NUFORC Sighting 50754

Occurred: 2006-05-29 00:58 Local
Reported: 2006-05-29 05:01 Pacific
Duration: 2 hours
No of observers: 1

Location: UK/England, , United Kingdom

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

More luminous objects sighted in night sky

Following up my two previous reports (for 5/25/06 and 5/26/06), here is my report for the morning of Monday, May 29th. I was not able to make observations for Saturday or Sunday mornings as I was out of town. In terms of numbers, this was the least eventful night so far, but it was the subject of perhaps the most dramatic sightings.

I started observing at 0058. The sky was almost totally clear at first, but clouds became thicker as the night went on. The following are the particulars of the objects sighted.

1) 0102 - object seen moving from southeast to northwest. It was moving slightly faster than a passenger aircraft as seen at 36,000 feet. It was visible for just under 2 minutes, from first appearance to flying towards my direction and out of sight.

2) 0122 - object suddenly appeared in the southern sky (as if a light had been turned on), then moved extremely fast to the east before disappearing (as if the light had then been turned off). There was no cloud obstruction, it was low in altitude, and had an angle of elevation of 30 degrees. It was approximately 1 magnitude dimmer than Sirius, and travelled a horizontal distance of the tip of my thumb to my wrist held at arm's length in just under a second. Its light was a quick movement of light, similar to taking a flashlight and moving in front of you from one side to the other as fast as you can. It was not a lasting streak (a line) like a meteor or flare. Like all previous objects, it had no other lights other than its white light body.

3) 0138 - object seen moving from south to north. It was very faint, and moved with a slow, stop-start motion, like a person trying to walk in sludge. It disappeared overhead to my left after about 1 minute.

4) 0216 - object seen moving from southeast to northwest. It was very similar to the previous object, very faint and with a jerky type of motion.

5) 0225 - object streaked across the sky from east to west at incredible speed. It had an angle of elevation of about 45 degrees, and, like object #2 from tonight, was at a lower altitude than the others. It was 1 magnitude brighter than Sirius, with its light characteristics similar to object #2 as well, i.e. it was a quick movement of light and not a lasting streak line. I got the sense that it was closer in distance to me than any of the other objects seen over my 3 nights of observations.

6) 0234 - object seen moving from south to north. Its movement was slower than the other objects seen tonight; I would almost call it graceful. It was about the same speed as a passenger aircraft as seen at 36,000 feet.

7) 0238 - object seen moving from northwest to southeast. Like objects #3 and #4, it had a slow, stop-start type of motion.

8) 0240 – a conventional aircraft was seen and heard moving from west to east. It had an angle of elevation of about 45 degrees, and an altitude of, I would estimate, 10,000 feet. It had a setup of lights consisting of a white anti-collision light on the underside of its fuselage and 2 red position lights on each wing. The blinking of the lights was very unusual to me - it is best described as imagining an object bouncing through the lights from one end to the other; it was an alternating fashion of blinking which I am not familiar with. As mentioned in my previous reports, aircraft (apart from fighter jets and other two-seater military training aircraft) are very uncommon here.

9) 0258 - object seen moving from south to north. It was very dim, but did not have the peculiar movement of the three previous dim objects. It passed straight over my head and out of sight after about 1 minute.

I stopped observing at 0320. This was another eventful evening that, once again, at times left me speechless. I am planning to contact the local air force base later today to see if I can glean anything from them.

NUFORC Note:

Possible sightings of satellites, we suspect. PD

Posted 2006-07-16