UFO - What Did I See?

[HewManHeMan]

Right so, to set the tone; I don't believe aliens are visiting or have visited Earth. It's a fun idea, but no.

I'm also very sober and very boring. I almost enjoy finding the mundane in seemingly brilliant events. I'm not religious, I often find the idea of religion slightly offensive, and I don't believe in the super natural or magic. Science, physics and maths blow my mind sufficiently enough to worry about, well you know. Other stuff.

With that in mind, some weeks back, off I trot up to the boarders to view and (hopefully) photograph the recent Perseid Meteor shower. With the added bonus of ISS flying over, and maybe a glimpse of the Milky Way. I saw some amazing meteors, just managed to spot ISS and the faintest glimpse of the Milky Way. I royally bksed up any photo taking through lack of experience, but it was a good lesson and I'm happy just to be learning.

But what's stuck in my mind since, was a little random red dot that went traveling through the sky that night. It was moving at the speed of a regular satellite, but moving in seemingly random directions. I first noticed it coming from the East, traveling West, but changed course towards the North just as it was overhead. Think of it's path as being a raggedy U shape.
It basically looked like Mars, if you could see Mars quite clearly, and Mars had gained rocket boosters and decided to relocate but had forgotten how to drive.

At first I assumed 'Chinese Lantern' but having set some of those off at a birthday party last weekend (apologies to nature, I know they're not the best) it was not a lantern.
There was some air traffic in the area, but given the lack of ambient noise you could hear any aircraft very clearly, and this was moving far too randomly (and silently) to be an aircraft.

And, after that, I'm out of ideas. I can't help but think either someone here with knowledge of such matters will explain what I saw with a one word answer (weather balloon?) or nobody will and you'll all think I'm making it up.

BTW I did try to video it with my iPhone, but it's just a black mess of digital noise. If I can find the time and energy I could maybe run it through a video editor and try to clean it up, but I'm not that hopeful (or arsed)

Edit, getting this in before anyone else does;

Edited by HewManHeMan on Wednesday 16th September 09:52

[Eric Mc]

A lost bird?

[HewManHeMan]

Eric Mc said:

A lost bird?

A glowing red one visible at midnight?

I suppose if it was a massive swan reflecting the setting sun, then yeah, but it would have had to have been one big white bird! And also been one aerobatic badass.

Edited by HewManHeMan on Wednesday 16th September 10:00

[Eric Mc]

You would be surprised what can be seen in low ambient light - especially if your eyes have become dark adapted. I've often seen birds flitting through starfields on dark nights.

[jmorgan]

Could be a few things. Problem is at night the human is not very good at this where no reference is readily available. Aircraft can appear to be silent, the air travels at different speeds and directions in the atmosphere so what you have a ground level is not always what is up there. It can make the obvious noisy jet seem quiet as a church mouse.

Chinese lanterns will do this as well, the disorientating the eye and direction and as you have no reference, they are often dismissed so must be aliens....

Also it changes direction overhead, probably will if you are trying to track it with the mark I.

[Crush]

The U2 spy plane can appear as a red dot, but I doubt it'd be flying erratically (although I was reading about pilots who we're suffering DCS the other day!)

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/kille...

[Einion Yrth]

My guess would be aircraft, but I don't know. It would be kind of ironic if it were aliens, since you don't believe in them.

[HewManHeMan]

Ha. Well I believe there'll be other forms of life spread across the universe but I don't think one example was driving around the sky that night.

But it was certainly a very weird sight! Not something you see every day, and still - to my mind - very much unexplained.

[Eric Mc]

It depends on your mind set. If you WANT it to remain unexplained, that's the way it will stay.

We could throw all sorts of more rational and logical explanations to you - but probably you will accept none of them.

[RegMolehusband]

Read the OP's description again carefully and give us few please Eric?

[jmorgan]

Have read. Not seeing ET on a mission to probe anyone.

[Eric Mc]

RegMolehusband said:

Read the OP's description again carefully and give us few please Eric?

I did.

But those who believe, always believe. They are incurable.

It's just like any irrational belief system. There is no point in engaging or discussing. Peoples' minds are fixed.

[RegMolehusband]

Eric, you referred to "all sorts of more rational and logical explanations" but so far you've come up with a lost bird. The OP doesn't believe in aliens and and the like anyway, he was sufficiently struck by what he saw to hope for some rational explanations - which is presumably why he posted in Science!

[Eric Mc]

And I offered him one. Others offered alternatives.

No point in repeating what others have said.

[jmorgan]

You can boil many down to simple human frailties in observations. A windy turbine losing a blade had some claim UFO for gawds sake. Rather than look for the rational, the search will be on to fit it to ET, indeed hammer the round peg into the square hole as hard as they can.

[LordGrover]

Eric Mc said:

You would be surprised what can be seen in low ambient light - especially if your eyes have become dark adapted. I've often seen birds flitting through starfields on dark nights.

or... what you saw was aliens which you mistook for birds because:

Eric Mc said:

It depends on your mind set. If you WANT it to remain unexplained, that's the way it will stay.

We could throw all sorts of more rational and logical explanations to you - but probably you will accept none of them.

Or maybe, it was the aliens influencing your thoughts.
Perhaps with the random noise generator they've provided to the Daily Mail to generate 'news'.

[Eric Mc]

I tend to go with the more likely explanation to be honest.

[HewManHeMan]

Crikey.

Eric, I'm sorry but i don't think it was a bird. I realise you're talking to an internet stranger and the Internet is home to the dullest and weirdest and most crackpot-but-fixed mind lunatics available, but I'm not one of them. I appreciate there's no way for you to verify that, however, you'll just have to take my word for it. Or not, it makes no real odds.

And yeah, the romantic in me would love it to be *something* from... Mars? But the chances of anything coming from there are a million to one!

I posted out of curiosity at to what the Science forum might come up with, or if anyone's spotted anything similarly bizarre. An explanation doesn't keep me up at night, and I'm not sitting here in a tinfoil hat just in case*

• because their advanced mind control techniques wouldn't allow it, obviously.

[Eric Mc]

Listen to the first few minutes of this you tube clip ESPECIALLY to his take on the validity of single eyewitness evidence-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkjkh3OrjeA

[Munter]

Drone. Sent out played about a bit, and returned in a U shape to about where it came from.