# Close Encounters-like sighting. Only not **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 15, 2020, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011 "2020-10-15T13:24:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011/1 "2020-10-15T13:24:10Z")
Yesterday morning, when we went out before sunrise, we saw an eerie thing in the night sky. A regular string of stars moving sort of briskly along in the night sky. There were dozens of them, each following the others in a straight line, like a train. We watched them for several minutes until they vanished behind clouds. While we wanted to believe it was an alien convoy, we knew there had to be an explanation. Googling found this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfXEM4mQ3kw), and the answer: they’re SpaceX’s Starlink satellite train. It was a strange experience. I hope I see it again sometime. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011/2 "2020-10-15T13:34:13Z")
Wow. That is mind-blowing. I would have been jumping around, yelling, “Here I am! Down here!” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011/3 "2020-10-15T14:00:18Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I would have been jumping around, yelling, “Here I am! Down here!” 🙂 That was the best part of _Independence Day_. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011/4 "2020-10-15T14:11:45Z")
I guess they’re usually pretty faint, but if the sun is reflecting off of them at just the right angle in relation to the observer, it’s pretty spectacular. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011/5 "2020-10-15T14:17:46Z")
A few years ago, I was driving down the street, when I saw something really eerie. It looked like a shining object, bright even in the daytime sky, just…hovering, over the city, while also _changing its shape_. I couldn’t figure out _what_ I was seeing, nor why no one else was reacting to this bizarre UFO. It seemed like I was looking at it for a minute or more as it just hung, motionless, changing its geometry. I realized, though, it had only actually been a few seconds, and the UFO resolved itself into a perfectly ordinary airliner, in a standard flight path for the local airport, ascending and turning at a sharp angle, with sunlight glinting off of it. The circumstance created the momentary visual illusion of a motionless, shape-changing object, turning something I literally see every day into a UFO. In the moment, though, it was _really_ freaky. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011/6 "2020-10-15T14:32:37Z")
Mine was when I was a teenager in Northern Ohio. It was evening and we were family-watching the TV when we started to hear a loud noise none of us could identify. It sounded like a plane, but it was moving to slow to be an aircraft and sounded nothing like a helicopter. I stuck my head out the door and looked up…and there was this big dark…mass…slowly moving overhead, no lights that I could see and blotting out much of the sky. And for 2-3 seconds I was sure the aliens had arrived. Until they started signalling… BUY…GOODYEAR…TIRES It was of course, the Goodyear Blimp, about 1200 ft (IMHO) overhead, so we all (including most of the neighboorhood) piled out and watched it for the next 20-25 minutes until it disappeared. But for those 2-3 seconds… ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011/7 "2020-10-15T14:51:06Z")
I have mixed feelings about StarLink. Seeing the satellites, however occasionally will be odd at first. Living rural, I have a very, very clear sky. However, my internet speed sucks. Now that I’m working from home though, I’ll probably be one of the first to sign up. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011/8 "2020-10-15T15:15:35Z")
“ICE CREAM!” 🛸 ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011/9 "2020-10-15T17:22:30Z")
> [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#): > > BUY…GOODYEAR…TIRES “A crummy commercial? Sonuvabitch!” ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011/10 "2020-10-15T17:45:03Z")
One night I was awoken by loud sibilant sounds and bright lights coming from the street, my room’s window looked directly to the street but the blinds were closed. Tremulously I approached the window and tried to see through the spaces between the blinds boards. Something very large was moving slowly thru the street. A part of me was jumping up and down in my brain claiming “An UFO an UFO, aliens are landing in front of my house!”. Wereas Rational Frodo was saying “Nahhh” So I opened the blinds a bit and got a better view. It was street cleaning truck, a large truck with large sort of brushes underside that spewed water and brushed the street clear. I had never seen one, and didn’t know they existed until that day, I would’ve prefered a ral UFO anyway 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/close-encounters-like-sighting-only-not/923011/11 "2020-10-15T23:09:24Z")
We’ve had threads and threads on this. Here’s my contribution to one from 2015 > [@How loud is a blimp?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-loud-is-a-blimp/712063/32): > > I’m gonna bet the words appear on the right and scroll to the left. They’re very hard to read if presented backwards. wink I saw my first UFO about 4 years ago. I had just walked out of a restaurant into a foggy night with a light drizzle falling. And there in the dark sky out beyond the parking lot was a strange blue-white light in an odd shape, just hanging there. I stopped and stared for a few seconds and couldn’t really figure out what it was. I had that same strange sensation of “T…