NUFORC Sighting 60343

Occurred: 2007-12-12 06:15 Local
Reported: 2007-12-12 18:47 Pacific
Duration: 15 minute
No of observers: 2

Location: Westlake & Hardy, VA, USA

Shape: Diamond
Characteristics: Lights on object

Before dawn, I saw a source of light moving steadily, high in the sky for 10 minutes, then stop for 5 minutes.

I awakened at 6:15 a.m. to go to the toilet at my residence on a mountain near Roanoke, VA. Out the bathroom window, I noticed what appeared to be a startling bright star, and then I realized it couldn't be a star, because it was moving east to west at a high rate of speed, such as might come from a military jet, or satellite or space station. But this appeared to be more brilliant than reflected light and, besides, the sun was coming up in the east, a wrong direction or slant to have made a reflection that would be visible to me. The brilliant spot of light continued to move east to west for about 10 minutes. I hoped it would not pause or sharply change directions, but it did pause.

It was stationary for at least five minutes. My wife also so it; we watched it together. I can say that it was stationary, unmoving, because at that point I saw it through the leafless upper branches of an oak tree, and with those twigs as a still screen between us and the now-stationary and still as bright as ever object, the tree wasn't moving (windless night) and the object remained at the same location when seen through those twigs. If it were Venus moving through the sky, it would not have stopped and become stationery for five minutes.

I do not know if it later continued its trajectory, is still there, or simply vanished. After watching it in it stationary position for five minutes, I returned to bed and to sleep.

If tomorrow morning brings a cloudless early pre-daybreak, I'm sufficiently interested to set up my camera on a tripod and at the appropriate time, look for this interesting phenomenon, taking several "bursts" of digital photos.

NUFORC Note:

Venus?? However, if it was in fact moving, as the witness indicates, it could not have been that planet, which currently is very bright in the morning sky. PD

Posted 2008-01-21