bozothedeathmachine
4th August 2008, 01:39 AM
And I mean "UFO" in the strictest sense: I couldn't identify it.
I was at my in-laws summer house in South Bohemia last week. It's in a tiny village with about 10 houses, and for some reason 3 street lights. Even with the street lights, the night sky is incredible; the Milky Way can easily be seen. We saw a few satellites, which I pointed out to my in-laws. One night we saw something I couldn't explain. It was bright object moving quite slowly in the sky. It was solid white and had about the same luminosity as Jupiter, which was by far the brightest object in the sky. As I said, it was solid, not blinking, so it wasn't a plane. It also didn't make any noise as a plane and was a lot brighter than a plane would be. So, it passed just under Jupiter, then it kind of faded and disappeared. I'm the card carrying skeptic in the family, so they wanted me to explain what it was and why it disappeared.
At first, I thought it went into some clouds that we couldn't see. Using some cheap binoculars, I did see some clouds, but they were very thin as I could see stars through them; they would not have obscured something as bright as the object we saw.
After wracking my brain, the only thing I thought it could be is a low earth orbit satellite. It was about 10:30 at night, and sunset that far north is between 9:00 - 9:30. So if it were a LEO satellite it would have been high enough to still reflect the sun, which would explain the luminosity, and its disappearance would have been when it entered Earth's shadow.
I have a screenshot from Starry Night to show the relative position and path of the object. The circle is around the area it dissapeared.
Any ideas? Does my theory make sense?
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc264/bozothedeathmachine/CzechSky.jpg
This is being cross-posted toa few different boards.
I was at my in-laws summer house in South Bohemia last week. It's in a tiny village with about 10 houses, and for some reason 3 street lights. Even with the street lights, the night sky is incredible; the Milky Way can easily be seen. We saw a few satellites, which I pointed out to my in-laws. One night we saw something I couldn't explain. It was bright object moving quite slowly in the sky. It was solid white and had about the same luminosity as Jupiter, which was by far the brightest object in the sky. As I said, it was solid, not blinking, so it wasn't a plane. It also didn't make any noise as a plane and was a lot brighter than a plane would be. So, it passed just under Jupiter, then it kind of faded and disappeared. I'm the card carrying skeptic in the family, so they wanted me to explain what it was and why it disappeared.
At first, I thought it went into some clouds that we couldn't see. Using some cheap binoculars, I did see some clouds, but they were very thin as I could see stars through them; they would not have obscured something as bright as the object we saw.
After wracking my brain, the only thing I thought it could be is a low earth orbit satellite. It was about 10:30 at night, and sunset that far north is between 9:00 - 9:30. So if it were a LEO satellite it would have been high enough to still reflect the sun, which would explain the luminosity, and its disappearance would have been when it entered Earth's shadow.
I have a screenshot from Starry Night to show the relative position and path of the object. The circle is around the area it dissapeared.
Any ideas? Does my theory make sense?
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc264/bozothedeathmachine/CzechSky.jpg
This is being cross-posted toa few different boards.