Astronomer help please

[kittynh]

Ignore the woo crop circle part. I'm working on that angle elsewhere.

But I would like a good explaination for the circling lights in the sky.

here is the question I got...........................................................................................................................................................................................................


This happened a few years ago but I never was able to figure out what
it was. On a night there was supposed to be a meteor shower my family
and I were outside and we saw four lights in a perfect square rotating
just above the horizon. They weren't rotating around anything. The next
day I went to my farm a few miles from where we saw the lights and there
were twenty or thirty circles (perhaps 10ft. in diameter) burnt in the
grass over my ten acre farm. Between each circle was tire tracks but
the tires were only maybe two feet apart. Anything you could tell me
about this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.


..................................................................................................................................................................................................................thanks for any help in answering this question!

 

[fuelair]

My immediate thought for both is helicopter(s) - but I didn't see them so can't prove/disprove. The crop circles could have been person(s) on small ATV. (based on the 2' apart tire tracks).

 

[kittynh]

yeah, I'm not having too much trouble with the crop circles.

When you see tire marks, it probably not aliens.

Unless it was those ET kids on bikes.

But the 4 lights. I don't think they were related to the meteor shower. My feeling is that people rarely really LOOK up at the sky. When they do, they see things that they are unfamiliar with. But if you are an astronomer, you are familiar with most of the stuff up there. Which is often odd looking, but easily explained.

 

[Kopji]

What was the orientation of the four lights? By the description, it sounds like they were viewed end on, like looking at a wheel.

If the lights were oriented horizontally, the 'circular motion' is not really an observation, but more like a conclusion.

 

[Kopji]

Trying to make my question more clear because the person's description of the rotating lights seems ambiguous to me.

If the lights appeared 'perfectly square' to the viewer - that seems very unlikely. Of all the thousands of potential viewers around, for the lights to appear perfectly square to them seems at least odd.

My thinking would be that most viewer would see a perfect square as some kind of parallelogram, it would still be a square but would appear diamond-like to most viewers.

Seen on edge, a square could even be viewed as a single line of lights.

I'm not sure what to think of a 'perfect square' view. It seems almost egocentric, as if the crop circle makers were presenting something just to that particular viewer. Illusions seem to be much that way though, since the illusion is created in the viewer's mind.

 

[Goshawk]

I agree with Kopji that we need to have clarification of what "rotating" meant. What did it look like, exactly?

Four planes or jets, flying in formation at a particular angle when viewed from ground level, could momentarily have given the appearance of forming a "perfect square", moving in a certain direction that might have appeared as "rotating" because of the angle of the observer's line of sight.

 

[Hamradioguy]

Four planes or jets, flying in formation at a particular angle when viewed from ground level, could momentarily have given the appearance of forming a "perfect square", moving in a certain direction that might have appeared as "rotating" because of the angle of the observer's line of sight.

After half a century looking at things in the sky I've never seen anything that I or someone else was unable to explain. But for "high strangeness" USAF nighttime aerial refuling operations are right up there. If you don't know what's going on (and/or don't have binoculars) it can be a really weird sight. If the planse are any distance away often you won't hear any plane noises. It's a bit of a WAG (nothing to do with Jeff) but the phenomonon described might indeed be an aerial refuling operation

 

[kittynh]

cool! I just need to give some suggestions.

I can deal really well with most of the UFO stuff, like the crop circles. I got a lot more information about the circles, but wasn't sure what to ask or suggest about the lights in the sky.

The problem is so many people do NOT take photographs (like there should be tons of photos of these crop circles right?). As the years go by, the crop circles become more and more "weird" and "mysterious". But if something really mysterious happened to you, wouldn't you get your camera and snap off a few?

So I always try to get people to document! Plus, when you see something mysterious, it's important to write down everything - hopefully while you are watching it! Also, get descriptions from everyone else viewing!

Memory is deceptive. But most people don't believe that!

 

[Soapy Sam]

As they were outside to see meteors, I suppose the sky was not clouded over, but I once saw rotating lights on low cloud being projected from an open air pop concert. Pretty wierd.

Any suggestion of the size and spacing of the lights, even in angular terms? Were they on the horizon , 90 deg apart, or clustered in a small area?

Could stars be seen between the lights?

Were the lights coloured? Flashing? (Like nav lights).