Weird orange light moving in the sky - what did I just see?

Factual Questions
1

So my friend’s mom’s boyfriend has a houseboat out on the lake and we went to the marina to watch the fireworks show (which was, for some reason, postponed a day.) After the show was over, we supposedly saw the Space Station flying through space. Or so they said. I didn’t see it (I was a little too drunk to make out the little light, and I have bad vision to begin with.)

But I had no problem seeing the next light that moved across the sky: it looked like the light of a low-flying airplane - but it was orange. It went all the way across the lake and kept on going. “They don’t use orange lights in aviation,” my friend said. “It can’t be a plane.” Is he right? It was quite orange, not yellow and not white - orange like the color of an orange.

What on earth did I see?

2

Probably a white light from a low flying plane, with the short wavelengths scattered by all the smoke in the atmosphere.

3

Venus was very bright last nite.

4

Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and refracted the light from Venus.

OK, probably not. It could have been the reflection of sodium streetlamps off the belly of a plane.

5

Uh…not to sound like I’m doubting you…but you say you were drunk, have poor vision, and were watching fireworks, and saw a light in the sky?

Sailboat

6

Several years ago some guys in a small plane wanted to get in on the action. They tied some flares together (so they’d stay joined, but would be some distance apart), then lit them and dropped them from their plane. They may have put parachutes on them as well.

The resulting red lights linked togethe3r and apparently drifting in the sky, without going up or down or exploding, confused a lot of people. It got reported as a UFO.

Wouldn’t surprise me if something similar happened here.

7

I once saw an Iridium flare that looked as you described, but it did not persist for more than 10 seconds. My guess is that the object was the ISS, and what your friends initially identified as the ISS was in fact something else.

8

You were facing east.
It was after sunset for you but not for an ordinary plane moving in a north-south line. The plane’s aluminum surface was reflecting the orange glow from the sunset that was still on the horizon from the plane’s altitude.

9

Are you sure what you saw wasn’t TITTYBISCUITS?

10

I personally have created orange lights that lazily floated across the sky. They were cobbled together from a dry-cleaner’s bag, two packs of tiny birthday candles, and hibachi skewers. Just a crude, simple hot air balloon. On a good night with a light breeze, they’d rise a few hundred feet and drift farther than we could see before running out of candle wax. :smiley:

11

You saw nothing, sir.