NUFORC Sighting 121093

Occurred: 2015-08-13 00:40 Local
Reported: 2015-08-13 06:13 Pacific
Duration: 4-5 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Scunthorpe (UK/England), , United Kingdom

Shape: Orb
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object

Spherical object silently and rapidly transited the sky, stopped for a few seconds, then blinked out.

Was standing in my back garden with my wife looking north between 00:30 and 01:20 to view the Perseid meteor shower. The sky was cloud free with good visibility, and there was no wind. During this observation period I saw 11 shooting stars, 4 aircraft, and one UFO.

The UFO was first seen by us in the north East at 00:40, and moved parallel and close to the horizon (approx. 15 degrees elevation) across our field of view towards the north west. It was internally illuminated, but not as brightly as the aircraft we also observed at other times during this sky watch, equivalent in brightness to a second magnitude star. The UFO light was not a point source, it appeared more as a very small diffuse orb with brightness varying slightly as it moved, and it left no trail. Colour was white with a tinge of orange. It moved generally in a straight line, but with some up and down movement too, and after moving an angular distance of about 45 degrees from our right to our left it stopped abruptly, remained visible for about 2 seconds, then blinked out. Brightness of the UFO varied a little throughout the observation period, but not with the regularity typically seen from flashing aircraft lights.

The most puzzling aspect of this sighting, which clearly marked the UFO as something out of the ordinary, was its apparently high velocity. In comparison with the shooting stars that moved rapidly with angular velocities of around 10 degrees per second, and the aircraft flying over at cruising altitude moving about 0.5 degrees per second, the UFO moved at an estimated 4 degrees per second having taken about 10 seconds to cross our field of view.

The UFO was certainly not a conventional aircraft. I would estimate that conventional aircraft which typically fly at 200 to 600 knots would have had to be relatively close to us to have displayed the high angular velocity observed, perhaps no further than a few hundred metres to a kilometre in distance. If this had been the case the noise of the engine(s) would have been clearly audible, this UFO was silent. Furthermore, when the lights of a conventional aircraft appear to stop moving in the sky, when it enters a turn and starts moving away or towards an observer, a significant time elapses as the aircraft completes the manoeuver. When this UFO stopped moving it did so immediately.

The UFO also did not resemble in any way a shooting star, meteorite, or a satellite. It certainly was not one of the Perseid shooting stars because it's trajectory was aligned about 90 degrees away from the path of this meteor shower in the region of the sky where it was observed.

Posted 2015-08-13