StillSleepy
Muse
Floating pieces of roofing bubble wrap (metallic on one side, white on the other) have confused the **** out of me on a few occasions.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
I saw a UFO once. It was on my first trip to America, and I was driving from LA to Vegas for TAM7. On one very long straight stretch of road I idly looked out the window and saw a bright point of light, which seemed to be following along with the vehicle. It passed behind some clouds, and after a while it vanished without a trace.
I still don't know exactly what it was. My best guess is that it was an Iridium flare.
ETA: I wasn't driving. hcmom was driving - I was the passenger.
I still don't know exactly what it was. My best guess is that it was an Iridium flare.
ETA: I wasn't driving. hcmom was driving - I was the passenger.
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Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
Could it have been a satellite which vanished when it went into the earth's shadow?
In the summer of 69 I spied three ufos. To my eye they where just point like stars and that's what I thought they were until two moved a short distance apart in relation to another star nearby from each other then stopped. I observed them for a few more minutes, but no further movement was seen. I then observed another part of the night sky a few degrees away and once again saw a point of light move a short distance and stop. No further movement was seen. In the summer of 72 under a featureless overcast sky I spied an orange ball of light slowly moving under the cloud cover in a straight path. I watched it for as long as possible until my view was blocked by trees. Both by definition were ufos.
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Satellites are usually not bright enough to be seen through a car window. And Iridium flare is a possibility, but they do not last long.
I think the ISS (which of course is technically also a satellite) is the best fit, and as you say, it could disappear into the Earth's shadow, which I have seen often enough if the transit happened long after sunset.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
Can't immediately think of a possible explanation for the first one, but the orange ball of light might well have been a sky lantern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_lantern
My nephew and his new wife launched one at their wedding reception here in the UK a few years ago, it seems to have become a thing.
And yes, steenkh, the ISS was the satellite I thought most likely. It's easily the brightest.
Can't immediately think of a possible explanation for the first one, but the orange ball of light might well have been a sky lantern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_lantern
My nephew and his new wife launched one at their wedding reception here in the UK a few years ago, it seems to have become a thing.
And yes, steenkh, the ISS was the satellite I thought most likely. It's easily the brightest.
I thought of the lantern too but the lanterns I've seen in person flicker. This orange light was steady. Perhaps the earlier occurances were 3 satellites in a geostationary orbit repositioning.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
I note from the wiki article that they've been banned in some countries because of the fire hazard. Perhaps some enterprising soul has started manufacturing them with an led inside instead of a candle.
ETA: Just googled 'sky lantern led'
www.intrepidlife.com/helium-and-led-sky-lanterns/
Yep.
Possibly. ISTR there was a new type of supply rocket which was sent up to the ISS, and which stood off for a while for checks before docking. That apparently produced a spate of UFO reports.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Please don't take this personally.
One of the factors we need to consider in this particular account is that it's a recollection of something seen almost fifty years ago. So we need to take into account not only the known issues with human perception in the moment, but also known issues with the consistency of human memory over time.
At fifty year's remove, I don't think we can make any reasonable analysis of this UFO sighting. Even some basic "facts" such as the weather, the color of the light, it's steadiness, and even the year it was seen cannot be stipulated with any confidence.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
Ah. I missed the date of the orange ball sighting. Probably not an led in a sky lantern then. 
Allen773
Graduate Poster
We don’t.
I've been a skeptically minded person for a long time and well aware of the fallible nature of memory.
My recollection on this particular incident is clear. Here are some more details. I was early summer. As I said the sky was overcast *( completely with Stratus clouds). There was no wind at ground level and it was late evening. I estimate the light was between 60°- 75° looking east above my head moving slowly drifting, I would say from north to south. Which allowed me to observe It throughly without any surprise. It was orange in color. I observed no other lights associated with it. The year was 71 or 72. The date for the other was mid **August of 69. As I said, I have a clear memory of both observed occurances. I never asked for an analysis. I was only relating an observed occurance.
*
** The reason I remember the older occurrence clearly is that where I live August tends to be humid with skies tending to be hazy. The sky on this night was unusually clear of haze and that's why I decided to star gaze and saw this unusual occurrence
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arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
Interesting that a ghost thread has turned into a UFO thread.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Previously you said 1972. Now you're saying 1971 or 1972.
Also I'm not sure that remembering more details is the same as rembering events accurately.
EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
A fighter jet with afterburner lit, if sufficiently high and also distant from you, would appear to "slowly" cross the sky from your perspective.
I"m nearly certain that this would be the best explanation for the "floating" fireball that I saw many years ago. Clear cloudless sky, no sound, no apparent movement, binoculars on it (birdwatcher).
Just disappeared into the black smoke associated with the fireball.
It is an explanation I am unhappy with, but only because I had (and have) no way of confirming it definitevely.
Aren't details necessarily a part of accuracy? Of course they are. The story is this. It's a short one and it goes like this. I saw a orange light moving across the sky.. Please don't think you see I'm intimating aliens, because I am not.
Status clouds have a maximum height of 6000-7000 feet depending on the reference used.. Keep in mind I'm looking east and the orange light is moving north to south. I would characterize it's speed as that of a single engine plane at low speed. Not a jet. Or perhaps someone had rigged a helium balloon to glow internally or maybe it was a Chinese lantern. What it was I will never know.
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EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
People always underestimate the difficulty of gauging distance, size and speed of any object against/in a featureless sky.
Even experienced sky watcher, plane spotters, pilots and birders for instance, can be fooled and certainly fool themselves. Even when you are aware of this, mistaken estimates are easy to make.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I don't think you're intimating aliens.
Inaccurate memories aren't characterized by the absence of detail, but by the presence of inaccurate detail.
This is one of the problems with trying to identify UFOs from secondhand reports. There's no way to be sure that the reporter is remembering the right details.
ETA: Earlier you said it was the summer of '72. Then you said it was the summer of '71 or '72. The details are there, but where is the accuracy?
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The videos recently of a translucent diamond or pyramid shape floating over the Pentagon and Kremlin tied into the repeated odd sightings over the volcano seen from my bedroom window.
My wife took a picture of the volcano blowing dust. Decent big megapixel cell phone. All instances of this form were captured on phones as I seen.
An artifact of the technology is my best guess.
When zoomed in a diamond shape appeared in the edge of the dust rising.
This form didn't happen on old film cameras, only since electronic media got more capable.
My older low MP phone cameras never gave much more than fuzzy blur when zoomed in.
My wife was not expecting anything but the volcano doing what it does five times a day. She also doesn't believe its from outer space or inside the volcano, as some woo mongers claim is possible.
My wife took a picture of the volcano blowing dust. Decent big megapixel cell phone. All instances of this form were captured on phones as I seen.
An artifact of the technology is my best guess.
When zoomed in a diamond shape appeared in the edge of the dust rising.
This form didn't happen on old film cameras, only since electronic media got more capable.
My older low MP phone cameras never gave much more than fuzzy blur when zoomed in.
My wife was not expecting anything but the volcano doing what it does five times a day. She also doesn't believe its from outer space or inside the volcano, as some woo mongers claim is possible.
The accuracy is, in the fact I witnessed an orange ball of light moving slowly across the sky. All of the other details I wrote are irrelevant.
I've noticed something about your modus operandi. And that is you like to argue over the most nitpicky things just for the sake of it. Your reply is evidence of that characteristic. Now certainly there must be a reply somewhere if this forum that is surely worthy to argue over instead of wasting time and brain power doing it with my trivial story.