Celestia Forums

I was looking in the sky about 9:50p.m. tonight (a little while ago today) and I saw some weird thing in the sky. Too small to tell what it was. It was blinking white, red, and green. It was right near the horizon, so by the time I got the big ol' telescope outta the closet, it had pretty much sunken below the horizon. I'd normally just pass it off as a plane, but it was too small, or too far away (you choose), and was barely moving. Now, I don't necessarily believe in "UFO's", so I was wondering if there were any satellites of this description above CT at about that time. It was in the southwest. Any ideas?

satellites don't blink Aircraft do

Helicopter?

One thing- people always think "AHH aliens!!" when they hear "UFO"- UFO just means you can't tell what it is (unidentified), not that it's some alien craft!!

I don't think it was a helecoptor, it was too small and was accompanied by no noise. Maybe it wasn't blinking, after all I do have horrible eyesight. Ah well, not really important.

Red-green-white are classic aircraft nav lights. I'd guess it was a plane, too distant for you to hear the sound.

Grant

Perhaps it was the ISS or some other bright satellite. If the object was that close to the horizon, the blinking colors could have been caused by atmospheric turbulence.

--Chris

A satellite would have set in the east, and would have been in Earth's shadow by the time it came to set.

Grant

I went to the surface at my towns lat. & long., and pretty much all satelites are far below the horizon. the only exception to this was Voyager 2, but I doubt that was it.

Sun of a gun! I saw the same little thing again! Except there was like 4 or 5 tonight. I bet they'll be here tomorrow too. My telescope isn't powerful enough, so I still can't tell what they are. One was in the same place as last time, and the others were flying around all over the place. My uncle works at Sikorski, which is pretty close by, so I'll call him tomorrow and see what he has to say.

Comanches.