Sighting

Buy American · July-05-09, 08:56 AM

This is going to sound crazy but did anyone see what looked like an orange fireball in the sky going West to East about 11pm Saturday night? At first I thought it was the headlights of a plane but the closer it came, the color was orange and it was silent and going slowly and getting higher. I watched it until it disappeared into the clouds. Could it have been an errant piece of fireworks? I am curious to know if anyone else saw it. This was in the Warren area.

**Meddle** · July-05-09, 09:05 AM

That was Palin's career going up in flames.

Lorax · July-05-09, 09:36 AM

LOL!!!

Perhaps George Tush being raptured, thankfully.

ccbatson · July-05-09, 09:20 PM

Does dwelling on the past help you feel better about the catastrophe that you voted to replace it with Lorax?

Lorax · July-05-09, 09:25 PM

Originally Posted by ccbatson

Does dwelling on the past help you feel better about the catastrophe that you voted to replace it with Lorax?

I'm not dwelling any more than Jews dwell on the holocaust. Why should we forget the disassembling of our freedoms, the murder of nearly a million people, and the marching fascism of the Bush Crime Family?

Don't worry, I won't let any of you forget.

And what has replaced it is hope- hope that we'll never repeat the wrenching hatred and distrust of an administration hellbent on destroying it's own people.

People should never be afraid of their governments- governments should be afraid of their people.

Never again is now!

Buy American · July-06-09, 07:28 AM

Jeez.....I asked a question about something I saw in the evening sky and you all turn it into something else. Keep it simple folks!

**gibran** · July-06-09, 01:27 PM

I saw a strange light one time crossing the evening sky up near Houghton Lake in 1978 with a group of my friends [[we hadn't started drinking yet) it was a bright white light crossing the evening sky...made a stop and then changed course.. in a 90 degree angle the back north again...it wasn't a plane nor a weather satellite

**gazhekwe** · July-06-09, 03:05 PM

That was a bearwalk.

**Johnlodge** · July-06-09, 03:30 PM

I actually saw something Friday in the early evening while it was still light out. It was a small, round shiny object high up in the sky. I grabbed some binoculars, but that only made it a slightly larger round shiny object. I assumed it must be a balloon that got away, though it was pretty high up there. I'm not sure how high up escaped balloons can get.

**rb336** · July-06-09, 03:57 PM

if it's mylar, it can get as high as weather balloons, upper stratosphere/lower mesosphere unless it pops

**Detroitej72** · July-06-09, 07:07 PM

Originally Posted by Buy American

This is going to sound crazy but did anyone see what looked like an orange fireball in the sky going West to East about 11pm Saturday night? At first I thought it was the headlights of a plane but the closer it came, the color was orange and it was silent and going slowly and getting higher. I watched it until it disappeared into the clouds. Could it have been an errant piece of fireworks? I am curious to know if anyone else saw it. This was in the Warren area.

I saw something Saturday night as well while at the future in-laws house up in Sterling Heights. I thought it might have been a satellite, but I didn't think much about it at that time.

ccbatson · July-06-09, 08:35 PM

Are you implying that it is something else?

Lorax · July-06-09, 08:53 PM

I think it was Batt's political ideology seen vanishing into thin air.

**thnk2mch** · July-06-09, 08:54 PM

WHAT YOU DRIVE, DRIVES AMERICA!
OUT OF A JOB YET? KEEP SMOKING POT AND REPORTING UFOs

Buy American · July-07-09, 07:40 AM

Thanks for all the "sane" replies from some of you.

**Mikeg** · July-07-09, 09:26 AM

My late uncle was a USN sailor who was stationed aboard the LST-847 during 1945 and the first quarter of 1946. While researching the history of his ship, I went to the US National Archives and perused the ship's Deck Logs, where I found an interesting entry made on the evening of March 27, 1946.

On March 6, 1946, the LST-847 had departed Buckner Bay, Okinawa with a load of aviation supplies and torpedoes, bound for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At 2000 hours [[8:00 PM) on the 27th, the deck log indicated that the ship was steaming easterly on a bearing of 91 degrees and was located about 200 miles NE of Wake Island. The next entry at 2245 hours [[10:45 PM) stated that the ship's lookouts had sighted an intense, luminous, yellow light in the sky on a bearing of 70Â° [[20 degrees off the bow to the port or left side of the ship). The entry stated that all engines were stopped, however the source of light could not be identified.

Returning home and thinking that the glow might have come from a nuclear bomb test, I researched the history of the A-bomb testing in the Pacific only to find that the US didn't begin testing there until later that year.

So what could have caused that luminous glow on that spring evening in 1946 - a light so intense that the captain brought his ship to a complete stop in the middle of the Pacific Ocean ?

**Johnlodge** · July-07-09, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by rb336

if it's mylar, it can get as high as weather balloons, upper stratosphere/lower mesosphere unless it pops

Most likely explanation, given the reflective qualities. Some kid was bummed out somewhere.

**Ray1936** · July-07-09, 11:57 AM

"So what could have caused that luminous glow on that spring evening in 1946 - a light so intense that the captain brought his ship to a complete stop in the middle of the Pacific Ocean ? "

Aurora? Although pretty far south for northern lights. Interesting story.

**Bobl** · July-07-09, 12:27 PM

Don't have any idea what that might have been, but it reminds me of the time I learned that my sons and a friend figured a way to hook some kind of wire harness up to cleaner bags with a candle, so that the bag would inflate with hot air and float away.
They explained that they were being "responsible" and only launching from the edge of Lake St Clair when the breeze was blowing out. Apparently, it made an eerie sight at night for a few minutes as the bags floated up and away.
Dad put an end to this, I think!

**gazhekwe** · July-07-09, 01:09 PM

I guess they were just in the northern hemisphere. I was thinking maybe Aurora Australis, but it seems from the log entry that the sighting would have been in a slightly northeasterly direction. They were proceeding east northeast at 91 degrees and sighted this 20 degrees off the bow, portside. I am not all that clear on figuring bearings and all that, so I could be off. Aurora borealis I have seen straight up from here, so I suppose that it is possible this was Aurora.

1946 was a huge year for sunspots that produced a lot of phenomena. This report doesn't seem to have anything referenced on that particular date, but it is interesting.

Title: Council report on solar activity in 1946 : Sunspots
Authors: Newton, H. W.
Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 107, p.103
Bibliographic Code: 1947MNRAS.107..103N

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1947MNRAS.107..103N

doesn't seem to have anything referenced on that particular date, but it is interesting.

**Detroitej72** · July-07-09, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by Ray1936

"So what could have caused that luminous glow on that spring evening in 1946 - a light so intense that the captain brought his ship to a complete stop in the middle of the Pacific Ocean ? "

Aurora? Although pretty far south for northern lights. Interesting story.

This story brings to mind all the stories from WWII about the Foo Fighters. The Allies thought they were some secrete fighter planes from Germany, and, at the same time, German pilots were seeing them and thought they were Allied planes.

For the most part, their origin remains a mystery to this day.