Ghosts and Other Paranormalities

[TaesoSpiritDragon]

That's really the best description I can give you short of a speed-paint sketch, it looks like the front-wake of an object going through the air behaving much like a giant plane, where the 'wings' are wide and the dip to the point that is the 'head' is very shallow.

[olympe]

I'm no expert, but from your description, it could be (faint?) polar lights - which can even be spotted in subtropical areas if the solar irradiance is particularly high. And, although I have no current data for solar irradiance, judging from the last three cycles, we should be at a irradiation maximum at the moment.

 

ETA: Here is a video featuring several instances of polar lights in motion. Do any of them look familiar?

 

Edited again: At which latitude do you live, and which color(s) did your phenomenon have?

Edited October 21, 2012 by olympe

[demonicvampiregirl]

I'm agreeing with Olympe. When I read that it did seem to sound like an Aurora. If that is the case you're lucky. I'd love to see one of them. :/

[TaesoSpiritDragon]

Unfortunately Olympe none of those match and are mostly time-lapse, this thing crossed the section of sky in a manner of 30 seconds.

 

"The color was slightly lighter than the sky at the horizon with the light pollution from the city, so it stood out fairly starkly in the upper half of the dark sky" <- should be recognizably understood that while the sky is dark blue/black, the apparition is a milkier blue similar to the effect light pollution in an urban neighborhood would have.

 

Whurf, I may have to take a break from commission work to sketch this out @_@

[TaesoSpiritDragon]

Ok fast update with a quick photomanip (since it's not nighttime yet) of approximately what I saw -

 

http://taesospiritdragon.deviantart.com/#/d5inc55

[epicguy10000]

I have never ever heard of this before, but it sounds interesting, hopefully somebody can figure this out, as I would like to know too

 

Not saying it's aliens but it's aliens

[Lil-Stinkpot]

I am having the darndest time finding the article I once read about it. I once saw something very similar, and it turned out to be a flock of birds flying in a vee formation, getting lit by the city lights below them. Mine were red, because of the reddish lights in the area, but they can be different.

 

I suppose that your vee could also be birds, a bit higher up, and lit less strongly. Possibly.

 

So far, here's the best I can find, a patheticly short snippet from one website: "for example, when flying at very high altitudes (some birds have been spotted flying as high as 40,000 feet or more)—birds can be highly reflective and, when wet, even appear to glisten like metal, giving them an “artificial” or metallic appearance".

 

 

ETA: blast. I give up. I know I read a wonderfully written description, but no play on keywords would bring up anything like it.

[TaesoSpiritDragon]

Hmm, interesting, though it didn't seem to flutter - did yours? For its size it was pretty darned high, I know that geese flocks tend to fly about 6-12 strong in any given V formation, which at the height this thing was - would hardly be visible, even if a flock was large enough to mimic the size, it'd be broken up in several clusters if my guess is accurate enough.

[LadyNightshade]

Not sure if it fits your description, being in a major migration flightpath for geese I can vouch for some pretty HUGE flocks (and all in one "V") this time of year.

 

 

Snow geese flock in millions (which results some big "V"s) and fly up pretty high and they also fly through the night.

 

 

Maybe that's helpful information?

[TaesoSpiritDragon]

Who knows really? We're not in any known flightpaths for migrating fowl, even if we have the small one flock of canada geese that plague our parking lots at the local mall about twice a year.

[earthgirl]

I know it might sound lame, but it appears to me that you saw an UFO.

 

I've seen several phenomena (well, not like this one) before, but when something weird like this happens, it's always an UFO - strange lights and shapes - check!

 

I've seen a couple of times before a point of light crossing the sky with speed and I'm sure it wasn't a meteor, plane or comet because they went horizontally and very close to land and both times they just suddenly flashed and disappeared. One of them even had a 'baby' light spot following the 'mother' one at the same speed.

 

The universe is a mystery indeed... That's just my theory though, lol.

Edited October 22, 2012 by earthgirl

[olympe]

Hmm, interesting, though it didn't seem to flutter - did yours? For its size it was pretty darned high, I know that geese flocks tend to fly about 6-12 strong in any given V formation, which at the height this thing was - would hardly be visible, even if a flock was large enough to mimic the size, it'd be broken up in several clusters if my guess is accurate enough.

Not necessarily. I've seen the occasional flock of migratory birds stretch over the whole sky as far as I could see. But, since the birds weren't geese, they didn't fly in anything like the V-shape.

 

Also, how can you tell for sure how high up the thing - whatever it was - was?

 

And, re color: The light pollution around here gives the sky a reddish tint, so that's what I naturally assumed you had.

[TaesoSpiritDragon]

Lemme pose you this question then Olympe - how do you know how high meteorites are if they don't have anything next to them to compare to?

 

Same goes for the birds you see (and enough rubbing it in about the flock size - I've been going on my own experience and a user before you has already mentioned large flocks and I'm fully aware flocks can get to massive proportions): often they're flying without anything near them for size comparison, yet somehow you can tell just how high they are - this is the same thing going on here.

Edited October 22, 2012 by TaesoSpiritDragon

[RWyvern]

I know it might sound lame, but it appears to me that you saw an UFO.

 

I've seen several phenomena (well, not like this one) before, but when something weird like this happens, it's always an UFO - strange lights and shapes - check!

 

I've seen a couple of times before a point of light crossing the sky with speed and I'm sure it wasn't a meteor, plane or comet because they went horizontally and very close to land and both times they just suddenly flashed and disappeared. One of them even had a 'baby' light spot following the 'mother' one at the same speed.

 

The universe is a mystery indeed... That's just my theory though, lol.

Just gonna comment on this - with all this hype about aliens in recent years, it seems that most people have forgotten that UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. Nothing to do with extraterrestrials. So you saw an object which can't be identified. Now whether it was something trivial or truly out of the ordinary, it can't be identified as of now, so that pretty much labels it as a UFO

 

I have seen various weird things in my time watching the night skies. Five or so years ago I saw what appeared to be an extremely faint Aurora Australis - it was about 2:00 in the morning and I randomly looked outside. The sky was divided into three horizontal bands - the widest one at the top was a lighter colour than a regular night sky - more a dark blue. The lowest and second widest band was definitely darker than the first, but still clearly blue. The thinnest band was in the middle and was a very dark blue - just about black. All three were flickering ever so slightly. Of course I freaked out and hid under the blankets >_> Never seen another like it since.

 

I bet I have seen way more - probably various UFOs in the sky and comets etc. I saw a huge comet just a year or two after the aforementioned sight. It's core was about as wide as your thumbnail at arm's length ad the tail was nearly as long as your forearm while holding your hand out. Overall it was very impressive and took half an hour to cross the sky from North to South

[TaesoSpiritDragon]

I remember seeing something similar to that as well Wyvern! It was about the same number of years ago in Maine. We knew that borealis were showing surprisingly lower than they normally do, and when we looked at the sky it was banded as you described, but seemed to culminate to a dark patch like a star, but it flickered as well just like an Aurora.

 

Awesome comet sighting though! The only large one I've seen was the span of my forearm (long tail) but pencil thin with twin wake trails coming from the 'top' and 'bottom'.

 

Also I'm sorry if I sounded snippy about my response to Olympe, but her question is basically the equivalent of asking how high a certain cloud is without anything around it to base it's distance with, or how deep the water is without actually seeing the bottom or rocks to gauge it with :/

[jediknightkrazy]

I'm pretty sure it was some sky formation; unlikely to be one of those tiny fast clouds, but likely an aurora thingy.

 

I have seen many strange clouds in the sunset, most of them orangey pinky, and some of them are so fast, you can make a timelapse set to half a second, and they'll zoom, where as the other clouds are much slower. It could have been a cloud, some smoke/pollution like the stuff it was blocked by, a rocket, plane cloud waste stuff, an aurora, it could really be many, many things.

Edited October 22, 2012 by jediknightkrazy

[_Charky]

I know it might sound lame, but it appears to me that you saw an UFO.

Of course she did.

UFO = Unidentified Flying Object, which this is. Currently.

[Pixxelation]

My theory: the universe wanted to give me a birthday present

 

That is strange. I wonder what it was?

[earthgirl]

Of course she did.

UFO = Unidentified Flying Object, which this is. Currently.

I knew very well what UFO means.

 

Think it was improper to call it a 'spaceship with aliens on board'. I'd get stoned for it and I'm just not fully convinced myself.

[RWyvern]

I'm pretty sure it was some sky formation; unlikely to be one of those tiny fast clouds, but likely an aurora thingy.

 

I have seen many strange clouds in the sunset, most of them orangey pinky, and some of them are so fast, you can make a timelapse set to half a second, and they'll zoom, where as the other clouds are much slower. It could have been a cloud, some smoke/pollution like the stuff it was blocked by, a rocket, plane cloud waste stuff, an aurora, it could really be many, many things.

Do you mean at the same time? I often see clouds moving faster than others at the same time. The reason is because the atmosphere is made up of several layers, and different clouds form on different layers. Wind speeds vary per layer, so that's why some clouds move much faster than others. I regularly see Stratus and Cirrus clouds behaving like this. The Cirrus clouds can be flying along whereas the Stratus clouds are barely moving. It looks interesting, particularly when the Cirrus is heading Northeast for example, and the Stratus is headed Northwest :3

 

That's what that appears to be, reading your description, unless you would care to explain it in more detail.

Edited October 23, 2012 by rampaging wyvern

[Dragonhatchling]

I've seen this before at my park... (the only place darkish enough to actually be considered dark thanks to the streetlight we have right outside our house) and it wasn't meteorites. I checked. Plus, they don't really do what was drawn and described...

but to give a light description of my house and park. The only light that is bothersome enough is the streetlight... "my" park is about 8 or 9 huge blocks away from my house. No lights anywhere. A huge wide open space of no trees. There's a forest in the back but really far far off from the field I was in.

 

When I saw this it was about a year ago, around the same day you mentioned Taeso (if I can call you that).

 

Now do take into account I live in the southern area of New York nearby (but not too too nearby) the Great Lakes and close (about 20mins) from the Pennsylvania border. I live in a city but by no means is it a city like New York City with tons of lights... downtown is the major light section and the park is half an hour away from that, and also facing the opposite direction from any lights. The forest covers any light that I could possibly see if I turned around. There's no other town or city for another two or three miles and those are up and down through hills... hills covered these lights guranteed. No airport anywhere near us for miles and miles. We hardly ever see planes to begin with.

 

Anyway, so I have seen this shape as I said, about the same day basically but a year ago. I haven't yet figured out what it was and nor have my friends (two friends were with me at the time. It was midnight (or about 15mins after midnights) and we were out taking a stroll to talk to each other since one of us was going to leave town the next day... moving to Maine nontheless.

 

So that's three people who saw it, counting me. It acted the same way you described... and I can't say I can describe it much better than the drawing. Though I never actually lost it. It just kept flying in an easternly direction until it became too small to see. It had the odd milky blue color and the same shape. Where I live we don't really have an issue with air polution ever. Plus, it was a clear night sky with no clouds at all. No extra lights. The place where we were didn't have any cars nearby to blind us either. The sky was pitch black (and I mean black when I say it so this 'thing' stuck out pretty darn well).

 

When we first saw it we were just gazing up at the sky and noticed this redish green/yellow flash for a second before the odd shape presented itself. It then started the "S" pattern of flight toward the east, curving and manuvering like you explained Taeso. It never slowed down, never really got smaller like it was getting higher and the only reason it "disappeared" was because it moved far enough away from as far as we could chase after it to no be seen with the naked eye. It lasted for a good minute or so to cover the length of the field (which was about 1080 feet).

 

Unfortunately, none of us have a photo. I'm not too savvy with cellphones... so I never figured out how to work the camera on mine and the other two friends were too confused to think to take a photo. As was I. And I wish I had... but we were more busy with the possibility of it maybe landing somewhere and chasing the path it took to think of a photo.

 

I hope to figure out what this was one day. I also know it isn't an Aurora... I've seen 5 Auroras in my life so far and I know what they look like (they're very very cool).

[TaesoSpiritDragon]

@Dragonhatchling - of course you may call me Taeso I have always responded to that name for the last five years, no sense trying to say the entire username!

 

Hmmm.. interesting that it was a year ago in another location. I never saw the flash, but for some reason I happened to look at the location it appeared. Was it perceived at the same height as mine was? Near the cirrus cloud level yet higher?

 

Four witnesses and the same behavior/shape, hmm, definitely interesting.

[Obscure_Trash]

Since the Strange Sky Phenomena topic seemed to be focusing on the paranormal aspect of things, I have merged it with the paranormal thread. :3

[TaesoSpiritDragon]

>_< I was trying to show someone the link and it broke on them, wasn't until I tried to search past link problems that I noticed the merge XP

[Ssoniaa]

Unfortunatelly I have to say that I belive in some sort of paranormal activities. Where it comes from?

At first, from my house. It's been recently renovated, but house was built just before I WW. From the beggining it was our family house. Now my grandparents and grandgrandparents already gone, but we think that sometimes they made us remember about them.

 

Once I was reading a book, it was very late, ust before midnight. My parents and sister were already sleeping. I was going to turn off light and fell aspleep too, but suddenly I heard something strange from the kitchen downstairs. Someone was moving the furniture. It was this characteristic sound of moving something on the floor. I was really scared. I was sure it wasn't anyone from my family, because they were sleeping. I knew that. So one more thought - maybe a bulglar? But it couldn't be. My house, especially during renovation didn't look like worth of rubery. And kitchen is situated downstairs, and to enter the house you have to use door upstairs. It would be loud. At the morning I told what i heard to my parents, and we checked If something is missing. Everything was on it's place. Till today we don't know what was that sound.

 

And this is not only a one story like that. But all of them, were rather positive. I mean, excluding our scare it wasn't anything wrong.