Did you.? I would never have known a U.S. Satellite was due to cross over the skyline tonight at precisely *7:06 pm edt.Ending a few minutes later. So I went out after doing the dishes at 7:06 and used my binoculars. The sky was somewhat cloudy.I saw a bright star at first and thought it was it.Then another bright star became visible.The weather man said it was headed West by Northwest.Unlike the Movie - North by Northwest -. So I kinda moved to purview a wider panascope of the sky. Another bright star appeared.Obviously the cloud cover was somewhat lifting.Then I saw it.Something far different that I'd ever seen before. I thought it might just be a fast jet.But I focused-in and saw what the Weatherman showed a picture of.An exact replica of that picture. A rectangular moving object in the sky with Blinking lights. White Lights on the outside and dual blinking red lights as if many little red lights toward the center.Talk about neat. Like actually seeing a Martian Space Ship. It lasted just a few seconds.I knew it was the real deal because it was moving.Moving along fast enough to not be any jet. I think I may have seen it with my binoculars for around 10 seconds. I would totally have missed it if I didn't turn around and look at a wider angle of the skyline. I feel somewhat proud of myself.Like I accomplished something. I've been wanting to get one of those affordable high power telescopes. But Now I'm convinced.Having seen Blood moons and stuff. * for my viewing area according to the Weatherman.
To the best of my knowledge, satellites don't have lights on them. More likely you saw the navigation lights on an aircraft.
If you don't know what it is then by definition it is a UFO. I saw one several years ago while walking my dog. It was just a bright, round light (no tail or anything to identify it as a comet or asteroid) which I thought was a helicopter with one of those spot lights however, there was no noise at all, no blinking running lights etc. No 'spot' of light on the ground etc. It just quietly and slowly passed over head going W to SW, made a little jog, turned red then orange and disappeared.
The orbiting craft described by OP fits perfectly with known working Russian spy satellites. These are the same type of devices they used to hack the US presidential election and elect Trump.
Have fun all you like But I've never seen anything like it. It could have been a Military jet because it moved kinda fast. As a kid I've seen falling stars and stuff.And I guess some aircraft have running lights.But this was weird.Bright outer white lights and blinking red lights toward the center.Plus I could tell by the configuration of the lights it was not some aircraft.The thing appeared out of nowhere.If I wasn't looking real hard in that direction I woulda missed it.It kinda slithered out from a little cloud cover.It was neat. Trust me,I've been around the block a few times.If I say it was neat, then you can take it to the Federal Reserve and have it minted. Easy on the chocolate.
The weatherman on the local big city TV 6PM news tipped his audience off.Said it was a U.S. Satellite and where it was supposed to appear at 7:06 PM. Visible until as late as 7:12 I believe.
I hear ya....What I saw was not explainable. It was too bright to be a satellite...and I didn't need binoculars to see it. I know what I saw but there are those who like to ridicule. I would have never thought I would see anything like this and, to be honest, I didn't really believe in UFOs.....Until I saw one.
That's a new one on me! As Apacherat said, didn't think satellites had lights. At least, not exterior lights that can be seen from Earth. Why would they, after all? Whatever you saw, it's certainly a good feeling to have seen some unidentified object, isn't it! Don't want to take that away from you. I can clearly remember, (and this will give away my age!), lying on the grass in the back yard and watching the night sky for the first Sputnik to go over. And we saw it. A feint dot of light moving inexorably from horizon to horizon. Never will forget that night. As for a high-powered telescope, just remember that if it's powerful enough to resolve a satellite, its field of view will be miniscule, and even if you manage to pick up a satellite in the eyepiece, it'll move out of sight so quickly you'll hardly notice it. So, if you're serious about your astronomy, you're going to need a motorized telescope. Not sure how $$$ they are these days, though. Probably very!
Artificial satellites are at least a hundred miles up and usually more, so any lights on them would have to be enormously bright to be seen down here. They can reflect the sun quite brightly however, and sometimes have antennas and/or other structures which turn and so appear to be flashing, but I get the idea that is unusual. It sounds possible that you saw an airplane and a satellite at the same time, it does happen and can be a startling sight
It is physically impossible to see lights in space from Earth, the distances are too vast and the light sources too weak. I have noted the space station a few times and barely made it out but this was due to its size and reflected sunlight. What you witnessed was in Earths atmosphere and likely extremely high altitude but was not a spacecraft.
It's kinda like saying ... The Sun went down.The Sun does not go down. The Earth rotates on it's axis and moves the plane of the earth towards or away from the sun.
I'm not sure that all satellites are w/o lights.Maybe the International Space station is.Which circles the earth like 16 times a day. The Thing I saw was probably a NOAA satellite since the weather guy knew the time it would be in my area. Seeing something at night is best in the early evening around a half hour after the sun does down.When you have a Clear Dark sky and nice horizon. Surrounding lights from a big city make viewing very difficult.
Yes,you May be excused.Since you finished all your broccoli and are in a hurry to spot a Trump weather balloon. The one that is bright red like his tie. Unless you wanna double check the spacecraft from - Close Encounters - and see those neat lights all over the place.Very bright they were. But of course unmanned satellites do not have lights but they are bright when turned to reflect light as Iridium flares.
Imagine trying to see car headlights from 10 miles away on a clear might and a flat surface. Now...20 miles, 40 miles.....then 100 miles. Highly unlikely you can see it, even if using a telescope and knowing exactly where it is. Okay, now imagine something with no lights 30,000 miles away going 15000 mph. Do you still think it was a satellite? Satellites do not have lights, any of them, as lights require energy which cannot be wasted and serve no purpose whatsoever. .
