Strange light?

[becomingagodo]

Well, I was reading Penrose book road to reality and they was talking about god creating the universe and how we should try to explain it using the theory of everything instead of saying god did it. Then after I read it I looked out the window for some freash air, then I saw something that I coudln't explain.

I saw a red glowing object that moved perfectly down, at first it looked like a star. It was similar because it was the same size and looked roughly the same as the other stars, however it was red.

The object moved slowly straight down and I saw it for roughly about five minautes. I think it is not a plane as I know what a plane looks like and this wasen't. Can a meteroid be seen without a tail, as the object had no tail behind it?

Anyone know what this is?

[yairhol]

Anyone know what this is?
of course, it's a UFO.

Next...

Regards,
Yair

[becomingagodo]

of course, it's a UFO.

Come on can you be serious for a minaute, was it a meteroid? and can be meteroid not have tails?

[yairhol]

sorry, I couldn't resist.

I suppose it could have been a meteor and if it was far enough from you and on a sunny day, its tail could have not been obvious enough to distinguish it from the main meteor body.

But there's a much simpler explanation. The army has illumination bombs (I don't know their name in English) which is something every soldier carries in his vest. You fire it at night to light up the area underneath it or you can fire it at day time to signal your position to distant troops or whoever.
Maybe someone had that with him (soldier, civilian, etc.) and they shot it.
It would look exactly as you described it.

Regards,
Lieutenant Yair

[Cuddles]

The army has illumination bombs (I don't know their name in English)

Flares. Sounds the most likely explanation, and they seem to be fairly common as a cause of UFOs.

As for meteors having tails, they actually don't. They appear as lines rather than points because they are moving so fast that your vision can't distinguish them. Effectively, they are faster than the shutter speed of your eye (or brain). It is entirely possible to see slow meteors that do not appear as streaks, but they are usually very bright and often appear as fireballs. It is unlikely that such a slow meteor could be mistaken for a star, and five minutes is far too long for one to be visible.

[yairhol]

This signature has been constructed entirely from recycled electrons

:relieved:

[becomingagodo]

Flares. Sounds the most likely explanation, and they seem to be fairly common as a cause of UFOs.
It was really high up and moving down. I thought flares normally move upwards and have a tail, like fireworks. Also their was no smoke around it. Again it was really high up.
far enough from you and on a sunny day
It was night time

[yairhol]

It was night time
If it was night then you wouldn't see any smoke. The light is very bright and right in the vicinity of it you cannot notice anything. The flare is intended to light up the ground which is sufficiently below it.

It was probably a flare.

Regards,
Lieutenant Yair

[Cuddles]

It was really high up and moving down. I thought flares normally move upwards

Nope, flares obey the law of gravity.

and have a tail, like fireworks.

Also their was no smoke around it.

There are plenty of fireworks that don't have tails, the ones that do are specifically designed to do so. I see no reason why someone would design a flare to have a tail, so I don't see why you'd expect them to have one. As for smoke, how would you see that at night?

Again it was really high up.

How do you know? You saw a point light source at night. How could you tell how far away it was?

[casebro]

At night, and having no frame of reference, how can you distinguish 'falling' from moving sideways? My guess would be an airplane with a red light, moving by, or landing, with what appeared to be a falling trajectory.

Five minutes for a flare would need a parachute, and a BIG flare, but planes fly all day (or all night). And red flares don't usually have parachutes, or last for five minutes. White ones, used for illumination, do. That big of a flare would only be launched by the military, only in a war zone or training area. Any such in sight of B. Godo?

[yairhol]

Five minutes for a flare would need a parachute, and a BIG flare, but planes fly all day (or all night).
I would be so sure it was 5 minutes as the OP said. It could have been easily 2.5 minutes which felt more than that because of the curiosity around the incident.

Regards,
Yair

[Buckaroo]

Yup, sounds like a flare. Here's one of the most famous cases of flares being mistaken for alien spacecraft (not to imply that this is what you're doing):

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4041

[becomingagodo]

Well, if it wasen't for this forum I might have started to believe in aliens i.e. went crazy. It looked more like the flares in that picture, I guess I couldn't really trust my perception of time and perspective.

[Leif Roar]

And red flares don't usually have parachutes, or last for five minutes.

Actually, red rocket flares with parachute is an international distress signal for ships. They don't quite last for five minutes, but they last long enough that one might mistake it for that long.

[kerikiwi]

:troll

[Skeptic Guy]

Yup, sounds like a flare. Here's one of the most famous cases of flares being mistaken for alien spacecraft (not to imply that this is what you're doing):

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4041

That's a perfect example and one that I would have used if you hadn't.

[fuelair]

It was really high up and moving down. I thought flares normally move upwards and have a tail, like fireworks. Also their was no smoke around it. Again it was really high up.

It was night time
Flare is fired up, 'chutes down after igniting to provide a light source for 30+seconds. The down is slower and brighter.
How far was it from you?

[mhaze]

Airplanes have a rotating beacon top of the vertical fin, and one red and one green light on wingtips. When the plane is positioned relative to a ground observer such that the rotating beacon (red, but flashing) cannot be seen because it is obscured by the wing, there are then only two things you can see

1. A green light on the right side of the vehicle
2. A red light on the left side of the vehicle.

Incidentally, this is the same for ships, aircraft, and manned spacecraft, so you may presume :D that alien vehicles entering our airspace would try to fool us by having the same lights.

From the above it is obvious that if the aircraft was high up, then the tail could easily have been obscured and you would not have seen the vertical fin rotating red beacon.

Ergo, red light, aircraft above you with it's left side visible (it is to your right).

[Beerina]

It could have been a jet flying right at you. The same thing happened to me around July 4th.

We were outside watching neighborhood fireworks, 6 or more different places visible from my front porch. There was this bright red and white light up in the sky just hovering there over my neighbor's house.

For about 10 minutes, it just hovered there. Obviously it must be a helicopter of some kind, but very far away. Or a UFO, of course ( :) )

After 10 minutes, it started moving very slowly, then within 10 seconds picked up a huge amount of speed and roared overhead. It occured to me it was a jet coming in for a landing, and had been on a descent path that was more or less coming straight at me. Hence it "wasn't moving". When it got closer, it leveled out and went right overhead. (We're about 10 miles away from a cargo airport.)