Society for Popular Astronomy

I went outside a moment ago to check the sky and then returned indoors. While inside I saw through the window a very bright orange light in the East. I ran outside to see an extremely bright, soundless, fast object travelling from East to West. The time was 10:45pm, Summer Time.
The speed was a little faster than the Space Station.
As the object moved to the West (edit) it grew dimmer and seemed to pass into clouds, when the light grew too dim to see.
It did not look like the usual light that aircraft display. It was much brighter, and the orange colour was that of a burning wood fire.
Anyone have any ideas? It was much too fast to be a Chinese Lantern as there is virtually no wind.

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6"&10" homemade Newtonians, ASA DDM60 mount, SXV-M25C camera, MPCC coma reducer, Carey Mask for focusing
Website - http://geoastro.co.uk/

This report seems contradictory:
First it's stated that it was "travelling from East to West.
Then it says: As the object moved to the East.
So was it moving eastwards or westwards?

The excitement got me confused...
It moved East to West. There was no trail, and it didn't look like any of the fireballs I have seen.
If you imagine a sodium orange street light viewed at about 800 metres then that is pretty close to what it looked like.

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6"&10" homemade Newtonians, ASA DDM60 mount, SXV-M25C camera, MPCC coma reducer, Carey Mask for focusing
Website - http://geoastro.co.uk/

I saw a set of Orange lights last night, separated by 15 minutes.
No wind on the ground (I was in open countryside) yet they were
moving along quite rapidly.

They were Chinese Lanterns, I actually watched one of them land.
Irresponsible behaviour by the person setting them off, it was the hottest
day of the year for our area, and the crops in the fields are extremely dry.

Also, we are on the landing/take off flight path for a large airport, and these things
were crossing the path taken by aircraft.

I am 100% certain that my object was not a Chinese Lantern. It was moving fast. It covered almost horizon to horizon in about 45 seconds.
It also seemed far too bright.
It appeared to be below cloud level so was unlikely to be a fireball or meteor, and there was absolutely no trail.
I have looked on the Internet and found a few other reports of objects with a similar description.
Are there any aircraft that fly around shining bright orange lights?
There were definitely no accompanying flashes that are normal with aircraft lights. As I said, I could hear no engine noise.

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6"&10" homemade Newtonians, ASA DDM60 mount, SXV-M25C camera, MPCC coma reducer, Carey Mask for focusing
Website - http://geoastro.co.uk/

What do you reckon was the angular elevation of the object?

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brian

When I first saw it it was low in the sky in the East at about 10 degrees.
I estimate that it was coming from the Coventry direction towards Bromsgrove. The path was to the North of Bromsgrove and at greatest elevation was at about 65 degrees.

_________________
6"&10" homemade Newtonians, ASA DDM60 mount, SXV-M25C camera, MPCC coma reducer, Carey Mask for focusing
Website - http://geoastro.co.uk/

Dear GeorgeC
Fiendishly clever these Chinese !
I remeber Charlie Chan and his No 1 Son quite well.They never solved the mystery of the lights fired up above our local TGI Fridays though.
Best of luck from Cliff
PS Hope you solve your mystery orange objects !

Yes indeed. Anyone considering the mass release of "Sky Lanterns", or any other similar contraption, should be aware that it is an offence punishable by fine, custody (or both) to endanger an aircraft.

The Airspace Utilisation Section (AUS) of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) process/facilitate/notify (and, when appropriate, issue permissions) for large firework displays and mass toy balloon releases which are both regulated under the Air Navigation Order.  As "Sky Lanterns" are considered to be a combination of the two, all such releases should be notified to the AUS (giving as much notice as possible) in order for the appropriate action to take place.

For anyone interested the relevant information is available in CAP 736 and the associated document "CAA guidelines for toy balloon releases", available on request.

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David Entwistle

Hi GeorgeC,
I think these days when people see objects moving across the sky, and these people are quite experienced skywatchers, but cannot identify the object, I think we must then take into account that the object seen may have been a drone - an experimental unmanned aircraft. Over the past eight years I've had two such sightings. Both in daylight skies. The first one was about 11 o'clock in the morning. Judging by the clouds then, I'd say it was roughly five miles high. It was a semi-circular white object travelling much faster than a commercial aircraft would. It was travelling south to north. A colleague of mine when I told him said he'd seen a similar object himself about three weeks earlier, travelling the same direction.
The second object I saw was at 8.10 early one October morning 2006, travelling from east to west, viewing conditions were good. I didn't notice it till it was at its closest point to me. The colour was dull aluminium but bright, the object appeared bulbous in shape. The speed was no more than that of a helicopter. There was a bank of cumulus cloud which the object went into, so it couldn't have been more than about one and half miles high. I tried to remember straight afterwards, was there any noise? But I can't remember hearing any sound at all. Drones can be far from an aerodynamic shape, being balanced by computers etc. I hope this adds a little to your observation.
Sion

Thanks Sion.
Chances are high that it was a man made object rather than anything astronomical. The orange light was so bright that it must have been some sort of searchlight, but the odd thing is that it remained bright from the time I first saw it until it had passed me and started to receed. After that it rapidly dimmed.
I cannot understand why an aircraft (a soundless one) would have such a light.
This account from a chap in Australia is similar to my 'event'.
http://worldufos.blogspot.com/2008/01/p ... light.html

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6"&10" homemade Newtonians, ASA DDM60 mount, SXV-M25C camera, MPCC coma reducer, Carey Mask for focusing
Website - http://geoastro.co.uk/

Hi GeorgeC,
Yes the Australian report was interesting and very similar to yours. I can't think of any reason why they would need to use a light, especially a bright one as you saw. Other flying craft would be able to detect it using radar. But maybe small privately owned planes wouldn't have it. I'm guessing at that.
Sion

What I find interesting with the Australian report, is that
the chap first thought it was a Police helicopter with a
spotlight.

During my sighting the other night, the other people
observing with me had never actually seen a Chinese
Lantern before, and they all said it was a Police helicopter doing
a search with its spot light. The light was that bright.

They did not believe me at first when I said it was a Lantern.
Five minutes later, all doubt was removed when one went over the top
of us.

One thing I've noticed about these lanterns, is that they can
appear very strange looking, depending on the angled they are
viewed from.

George: Your sighting was almost certainly of a "sky lantern". Forty-five seconds local horizon to horizon, even allowing for relatively low horizons, is not atypical for other (all-too-numerous) lantern reports I've had over the last couple of years. They can, of course, be faster or slower than this sometimes.

The stillness of the surface air is no guide to the wind strength only a few tens of metres up. If you observe the sky long enough from Britain, you'll eventually spot some fog lifted into low cloud. That's at around these kind of heights, and can sweep across the whole sky in a similar time (the "record" for such fog in what I've seen is under 30 seconds, local eastern to western horizons in a near-rural, suburban area), yet on the ground, there's no wind, even at 10-metre tree-top heights. Lady Isabella's comments covered this precise effect excellently from her lantern sighting.

Alastair McBeath,
Meteor Director, Society for Popular Astronomy.
E-mail: <meteor@popastro.com> (messages under 150 kB in size only, please)

Hello Alastair.
I am still not convinced. I am trying to obtain meteorological data about what the wind was doing on that evening.
I found this report from a chap in Manchester who saw a similar object at about 10:30pm.
http://www.uk-ufo.co.uk/2009/07/worsley ... mment-1787

_________________
6"&10" homemade Newtonians, ASA DDM60 mount, SXV-M25C camera, MPCC coma reducer, Carey Mask for focusing
Website - http://geoastro.co.uk/