I saw lights in the sky. What were they?

Factual Questions
21

Weather balloons come in different varieties, but I dont know of any that are illuminated. The one’s I have used on many occasions (for obtaining temperature and wind profiles of the troposphere/stratosphere) are only about 5 - 6 feet accross. They rise pretty quickly too (about 5 meters pers sec vertically).

My guess is that it musta been military in origin - choppers most probably. I’ve observed the sky (day and night) at military bases for 16 years and you see some weird flashing lights every so often.

Any reports of anyone else seeing these lights ? Perhaps a report form a different direction would help triangulate things a bit.

22

A couple of years ago I was in Cape Cod & noticed a flashing light through a window. It was in the shape of a cross, but it became apparent that the mesh screen was doing this. I first thought it was an airplane, but after a minute or so of casual observation it hadn’t moved at all…and the light flashed colors which I don’t believe aircraft emit, such as orange and purple.
I thought it may have been caused by some sort of refraction through the screen, so I raised it, to no effect. I soon noticed other flashing lights near it, which also didn’t move. I realized they were stars, but I’d never seen stars flash colors like this before. I chalked it off to weird atmospheric conditions.
Last year I was driving home from the mountains, which I do every week, and I noticed the exact same phenomenon. Pretty interesting.

23

I haven’t heard anyone mention seeing it Chalkpit, but then again, I haven’t asked around.

I like your conclusion Astroboy, particularly because it addresses the “response” blinking.

24

If you say the lights were visible through tree branches, I have another theory.

Certain bugs emit light from their bodies for mating purposes. They also ‘talk’ to each other by replying to the flashes.

25

The tree branches and the blinking seems like too good of a coincidence. Two stars on either side of a swaying branch. At the end of each swing, the branch covers one of the stars. They seem to alternate blinking.

But I’m assuming you were smart enough to move significantly around so the same branch wouldn’t be involved in covering the stars, right?

26

She said she did, in her OP.

Can I just clarify: she did see a UFO, in that it was an object that you couldn’t identify, that was (apparently) flying. It just wasn’t a flying saucer (probably ;)).

27

What bugs, Chalkpit? Are there any such bugs mating in the upper South in early April? It looked way too big for bugs.

I did survey the scene from several vantage points: from my seat on the porch, standing in the middle of the back yard, and from various upstairs and downstairs windows of my home.

I didn’t see a thing last night, and it was very clear. Numerous stars and planets were visible. I like to keep track of how Orion is standing relative to my back yard.

I had another thought regarding electricity. What about those fenced-off places that have a lot of dangerous looking metal things. (Gee aren’t I the engineer, here.) I don’t know what they’re called. Maybe they’re substations. But there’s one of those off yonder in that general direction.

28

Dunno any details about the bugs, it was justa WAG more than a theory really.

29

I’m going to add my vote for the “ordinary stars viewed through swaying tree branches” theory.

You mentioned that it was windy and, and if I understand you correctly, although you changed your vantage point, the lights were still behind the branches.

Given that it was dark, you couldn’t clearly see the branches as they moved in front of the stars and that gave the appearance of flashing.

30

More thoughts:

If they were stars and fairly close to the horizon, they would exhibit some twinkling due to atmospheric disturbance.

Were these lights steady when they were visible, or twinkling ?

Ellen also says they were not in fixed positions.
Would any apparant movement of the lights be down purely to the movement of the observer ?

31

I can see where you’d think it might be, but I’m almost positive it’s not the branches. Yes they were there, but I could easily see the sky. It wasn’t a thick tangle of many trees, just a tree line. But, I could be wrong.

Steady or twinkling? Hm, I don’t know. I mean, they blinked erratically. That’s about the best I can describe it. They seemed very “on” when on, almost like a flash, as I’ve said before.

I did ask someone I work with about it, a physics teacher who’s interested in astronomy. He didn’t observe anything firsthand, and hasn’t heard any talk about anything unusual. But I’m sure he’ll be keeping his ears open for me.

32

If the lights were towards a city, could they have been ‘night suns’ used by police choppers looking for criminals ?

If they were searching a limited area, panning the beams around, that might look like blinking from a distance, as the beams pointed towards then away from you.

33

Thanks to each of you for your interest and theories. If I hear or see anything else, I’ll report back!

34

Okay, resident “UFO nut” here :smiley: There has already been a lot of good discussion and proposed explanations (one of which I find promising) here, but I feel like I wouldn’t be doing my SDMB duty if I didn’t jump on the bandwagon. Let’s run through some of the typical UFO sighting explanations:

Airplane/Helicopter: Not likely. The duration of the sighting does not totally rule this out - I’ve seen planes coming straight toward me that appeared as stationary bright lights hanging in the air for 15-20 minutes before finally passing directly over me. So 45 minutes is on the outside of believable, but not ludicrous. What makes me dump this possibility is that the lights completely flashed on and off. Planes have flashing lights on them, but not all the lights flash and certainly not simultaneously and erratically.

Lights on the ground: Not very likely either (well, there’s a catch, but I’ll get to that in a minute). You specifically said that the lights were blinking erratically. This rules out a light on a building or tower (e. g., one of those lights to alert aircraft to the presence of a tall structure). If the lights were really above and beyond power lines, and there were no distant hills or anything that they could have come from, I think that closes this part of the case.

Balloon, blimp, etc: Once again, the erratic blinking behavior makes this questionable. Provided you are sure there was nothing (tree branches, thin clouds, etc.) that could have gotten between you and the objects, thereby making the lights appear to blink when they were simply being blocked, this possibility can more or less go in the circular file as well.

Stars, planets: This is easy to check. You say you have not been able to see any such objects in similar locations on subsequent nights. There are plenty of astronomical charts available online which will help you verify whether anything should be there. If not, this one goes, too.

Temperature inversion: This is the first mundane answer I thought of when I read your post. Astroboy14 explained this phenomenon well above, and I tend to agree with him. All sorts of erratic lights (cars on the highway, lights on buildings, etc.) exist on the ground, where they would normally not be visible at any distance. But a temperature inversion could conceivably project these lights into the sky, and perhaps play further havoc with their appearance so as to make them look very weird.

So, of all the non-X-Files explanations I can think of, I’d say the temperature inversion is the one that makes sense. You might want to do more research on this, though. I am not sure of the exact conditions under which your incident took place, nor am I sure of the exact conditions needed for a mirage-inducing temperature inversion. But if I were trying to get to the bottom of this, that’s where I’d start my research.

And I do encourage you to look into it further. In fact, I’m probably more amenable to oddball theories than most people here. I’m certainly not trying to play Donald Menzel and tell you to accept any explanation without verifying that it really fits with the facts. In my opinion, that’s just as bad as assuming it was the Venusians coming to get you :slight_smile:

-Andrew L

35

I’ll third the suggestion of helicopter activity. Fairly stationary in flight if they want to be, often use bright searchlights when searching and quite possibly associated with your nearby airport. They also, IIRC, have a red ID light usually.

36

One more thing that I didn’t think to mention that’s over in the direction that I saw the lights – a four-lane highway that circles the city. I find it incredible that car lights might have been responsible, but as I’ve said, I don’t know much about astronomy or meterology, I guess would be the case here. If it helps bolster the theory, the airport is beyond the circle highway.

And beyond yet is ANOTHER circle highway that goes around our city (but that one’s less busy). And to add, the airport is really not a very busy one. I took a friend once on a Saturday morning and her plane was the only one we saw leave the entire time we were there. I don’t know if they would use helicopters there for anything. I guess it’s possible. But I helicopter hovering for a least 45 minutes that late at night?

So, to recap, out there I’ve got two highways, four lanes each, and an airport to throw off light and possibly get bounced around in the atmosphere. I wonder if the phenomenon was visible from only my unique position, or if it was visible in other places, or in the exact opposite direction. Quite interesting!

37

Whoops, I just re-read. The airport lies beyond both highways. Not between, as it seems to read above.

38

So, how far away do you think these lights were ?

What are we talking here…2 miles ? 5 miles ?..10 ?

I still think choppers, maybe there was an accident on the highway.

If it is a temperature inversion thing, why would only two lights be affected, and what would be the orginal source of the lights in the first place ?