# What did I see in the night sky? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 15, 2013, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442 "2013-02-15T22:29:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/21 "2013-02-16T16:53:36Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Saying it happened sometime in the 1980’s or 1990’s is pretty vague. As precisely as possible, when did it happen? Fair enough - I will try to answer each of these question. To narrow it down, it would be 1981 to 1985. > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > How old were you at the time? 9 to 12 years old > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Where were you at the time? (The particular city, at least.) It was a small city in India and it was very clean skies with very little scattering since there was very little light pollution. The latitude and longitude are 23.17° N, 79.95° E > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I’m presuming that you were just outside your house at the time, so can you remember where in relation to your house you were? I was on the roof of the house. In India, it was common practice to have your bed in the roof in the summers. The time was around 10pm. > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > It would be nice to know what direction you were looking. I was looking straight up. Also - I was taught to recognize constellations (although by the India names) as a kid. The stars (or objects in the sky) between which this happened were as far apart as the total span of the Big Dipper. > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Was anyone else with you? What did they say they saw? Yes. I was so engrossed looking at it - that I just looked on in awe. It was over in a few seconds. I asked - did you’ll see that !!! … > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Did you tell anyone else at the time? What are their memories of what you said at the time? Yes - most of them dismissed it. Since there was a Skylab scare a couple of years back, many said it maybe something secret to do with “space experiments” ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/22 "2013-02-16T16:59:05Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > ? I mean, all meteors seem to originate at one point in the sky, and terminate at another; that there’d be a star at each point is not too much of a coincidence. The distinction to me is that Meteors get hot only when they enter the earth’s atmosphere and get heated up by friction with the atmosphere. I am pretty certain this object did not enter the atmosphere. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/23 "2013-02-16T17:09:01Z")
A meteor can, by coincidence, start near a bright star (i.e. in the apparent direction of a bright star) and end near another bright star. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/24 "2013-02-16T17:10:54Z")
Sounds like a satellite to me. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/25 "2013-02-16T17:22:04Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > The distinction to me is that Meteors get hot only when they enter the earth’s atmosphere and get heated up by friction with the atmosphere. I am pretty certain this object did not enter the atmosphere. How could you tell? ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/26 "2013-02-16T17:49:19Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > How could you tell? You are right - I couldn’t tell for sure - here’s some of the reason why I think so : 1\> It moved faster than I’ve seen other meteors to move 2\> It had more of a bluish color than most meteors and it did not get brighter 3\> It was much smaller in size - comparable to small part of a star (keep in mind the distance) 4\> It moved “horizontally” in the sky - most meteors I have seen seem to be falling I get it that the most likely explanation is that it was a meteor and I must have confused it. Now assume for a moment - It was not a meteor !! Is there any other explanation ? ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/27 "2013-02-16T17:58:13Z")
[Video footage](http://youtu.be/RLy21WAG8A0?t=14m1s) ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/28 "2013-02-16T18:01:36Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > [Video footage](http://youtu.be/RLy21WAG8A0?t=14m1s) That was a great show. Big fan of John Lithgow - met him in real life - a great guy!! ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/29 "2013-02-16T18:04:18Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > 1\> It moved faster than I’ve seen other meteors to move > 2\> It had more of a bluish color than most meteors and it did not get brighter > 3\> It was much smaller in size - comparable to small part of a star (keep in mind the distance) > 4\> It moved “horizontally” in the sky - most meteors I have seen seem to be falling This matches up with about 98% of the meteors I’ve seen. Note: Point 1 wouldn’t have made sense to me except I did see a large meteor a few years ago, and it seemed to be closer, larger and slower than all the little ones I saw growing up. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/30 "2013-02-16T18:11:29Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > 1\> It moved faster than I’ve seen other meteors to move > 2\> It had more of a bluish color than most meteors and it did not get brighter > 3\> It was much smaller in size - comparable to small part of a star (keep in mind the distance) > 4\> It moved “horizontally” in the sky - most meteors I have seen seem to be falling Speed, apparent size, and angle all vary very widely among meteors; as for the color, a bluish tint is actually not uncommon—it’s caused by the presence of iron, and iron-nickel is a quite common meteor composition. > [@](#): > > Now assume for a moment - It was not a meteor !! Is there any other explanation ? Well, you could of course come up with all kinds of phenomena fitting you general description, but for most practical purposes, the ‘looks-like-a-duck-quacks-like-a-duck’-strategy is best. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/31 "2013-02-16T18:24:17Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Speed, apparent size, and angle all vary very widely among meteors; as for the color, a bluish tint is actually not uncommon—it’s caused by the presence of iron, and iron-nickel is a quite common meteor composition. Okay agreed. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Well, you could of course come up with all kinds of phenomena fitting you general description, Well - like what ? Give me some examples of some the “all kinds of phenomena” > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > but for most practical purposes, the ‘looks-like-a-duck-quacks-like-a-duck’-strategy is best. 😉 To me it sounds more like, I know only about the duck - so that bird you saw must be duck - you just weren’t good at observing its looks or quacks.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/32 "2013-02-16T19:22:00Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > I am pretty certain this object did not enter the atmosphere. There are thousands of UFO reports that indicate the observer thought Jupiter or Venus was a thousand feet away, or closer. Ditto for the cases where spent boosters created meteoric trails; witnesses swear they were very close, made intelligent maneuvers, etc. Even experienced pilots have made such misjudgments. I doubt you could have determined, with an inexperienced naked eye, whether such a streak was a hundred feet away or a hundred thousand. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/33 "2013-02-16T23:25:18Z")
I don’t doubt that-- I know for certain that the OP couldn’t have determined how far away it was. There’s just no mechanism by which our eyes can possibly determine that, and so what we think is a determination of distance is just our brains being too smart for our own good. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/34 "2013-02-17T00:20:00Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > Give me some examples of some the “all kinds of phenomena” Firefly? ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/35 "2013-02-17T03:12:50Z")
Could it have been a stage of a space shuttle or other rocket launch? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/36 "2013-02-17T03:21:21Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > 1\> It moved faster than I’ve seen other meteors to move > 2\> It had more of a bluish color than most meteors and it did not get brighter > 3\> It was much smaller in size - comparable to small part of a star (keep in mind the distance) > 4\> It moved “horizontally” in the sky - most meteors I have seen seem to be falling > … > Now assume for a moment - It was not a meteor !! Is there any other explanation ? I don’t think anything can appear to move across the sky faster than a meteor. Satellites are much further away and therefore appear to move slowly across the sky. Perhaps a fast aircraft or missile might appear faster than a meteor, if it’s very close to the observer, but that’s about all I can think of. Some meteors are much brighter than others (the one in Russia a few days ago was brighter than the Sun). And a brighter meteor may appear to move faster, and be bright enough for you to see a color tint. (Most meteors are so dim that you can’t see any color.) And meteors can move “horizontally”. Honestly, every description you’ve given here is perfectly consistent with a bright meteor (i.e. fireball). ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/37 "2013-02-17T06:14:56Z")
If you think about the geometry of the objects in question, some aspects can only be coincidence. Stars are a very long way away, and they have a very large variation in distance. Stars vary in their intrinsic brightness by a very large extent, so there is little correlation between their apparent brightness and hos close they are to us. So any two stars you see in the sky, may look close together from your view point on the Earth, but could be separated by arbitrary distances, which could vary from a few light years at a minimum, to many thousands of light years. For any object to traverse the distance between two stars, it would take many many years. If you could see the object at the distances involved, it would have to be as bright as a star itself - which could only mean another star. So, simple physics tells us that the stars in the sky had no relationship to the object you saw move. The object simply moved far to fast, and was much too bright (both by billions of times) for it to be possible to be related in any way. So, we are left with an object moving close enough to you that its motion is feasible in some sensible manner. That leaves us with satellites and meteors. Given the object was very briefly seen and moved reasonably quickly it is most likely a meteor, but as described above, there are some satellites that could have created such a track. But it is much less likely. Most satellites are obvious once you see them. (Watching the polar orbit Earth observation satellites pass overhead in the early evening is a very pleasurable pastime.) And in the end you have the brain. Our brains are very heavily biased to look for correlation in what they experience. The brain will take any two disconnected stimuli, and if they occur within some short range of one another (time wise, spatially, visually etc) the brain will try very hard to tie them together, and sometimes creates an almost unshakable feeling of connectedness between them. Lots of interesting and amusing illusions and practical jokes depend on this. So if amongst the hundreds of meteors you no doubt observed in your life, you saw one that, from your vantage point, seemed to start coincident in the sky with a star, and tracked to another point in the sky that from your vantage point also held a star, your brain will make a very strong connection, and feed that down to your consciousness as a single, very notable, event. We all gets such odd things happen in our lives. We live long enough that it is an almost certainty. My attitude is to celebrate them, as they tell us something deep about our inner workings. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/38 "2013-02-17T12:16:10Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > Well - like what ? Give me some examples of some the “all kinds of phenomena” Satellite flares, fireflies, rogue particles of ionizing radiation emitting Cherenkov light while traversing the vitreous humor, hallucinations, rocket parts, deorbiting satellites, and many other things (and yes, once you go far enough down the likelihood hierarchy, there’s aliens, too). > [@](#): > > To me it sounds more like, I know only about the duck - so that bird you saw must be duck - you just weren’t good at observing its looks or quacks.😉 Well, at least according to your description, it seemed duck-like in every respect, and you’re asking whether it might not just have been a genetically altered loon. And yes, it might have been; but there’s simply not sufficient reason to believe so. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/39 "2013-02-17T12:34:34Z")
Have we considered the possibility that it was actually a duck? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442/40 "2013-02-17T15:16:14Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > …rogue particles of ionizing radiation emitting Cherenkov light while traversing the vitreous humor… I _told_ you I had seen that neutrino. But it also could have been rogue radiation activating a cell in the visual cortex, creating to what amounts to an optical impression. That has never been addressed, and I share the OP’s frustration. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-night-sky/650442.md?page=3)