UFO sighting in NJ

[seaducer]

Hi all,

I am new here, and relatively new to serious amateur astronomy, though I have dabbled a bit over the years.

Anyway, I saw something(s) a few weeks back on a night time walk that I can't quite figure out, maybe someone here can help me.

I am familiar with what satellites look like, and this was almost exactly that, except there were 3, in a kind of lopsided triangle formation moving roughly SW to NE approximatly 45 degrees up from the horizon, and were moving faster than I have ever seen one go. Having seen the shuttle fly over low I can say they were moving about that fast, but was several magnitudes dimmer.

There WAS military activity that weekend, but I have mostly ruled that out. No anti-collision lights and if they were tactical then in order to see cockpit glow they would have been low enought that I would have heard the engines. Also I was able to watch them from almost horizon to horizon ( I picked them up about a fist's width from the right and followed them all the way across the sky) and their position relative to each other appeared not to change at all, indicating to me they were very high.

I figure they were sattelites but I didn't know they were ever grouped? Anybody know of what I am talking about?

TIA, Drew in NJ

[Blob]

Hum,
there have been several weird things* seen in that area recently.
the last on being this AFAIK.

Christchurch police say the origins of a flare reported off the Kaikoura coast on Saturday night remain a mystery.
The flare was spotted at about 11pm by several people and reported to police.

Read more

*The things being a satellite retry and a few bright fireballs and meteorites

[01101001]

Welcome to BAUT Forum, seaducer.

I am familiar with what satellites look like, and this was almost exactly that, except there were 3, in a kind of lopsided triangle formation [...]

NOSS Triad?

Most commonly known as the Naval Ocean Surveillance System, these clusters of spacecraft, which launched together in one package only to split apart in orbit, are used to spy on ships at sea by picking up radar and radio transmissions. They fly in formation like a triangle to accurately pinpoint locations of enemy vessels.

===

[...] that area [...]

New Jersey.

[eburacum45]

Might have been a NOSS triad;
http://satobs.org/noss.html

these satellites have well-known orbits, so perhaps someone would be able to confirm this if you know the exact time of your sighting.

[Blob]

New Jersey.

Hum,
whoops, i mistook it as a NZ (i was fooling around with my screen resolution at the time i was posting).

[seaducer]

Cool, NOSS must have been what I saw. I am right on the coast.

As for wierd flares in NZ, 2 days after the sighting I posted about I saw an iridium(sp?) flare that lit the whole sky, broke up and left a trial that was visible for almost a minute, so strange things are afoot here as well. At least for me...lol

Thanks for the welcome, Drew

[2012genieNewage]

Hi all,

I am new here, and relatively new to serious amateur astronomy, though I have dabbled a bit over the years.

Anyway, I saw something(s) a few weeks back on a night time walk that I can't quite figure out, maybe someone here can help me.

I am familiar with what satellites look like, and this was almost exactly that, except there were 3, in a kind of lopsided triangle formation moving roughly SW to NE approximatly 45 degrees up from the horizon, and were moving faster than I have ever seen one go. Having seen the shuttle fly over low I can say they were moving about that fast, but was several magnitudes dimmer.

There WAS military activity that weekend, but I have mostly ruled that out. No anti-collision lights and if they were tactical then in order to see cockpit glow they would have been low enought that I would have heard the engines. Also I was able to watch them from almost horizon to horizon ( I picked them up about a fist's width from the right and followed them all the way across the sky) and their position relative to each other appeared not to change at all, indicating to me they were very high.

I figure they were sattelites but I didn't know they were ever grouped? Anybody know of what I am talking about?

TIA, Drew in NJ

Could it be an AURORA? It's new in military airforce!

[mantiss]

Could it be an AURORA? It's new in military airforce!

That would not be a UFO, that would be a hallucination