7 points of light in the sky, far away, circling each other, then fading away.
I lived, at the time, in an apartment complex on Jackson Keller, overlooking West Avenue. I lived on the 3rd floor of a building that was situated on a hill, so I estimate I was about 50 feet above the ground, with the treetops just below my balcony, facing due east. I know because the sun would rise directly in front of me. Off my balcony is an empty field and next to that is a local private school and a residential area.
I owned a telescope, so I often would be on my balcony at night looking at stars, and I was familiar with the positions of constellations and planets, knowing their relative positions at any given time at night, or season.
This one night I was on the balcony, and decided to train my telescope on a portion of the sky that I often did.
As I looked for a bright object to observe, I noticed a perfectly circular cluster of "stars" that I hadn't noticed before. I knew it wasn't Plaiedes... though they were roughly as bright as the stars in that constellation. It was circular, and after realizing I hadn't seen it before, I continued to look at it, and realized the points of light were following each other in a pattern. It was rotating.
After about 30 seconds of watching it, one of the points of light circled the others, then exited the cluster from the center, and accelerated away from the others. Soon after, they all seemed to diminish in brightness until they were all gone.
I was certain they were moving, and it wasn't the illusion of movement that one gets when they stare at an object in the sky for a long time. I have noticed this phenomenon before, and I was careful to make absolutely certain I was not seeing things. I have seen simple satellites or space debris streaking across the sky before, and this behavior was not reminiscent of that.
Some time later, I saw an episode of Unsolved Mysteries that featured a couple that had taken a video of the same thing I saw that night.
((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that date of incident is approximate. PD))
I lived, at the time, in an apartment complex on Jackson Keller, overlooking West Avenue. I lived on the 3rd floor of a building that was situated on a hill, so I estimate I was about 50 feet above the ground, with the treetops just below my balcony, facing due east. I know because the sun would rise directly in front of me. Off my balcony is an empty field and next to that is a local private school and a residential area.
I owned a telescope, so I often would be on my balcony at night looking at stars, and I was familiar with the positions of constellations and planets, knowing their relative positions at any given time at night, or season.
This one night I was on the balcony, and decided to train my telescope on a portion of the sky that I often did.
As I looked for a bright object to observe, I noticed a perfectly circular cluster of "stars" that I hadn't noticed before. I knew it wasn't Plaiedes... though they were roughly as bright as the stars in that constellation. It was circular, and after realizing I hadn't seen it before, I continued to look at it, and realized the points of light were following each other in a pattern. It was rotating.
After about 30 seconds of watching it, one of the points of light circled the others, then exited the cluster from the center, and accelerated away from the others. Soon after, they all seemed to diminish in brightness until they were all gone.
I was certain they were moving, and it wasn't the illusion of movement that one gets when they stare at an object in the sky for a long time. I have noticed this phenomenon before, and I was careful to make absolutely certain I was not seeing things. I have seen simple satellites or space debris streaking across the sky before, and this behavior was not reminiscent of that.
Some time later, I saw an episode of Unsolved Mysteries that featured a couple that had taken a video of the same thing I saw that night.
((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that date of incident is approximate. PD))
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San Antonio
USA
less than a minute
less than a minute
29.49
-98.52
other
TX
Occurred : 9/1/1990 22:30 (Entered as : 09/01/1990 22:30) Reported: 8/23/2005 9:28:03 PM 21:28 Posted: 9/2/2005 Location: San Antonio, TX Shape: Other Duration: less than a minute
7 points of light in the sky, far away, circling each other, then fading away.