h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yesterday afternoon I saw my first (and second and third and fourth) bona fide UFO.

I was in Shrewsbury, Shropshire looking more or less northwards into a blue sky with scattered cloud. My mother drew my attention to an object in the sky. We both saw it quite clearly for several minutes.

It was bright white, like a very bright star or the planet Venus might appear in the night sky, but it appeared in the daylight sky at approximately 14:30, so it was much brighter than any planet or star. It did not, over the course of several minutes, move detectably at all, although its brightness did fluctuate from very bright and clearly visible to quite dim to the point my mother lost sight of it, and back to slightly brighter again, before it was obscured by passing clouds.

When we first observed it, there were three additional objects near it, arranged around it at equal distances spaced about sixty degrees apart, as though the bright object was the centre of a hexagon and the three other objects were at there adjacent vertices of the hexagon. These three other objects were smaller and/or dimmer than the central object and soon faded from visibility. None of the objects showed any movement relative to each other or across the sky for the whole time we could see them - a few minutes.

While we were watching, an aircraft passed "nearby" visually. Given that this aircraft was observably at high altitude (15,000 ft or more), and yet seemed to be significantly lower than the objects we could see, it appeared that the things we were seeing were at very high altitude indeed (i.e. 60,000 ft+).

None of the objects had any features visible - no lights, windows, wings etc. They appeared only as points or discs of light. Unfortunately I didn't have any binoculars handy to get a closer look.

So, some questions:

1. Did anyone else see these objects? Do you know anyone who might have seen them?

2. Should this sort of thing be reported to anyone, and if so to whom and how?

3. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what these things might have been?

On the latter subject, if I'd just seent the one thing I'd have assumed a weather balloon reflecting the sunlight. However, as I say, there were at least three other objects "nearby" in what looked like a regular geometric formation with the main one we could see. Do weather balloons fly in formation? (Serious question, it's possible they could be connected by cables and fly in a reasonably stable geometric pattern).

I did briefly consider the possibility of Iridium flares or similar (i.e. that the objects were orbitting satellites), but I've seen Iridium flares before, and they're always moving across the sky pretty quick. This thing stood still for several minutes.

Any suggestions what it might have been would be received with great interest.

SoRB

I saw something very similar over the Thanet Area (E Kent) one still (cloudless)summer night this year SoRB - and several other people of my acquaintence saw the same thing from different (local) locations on the same night.

Very bright, and with 3 little satalites. And very still. I stood and gawped for about 10 minutes before they just faded away.

The thought flickered accross my mind Oh... UFOs...and it seems as good an explanation as any. I wasn't frightened, just interested. They certainly couldn't be Balloons - not at night, anyway.

Another similarity - a couple of planes flew over the sky during the time, and yes, they were high - but this bright hexagonal doobry was considerably higher. And very very bright.

And no, I wouldn't report it to anyone official - by the time they've got a think tank going and done a their committees and questionnaires the "Lights" will have either landed and taken over the world or flickered off into Oblivion - its hardly worth getting the paperwork started!

And it'll only eventually involve Politician

Could it be a high-level "fata morgana" mirage of something which is on the ground? That would explain the fact that they didn't move.

If I've read your description right, the four points of light were at the four corners of a rhombus or diamond formed from two equilateral triangles. Is that the way it looked to you? So that line perpendicular to the plane of the triangles would be pointing directly at you?

This would make it unlikely that you are looking at a reflection of something on the ground, because if you were seeing a regular arrangement on the ground relected in the sky, the triangles would be turned to look as if they were facing the ground, not you.

Remind me what a "fata morgana" mirage is, would you Gnomon?

In nice easy words of less than 3 syllables, please

Thanks

I shouldn't really be posting this, but...

http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/7D2B11E0-EA9F-45EA-8883-A3C00546E752/0/uap_exec_summary_dec00.pdf

Depending on how close the lights were together... from that description I'd say

An aircraft, flying directly towards you (or directly away - but that seems less likely).

Main light - the main landing light of the aircraft (centre of body, much brighter than other lights on an aircraft and points forwards and down -

Two lights to either side - wingtip lights much dimmer, but could appear to be at the positions you described depending on the relative attitude of the plane to your position

Top light - nose mounted light - Considering the aircraft is above you, the nose light would appear to be _above_ the main landing lights.

Would that seem feasible?

Could it have been a stationery helicopter?

I've seen that once before. It looked like lights hanging in the sky...

I'd describe "mine" a bit differently - it was like a hexagol snowflake with threes other lights at equal distances of (about) 120 degrees The impression was of a very large (but only 3 pointed) Snowflake.

And if it helps atall, for you to work out what it "might" be, the lights I saw were over a very dark, calm sea, from where I was standing. I was walking towards the West and the lights were North West of me.

Others saw them whilst standing in a wood about 15 miles South West of where I was. It was around 10.30pm on an August evening. I can check the date if you like.

(Sorry, I don't "do" compass points/degrees, etc very well or scientifically "accurate" descriptions; I'm more a quick diagram and "Show and Tell" myself. I think our disparity of terminology might get in the way here a bit, but I'm game if you are)

A fata morgana is a phenomenon where layers of air act as a mirror in the sky reflecting something that is far beyond the horizon so that it appears in to be hanging in the sky. If the Layer of air is flat, then the object appears upside down in the sky. If the layer is curved, it can act as a magnifying mirror, making something far away appear close and right-way-up. You can read about them in the Edited Guide A13900178.

I wondered about a helicopter, too - but there was absolutely no sound whatsoever. Which is why I stood and gawped, trying to figure out what it was

Thanks Gnomon If it *was one of these Fata Morgana lads, then the question raises itself - what was it reflecting in the first place?

It would depend on the wind direction as to whether you'd hear the noise of the helicopter.

As I said - it was a very still, clear night - no discernable breeze atall; so I'm sure I'd have heard something that evening it was were a helicopter.

The aircraft landing lights idea is a non-starter for a couple of reasons:

1. the lights did not move, at all, for a period of several minutes. I've lived near airports and seen lights AT NIGHT that behaved oddly, but perfectly consistently with approaching aircraft. These lights were completely motionless, and in broad daylight, for several minutes.

2. the lights were widely spaced across the sky. For want of a better description, the degree of separation was about half that between the stars of Orion's belt. There was no visible structure between them, and in any case given their apparent distance any structure between them would have had to have been HUGE. However, I say again, they were visible in broad daylight, so anything connecting them would have had to have been a cable or other structure too thin to see at that range.

Interesting ideas so far...

SoRB

That MoD report is fascinating. Interesting to note the massive spike in UFO reports in 1978. Nothing, of course, to do with the release of the movie "Close Encounters"...

My own little "UAP" didn't look like it was generating its own light. Its brightness behaviour was much more reminiscent of an Iridium flare, which makes me think that whatever it was/they were, they were reflective objects catching the sun rather than a high altitude plasma phenomenon. So I'm still thinking weather balloons. Does anyone know if weather balloons are released tethered together?

SoRB

Satellites could be a possibility - low altitude (surveillance) satellites don't generally go around in bunches, but if, for some reason, the sun just happened to be reflecting off a geostationary set of satellites (have a look at http://www.satsig.net/sslist.htm for a list of satellites in geo-stationary orbits.

Ok, ignore my last post - it's a load of rubbish - you said you were looking north... Which means you can rule out Geostationary satellites, and low altitude satellites move too fast.

The Met office doesb't say anthing about launching balloons tethered to anything, never mind each other.

It would seem a bit of an odd thing to do to me- wouldn't that heighten the risk of the things getting buggered, either them all going down because one was punctured, or them getting caught up in wires or pylons?

Seems as if there is quite a lot of internet activity on this one - entering in "triangle shaped ufo" gives you 351,000 hits in Google!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blackcountry/content/articles/2006/05/04/skywatch_feature.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_triangles

Beats me.