Unexplained Lights

[MarekM]

A strange thing happened while I was doing some night hiking here in Massachusetts and I was hoping you all could shed some light on what this might have been.

I was walking through a forest when I saw a flash of two separate extremely bright white lights about 20 yards away, seemingly descending downwards. The lights were only a brief flash and then I heard what sounded like pebbles hitting the forest floor.

Some thoughts:

- The lights absolutely were not fireflies or celestial bodies that I merely saw out of the corner of my eye. There were far too bright for that.

- When I first saw them, I initially thought they were some sort of fireworks or flares, but the light was extinguished almost immediately and there was no one else around to set them off.

- Another thought was it might have been a meteorite fall, but it seems unlikely that a meteor would burn so close to the surface, yet land so gently. I thought that maybe if the particles were small enough, their terminal velocity would be low enough for them to land softly, but I really don't know anything about this.

Any thoughts on what this might have been?

[Ixion]

Did you walk the 20 yards over to take a look?

[psychictv]

How do you know they were 20 yards away? It sounds like it could have been some sort of fireworks or flares but it's very difficult to judge the distance of things like that. How do you know that nobody else was around? Also the sounds may not be directly connected to the light source. For example, the flash may have scared some birds or other small animals and what you heard was actually the flapping of wings, rustling of leaves, etc.

[Cainkane1]

Did you walk the 20 yards over to take a look?
Why didn't you go take a look? Were you frightened?

[Wangler]

Sounds like fireworks...distances are very hard to judge.

Some fireworks explode into a crysanthemum, or whatever, and only then do they have a sequence of loud reports in quick succession, which might sound like a lot of small rocks falling.

[MarekM]

I didn't go take a look; I was in a pretty dense part of the forest and didn't want to lose my trail. Additionally, from what it sounded like, whatever fell was quite small and I doubted that I'd be able to see anything.

There are a couple reasons I don't believe it was fireworks. It was about 3 a.m. and I was in a very remote part of the forest. It seems that if someone was setting off fireworks, I would at least be able to hear them and they would probably set off more than one. The light was far more brief and the sound seemed far too close. On the other hand, it might have been fireworks, and I just grossly misperceived the event.

[Lanzy]

More pranks by bigfoot.

[Olowkow]

Any thoughts on what this might have been?

Unexplained lights. ;)








Seriously, it would have freaked me out. Incoming!

[psychictv]

It was probably somebody with a flare gun, lost and signaling for help. And you just let them perish. Good job. :p

[Vortigern99]

Could it have been headlights from a car on a road that lay beyond the woods? This is a pretty common mistake. If you can tell us exactly where you were, we can look at the location on google-earth, and see if there was a road or driveway adjacent to the woods of which you might have been unaware.

[Soapy Sam]

Sounds like a crashing flying saucer. These things have an appalling safety record.

[Olowkow]

Sounds like a crashing flying saucer. These things have an appalling safety record.
Especially, considering all the safety strobe lights they are equipped with. Darn, travel 10 light years just to lose it in a field on a little planet that they were just stopping at for a bathroom break.

[PowderNine]

Especially, considering all the safety strobe lights they are equipped with. Darn, travel 10 light years just to lose it in a field on a little planet that they were just stopping at for a bathroom break.

What better way to say "Welcome to Earth" than by becoming part of it.

[TjW]

Especially, considering all the safety strobe lights they are equipped with. Darn, travel 10 light years just to lose it in a field on a little planet that they were just stopping at for a bathroom break.

Still, they had fair warning. The entry for Earth only says mostly harmless.

[jasonpatterson]

Another thought was it might have been a meteorite fall, but it seems unlikely that a meteor would burn so close to the surface, yet land so gently. I thought that maybe if the particles were small enough, their terminal velocity would be low enough for them to land softly, but I really don't know anything about this.


This is almost certainly not what it was, at least, you almost certainly didn't see a meteorite then hear it hit the ground. Anything that was large enough to make a sound yet moving slowly enough for it to hit softly wouldn't have been glowing brightly enough for you to see. On either side of that the thing wouldn't have fallen gently or it would have fallen so gently that you wouldn't have seen it.

Without more information, anything anyone on here suggests is speculation, however reasonable that speculation might be. I love night hiking myself, and from personal experience, I know that as soon as I stop moving there are often small noises all about once I quit making noise and pay attention to what is around. It seems probable that psychictv's suggestion that the lights and sounds weren't connected is correct, though again, there's no real way to know.

My first thought was headlights or a flashlight in the distance that you could only see for a short period, followed by unassociated noises.

Some questions that might help narrow down the possibilities:
How fast were the lights moving?
How far above the ground did they start? Finish?
How long were they visible? (You said they were a flash, does that mean a tenth of a second, two seconds?)
Were you walking in the dark, or were you using a flashlight?
Was the moon in the sky? (Better yet, what date did this occur?)
Do you recall whether the sky was clear or cloudy?
What was the weather in general?
Were you walking in a mature forest (fairly open, large trees that are spread apart, thick canopy) or a younger forest (trees fairly close together, smaller trees, patchy canopy)?

[Olowkow]

And finally, did you not, sir, kill the butler in a rit of fealous jage?

[Beerina]

A strange thing happened while I was doing some night hiking here in Massachusetts and I was hoping you all could shed some light on what this might have been.

I was walking through a forest when I saw a flash of two separate extremely bright white lights about 20 yards away, seemingly descending downwards. The lights were only a brief flash and then I heard what sounded like pebbles hitting the forest floor.

...

Any thoughts on what this might have been?

Fireworks from nearby that went off-course or were defective in launch?

[Beerina]

Could it have been headlights from a car on a road that lay beyond the woods?

Stray headlights on falling acorns (or whatnot), or on something else coincident with the sound made by falling acorns could also account for it.

Rare, but not so rare it doesn't fall under the "million-to-one shots of rare things happen every day to billions of people" rule.