eu.org ; neil@satellite.eu.org & bart@satellite.eu.org

[jlogajan]

There really is no set speed of a satellite transit across the sky. A geo-sync-sat is motionless. The higher the sat, the slower it'll move across the sky.

Sats will "wink out" too when they cross into the conic earth shadow. Though it was pretty early in the year and pretty far south for good sat viewing (better in the summer and up north because you get over-the-pole sunlight.)

There are many classified military satellites that travel in groups and the like. So you can't rule them out or their relative size/brightness.

[Henchster]

C'mon, this is in Arkansas, it's simply a bad (good?) batch of Moonshine! {;^)

[Joe 6-pack]

Just think, as soon as chelsea marries and squeezes out a demon-spawn of her own, the clintons will be able to fly in, "pentagram formation," as a tribute to their lord and master...

[green team 1999]

yes ,i knew about the 3 satellites holding by cable and have seen it on the sky,it`s a 4 seconds view coming from the west,and show it to friends a couple of times ,but you need luck to see it.
but this article might be something else,the lady reporter is a researcher.

[Djarum]

Also, there are 60 iridium satellites up there in very low orbit. Sometimes they clump together, but I think they are virtually impossible to see with the naked eye, even with binoculars. I have only read one report of even a telescope finding them. They are not all that reflective and about five or six yards across.

The Iridium satellites produce flashes that are bright enough to be seen during the day, and can certainly be seen at night with the naked eye:

[green team 1999]

the navy 3 satellites,i have seen it and my guess is a low orbit and they are small,but fast,and the cable is not only to keep it togheter but to pass information,i believe they are for tracking ships worldwide.

[Ciexyz]

Food for thought.

[Illbay]

What they neglect to mention is that Dover is known far and wide as the "Moonshine 'n' Hooch" capital of Arkansas.

[Illbay]

Oops, you beat me to the punch(line)!