NUFORC Sighting 36708

Occurred: 2004-05-03 05:57 Local
Reported: 2004-05-03 16:28 Pacific
Duration: 5 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Hayward, CA, USA

Shape: Oval


Oval object with a rotating tethered object in the middle, observerd Oval blow up

This is for the record on May 3rd 2004 at approx. 5:57 AM daylight savings time in Hayward Ca. looking south almost straight up I saw a bright light, it appeared like Venus so I pointed my telescope at the light using the low power finder and I then looked in the main telescope eyepiece and ... it was nothing I had ever seen in the past 5 years of observing or ever in my life.

The object was oval in shape (grayish almost transparent) with 2 dots evenly spaced half way from the outer edge of the oval (1 on either side of the oval) think of a lady bug, then at the center of the oval there was a tethered object rotating around the oval in perfect symmetry (between the 2 dots). It looked like a string with an object connected at the end and it was rotating around the center the oval in the direction it was traveling. Almost as if it was the propelling force that caused the oval to move. Think of pedaling a bicycle.

I observed it for about 10 seconds and looked back up in the sky and it was bright. Now being sure I could find it again I ran inside to get a witness. It was almost 6 AM and I pulled my sleeping son out of bed and aligned the object again in the telescope and his comment was "what is that?" I've shown him may astronomy objects such as nebulas, star clusters, and most of the big planets so this was also new to his eyes also.

Now 2 minutes at the most passed as I tried to get a camera up and running but no luck and the object was moving overhead so I looked again through the telescope and just at that point ... the oval blew up. The explosion looked like a firework that just went off in the sky.

What was observed next was unexpected ... the tethered object in the middle separated intact and continued to rotate. So what I saw was an explosion the tethered object separate and the rotation continued (only now end over end instead of rotating around the oval). And now instead of moving overhead the tethered object is starting to move downward. (My hand tracking of the telescope now has me moving the telescope down instead of > up and over as with the original path the oval was moving which was south to north.

The tethered object now had 2 distinct ends one was the pivot end and the other was the original object that was rotating around the oval. So the rotation stayed the same but now moving downward as if falling from the sky and rotating around a new pivot.

The new pivot point is now interesting as it now takes shape and color. It appears like an elongated cone, orange in color and it appears as if there are 2 "strings" coming from the "cone" to the tethered object rotating around this "orange cone." The "strings" seem to come together as one, half way down the length of the tether.

I watched this for about 1 to 2 minutes and even tried a higher power eyepiece but due to the narrow field of view of the higher power eyepiece I only saw it briefly and subsequently lost track of the tethered object. The orange color was more evident at the higher power and the 2 "strings" appeared more evident.

The telescope used was a Meade 8" Newtonian on an equatorial mount,ironically the mirror was just cleaned the day before so it was perfect and the only reason I was still out at 6 AM (the Sun was rising and ruining the star gazing) was the tracking motor was malfunctioning and I wanted to test the tracking on any bright object I could find before total Sun rise washed out even the brightest of stars and I would have to wait till night fall to test again.

The weather condition was clear with good transparency (no haze)and the temperature was in the high 50 degrees F.



Posted 2004-05-04

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