Sky at Night Magazine

[Jakecampbell97]

Today me and a freind were looking at some stars when we noticed a group of 3 stars that were perectly symetrical to each other forming a triangle (one brighter star at the top and two dimmer stars at the bottom). while looking at the brighter star we noticed that as it moved through the sky the two dimmer stars moved with it, all 3 stars were moving in perect sync. We found it quite amazing so we both studied the triangle for quite a long time and things kept getting stranger and stranger. The movement of the stars were very unusual, it 100% resembled some sort of ship moving through the sky, it would stop for a couple of seconds as if it was focusing on something on earth the would quickly move through the sky and stop again almost asif it was a U.F.O scanning the earth for something. Thats not the creepy part, the part that really got me convinced it may have been a U.F.O posing as stars was the way it tilted in the sky, there is no way it could have been our eyes playing tricks on us because we both saw it as it tilted in the sky and immeadiatly asked each other if we had seen it. When it tilted the two 'stars' at the bottom got brighter, almost as if the light was more visible because it had tilted towards us. I even checked the 'skyview' app i have on my phone, as you point your phone camera in the direction of a star/planet it tells you the name of it and shows you its orbit, but nothing was in the area were we saw these stars and there were no 3 stars in that location of the sky that formed a symetrical triangle. is it possible this could be a ufo posing as stars? It moved way to fast through the sky to be a satelite or anything manmade and by the way it moved it looked like it was definatly being controlled, i have never seen anything like it, if anybody has an explanation i would love to hear it.

[Aratus]

It sounds really exciting I wish these things would appear when I'm looking at the sky! I've seen satellites, aircraft and meteors but never any alien spacecraft. I think I agree with you that it wasn't 3 stars. If it was an attempt by an alien spacecraft to hide its appearance by pretending to be stars they really shouldn't have moved. It does rather to give it away. With the advent of 'skyview' apps it really isn't going to fool people even if they keep still, as you demonstrated. I really don't know much about alien spacecraft; do they need to use navigation lights? I suspect not. I think that rules out that explanation. Perhaps a helicopter or one of these ‘drones’ that everyone plays around with. I don’t suppose you got any video of it?

[Supercooper]

Hi Aratus,

Yeah - Paul Money and I saw one of these 'formations' travelling through the sky at the Horncastle Astronomy Weekend one year (About 2002 - 03). One of the 'spacecraft nuts' piped up that they are US Military 'spy' satellites. They travel in threes. Why they need three I'm not sure - Maybe so they have a better chance of surviving an attack? - But secret military satellites works better than UFOs for an explanation. :O)

So - forgive me if i don't take the bi-lateral vote when there is a third option. 0 - satellites

Barry

[Jakecampbell97]

It sounds really exciting I wish these things would appear when I'm looking at the sky! I've seen satellites, aircraft and meteors but never any alien spacecraft. I think I agree with you that it wasn't 3 stars. If it was an attempt by an alien spacecraft to hide its appearance by pretending to be stars they really shouldn't have moved. It does rather to give it away. With the advent of 'skyview' apps it really isn't going to fool people even if they keep still, as you demonstrated. I really don't know much about alien spacecraft; do they need to use navigation lights? I suspect not. I think that rules out that explanation. Perhaps a helicopter or one of these ‘drones’ that everyone plays around with. I don’t suppose you got any video of it?

it definitely wasnt a helicopter or a drone as the 3 points on the triangle were way to far apart from each other to be anything that small, it looked the same distance as the other stars in the sky, it was deifnitley not in the earths atmosphere, its one of those things you kind of have to see it to believe

[Jakecampbell97]

And i tried to get a video of it but the camera on my phone isnt strong enough to capture it because it was so far away, it well an truly baffled me

[Jakecampbell97]

Hi Aratus,

Yeah - Paul Money and I saw one of these 'formations' travelling through the sky at the Horncastle Astronomy Weekend one year (About 2002 - 03). One of the 'spacecraft nuts' piped up that they are US Military 'spy' satellites. They travel in threes. Why they need three I'm not sure - Maybe so they have a better chance of surviving an attack? - But secret military satellites works better than UFOs for an explanation. :O)

So - forgive me if i don't take the bi-lateral vote when there is a third option. 0 - satellites

Barry

that would probably make the most sense to me barry as i was looking at it for over 2 hours constantly going over things that it could possible be, it was unexplainable, i tried to look for it again yesterday but i saw nothing

[uea74]

They are NOSS satellites, US or Chinese.
They are tethered to each other and are in groups of 2 or 3
http://www.satobs.org/noss.html

Every so often people see them and up goes the cry of UFO's and/or aliens.
Likely there are sites predicting their path and occurance. Seems that if it were a triple then it was a Chinese set as the US ones are generally considered as gone.

[dsummerbell10]

Thanks for sharing the link. Although its quite a bit of reading it was well worth it. Learnt quite a bit.

[spartan45]

What about Chinese lanterns, stunt kites, or perhaps a group of helium balloons fitted with lights? Thinking along those lines, it may be possible to link the balloons with radio controlled tether lines to alter their configuration. Just a supposition you understand.

[spartan45]

Given: all 3 stars were moving in perfect synchronicity, resembling some sort of ship moving through the sky, stopping for a couple of seconds, then quickly moving through the sky and stopping again.
This must rule out satellites because they cannot stop / start moving across the sky, even if tethered together (the NOSS satellite information posted by uea74 was never the less very interesting). Perhaps they were 3 of the new military micro drones that can be launched from aircraft (a group was recently shown being launched from a F18 super hornet). So my vote is for UFO(s).