Odd lights over the down last night - anyone else?

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Marlborough_Skies · Fri Sep 18, 2015 12:00 am

Genuine query, not a UFO post, or not meant as one. I was set up with the scope on the down last night, clear sky, and twice saw a light low over the fields to the north-east that I cannot file. Orange-white, the size of a bright planet but moving slowly and level, no nav lights, no sound; it did not behave like a lantern (too steady) or a drone (too high, no lights) or a satellite (far too low and slow). It dimmed and was gone, then back ten minutes later on much the same track. I log everything and I have logged it as unidentified, which I hate doing, because I can usually identify things. Did anyone else have clear sky last night and happen to be looking north of the Ridgeway?

DowserDoreen · #2 Post by **DowserDoreen** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 10:30 am

I did not see it but it does not surprise me; that quarter of the down has always been one of the lively ones, the rods are busy out that way. There are old names for them too: will of the wisp, the lantern men, corpse candles. Every age has seen them and called them after its own fears. I do not think they are spacecraft any more than they are dead miners with lamps. I think the ground breathes out a light sometimes, and we name it after whatever we are frightened of that century.

Devizes_Mech · #3 Post by **Devizes_Mech** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 7:00 pm

marsh gas, or aircraft stacking up, or a lantern you couldnt see the kids holding. theres always an answer skies, and you of all people know that, you find the answer for everything else up there. dont let doreen have you believing the ground breathes, next thing you know youre out with the rods yourself.

Marlborough_Skies · Sat Sep 19, 2015 12:00 pm

All fair, Mark, and the airfield is the likeliest, except the local one closed to fixed-wing a while back, which is exactly the sort of fact that makes me keep the entry open rather than closed. I am not claiming anything. I am refusing to write down an explanation I do not actually have, which is the only discipline I really hold to. Unidentified does not mean alien. It means unidentified. I will keep the scope pointed that way and report if it comes back.