Close encounters

cocoshovel

Im usually not one for these kind of crazy things and find that 99% of the time the people who rant on about these kind of things are either ignorant or just plain stupid, and to be honest several of the posts on this forum have made me facepalm or laugh at how blatantly unaware people are or things.

Howver, I have seen 1 or 2 things which I cannot explain. Now before I get started, A: Im very well aware of what chinese lanternes look like and B: Im very interested in Aviation, so I can assure you I will know what an aircraft looks like when I see one regardless of how far away it is, I also have a mild understanding of weather.

Anyway, the most recent one I saw was around January 2011, I was driving home from town in the late evening and it was pitch black. I saw something come from the right hand side of the road, abotu 10-20ft high in the air and it was moving very fast. Like there was an extremely strong wind and there was a bag being thrashed about in it.
It moved from right to left over the road and appeared to move like a bird flying. Except it was glowing bright orange.... This is one thing I cannot explain at all. Definitely wasnt a chinese lantern because they do not move at the speed of rockets and move like birds.

The only possible thing I can think of was that there was a chimney fire or something alight on a house across the field (the closest one that side of the road was a good 200m away) and an large ember got caught in the wind. Ball lightening isnt really possible on very cold wet winter nights, as far as Im aware.

It was also about the size of a large crow if I remember correctly. Very strange whatever it was.


The second one was back when I was younger I was sitting in the car as a passenger. In the distance (a good 50+ miles) there was large plume of clouds. I could make out a silver ball move in a strange manner from behind the clouds and back out. It was moving straight up, straight down, left, right horizontally. Not moving like any Aircraft or Helicopter I have ever seen. It was just too precise and odd. It dont think it was ball lightening either as it wasnt the right type of weather at the time, but hey I could be wrong. It seemed to be a good altitude too. Id say at least 10,000ft, probably double or triple that. It was silver, and metallic and moved very precisely.

I actually saw the exact same thing on one of those stupid UFO shows on TV a few years back and it sent shivers up my spine.

Ziycon

cocoshovel wrote: »

Im usually not one for these kind of crazy things and find that 99% of the time the people who rant on about these kind of things are either ignorant or just plain stupid, and to be honest several of the posts on this forum have made me facepalm or laugh at how blatantly unaware people are or things.

Howver, I have seen 1 or 2 things which I cannot explain. Now before I get started, A: Im very well aware of what chinese lanternes look like and B: Im very interested in Aviation, so I can assure you I will know what an aircraft looks like when I see one regardless of how far away it is, I also have a mild understanding of weather.

Anyway, the most recent one I saw was around January 2011, I was driving home from town in the late evening and it was pitch black. I saw something come from the right hand side of the road, abotu 10-20ft high in the air and it was moving very fast. Like there was an extremely strong wind and there was a bag being thrashed about in it.
It moved from right to left over the road and appeared to move like a bird flying. Except it was glowing bright orange.... This is one thing I cannot explain at all. Definitely wasnt a chinese lantern because they do not move at the speed of rockets and move like birds.

The only possible thing I can think of was that there was a chimney fire or something alight on a house across the field (the closest one that side of the road was a good 200m away) and an large ember got caught in the wind. Ball lightening isnt really possible on very cold wet winter nights, as far as Im aware.

It was also about the size of a large crow if I remember correctly. Very strange whatever it was.


The second one was back when I was younger I was sitting in the car as a passenger. In the distance (a good 50+ miles) there was large plume of clouds. I could make out a silver ball move in a strange manner from behind the clouds and back out. It was moving straight up, straight down, left, right horizontally. Not moving like any Aircraft or Helicopter I have ever seen. It was just too precise and odd. It dont think it was ball lightening either as it wasnt the right type of weather at the time, but hey I could be wrong. It seemed to be a good altitude too. Id say at least 10,000ft, probably double or triple that. It was silver, and metallic and moved very precisely.

I actually saw the exact same thing on one of those stupid UFO shows on TV a few years back and it sent shivers up my spine.

If you haven't already you can report your sighting here, http://www.ufoi.org/report-an-incident.htm

chrishaaansen

Cokeistan wrote: »

I experienced one a few months back. I was walking with my friend at around 9pm, it was pitch black outside. While my friend is talking to me I decide to look in the direction of the sky on his side. Next thing I see this flash in the sky that was like lightening, but it only covered a really small area of the sky. The flash lasted half a second and out of the flash this bright blue dot appeared and shot away at incredible speed. My friend wasn't looking in the same direction so not only did he fail to see the flash but also the blue dot flying away. This all happened in the space of about 2 seconds, really strange!

I experienced something similar about 18 months ago with two friends in the north west. We were walking to a friends house around 11:30pm, when we decided to stop for a cigarette. While talking a giant blue orb appeared in the horizon over a house as if it came up from the ground. It hovered there for about a second or two and exploded outwards and disappeared lighting up the sky in the process. It stopped the three of us mid sentence and we nearly wet out ourself on the spot! Having looked at numerous pictures and descriptions of ball lightning and blue sprites I am positive it wasn't either of them. Any one have any other suggestions?

H3llR4iser

A couple of times, many years ago. The first one was when I was 13 or 14, in middle school (I am from Italy). Last hour of lesson, very "interesting" as I was absolutely looking of the window. All of a sudden, a peculiar "craft" catches my attention; Imagine it as a teardrop-shaped orange blob, with two similarly shaped "pods" attached at each side of it, at the bottom. The general shape & size was that on an helicopter, but there was no sound nor any visible rotors. It also flew more like a plane - straight, stable and very fast. One of my classmates blurted, mid lesson, "what the hell is that thing?"
Never saw any pictures of anything even similar, might very well have been some RC toy (although it was 1992-1993 and they weren't that popular) or an old light plane (there were some made in odd shapes in the past).

Second one, it was 1999. August evening, I was hanging out with some friends. All of a sudden one of them goes "hey, is that an UFO?". We all laughed at him because he had a reputation as a prankster. He kept insisting that we took a look, that he wasn't kidding - and he looked scared. So we do, and there is indeed a bright light in the sky, just visible off the top of a building. "Helicopter" we dismiss it, but it starts moving towards the right of our FOV - wavy and very fast movement - only to come to a sudden halt. Then it struck us that we couldn't hear a sound - it was no chopper. It finally started moving away from where we were, I tried to get my friends to go in the street so we could see better, but then I realized they were all absolutely taken over by fright. The object accelerated to a what looked like a very high speed and disappeared in the distance.
Now, back then there was the Balcan crisis and, being in Naples, I was used at seeing all types of military craft movements - including a spectacular formation of 15 Apache Gunships flying over the city and to the airport. The object I saw could have been an experimental aircraft - however, are we so sure that the concept of an experimental, gravity defying, physics bending military aircraft is any more believable than the "not terrestrial" explanation?