triangular light formation
Last Saturday night I was staying at a friends house up in Northern Vermont. Earlier in the evening (from 10 - 11pm) we watched an impressive display of the Northern lights. I fell asleep on the couch and awoke around 3am Sunday and decided to take my sleeping bag and pad onto the deck to fall asleep under the stars. While stargazing I noticed what appeared to me as a satellite tracking from south to north. Upon further observation I noticed that the object was being followed by two additional lights of the same size. All three were equidistant forming a very distinct triangle pattern. The lights were about 1.5 - 2x brighter than the surrounding stars. Lying on my back they appeared to be about one hand width distance from each other from my perspective. The lights were white only with no accompaning marker lights such as those on an airplane.
I grabbed binoculars from the house but was unable to focus on the target objects. I continued to follow the objects with my naked eye as they tracked steadily to the north. The lights held the distinct triangular pattern and faded into the horizon. I have seen many satellites in the past but never three in such a distinct formation. I became motivated to file this report after talking to several friends and realizing that it seemed quite odd for three satellites to be moving in what appeared to be formation. Additionally, I am accustomed to seeing satellites much earlier in the evening. An interesting side note is that after the sighting I observed two brief flashes, similar to a mirror at a great distance reflecting sunlight. The flashes were quite brief but 3-4x brighter than the stars. These occured about a minute apart from each other and were overhead in the area through which the objects had passed. At this point i was all set with skywatching for the evening and promptly closed my eyes and eventually drifted off.
((NUFORC Note: We are aware of the U. S. Navy "NOSS" satellites which currently are in orbit, but they are not in a polar orbit, to the best of our knowledge. Also, they probably would not be visible at 3:00 a.m., since they probably would be in the Earth's shadow at that time. We do not know what the witness saw. PD))
Last Saturday night I was staying at a friends house up in Northern Vermont. Earlier in the evening (from 10 - 11pm) we watched an impressive display of the Northern lights. I fell asleep on the couch and awoke around 3am Sunday and decided to take my sleeping bag and pad onto the deck to fall asleep under the stars. While stargazing I noticed what appeared to me as a satellite tracking from south to north. Upon further observation I noticed that the object was being followed by two additional lights of the same size. All three were equidistant forming a very distinct triangle pattern. The lights were about 1.5 - 2x brighter than the surrounding stars. Lying on my back they appeared to be about one hand width distance from each other from my perspective. The lights were white only with no accompaning marker lights such as those on an airplane.
I grabbed binoculars from the house but was unable to focus on the target objects. I continued to follow the objects with my naked eye as they tracked steadily to the north. The lights held the distinct triangular pattern and faded into the horizon. I have seen many satellites in the past but never three in such a distinct formation. I became motivated to file this report after talking to several friends and realizing that it seemed quite odd for three satellites to be moving in what appeared to be formation. Additionally, I am accustomed to seeing satellites much earlier in the evening. An interesting side note is that after the sighting I observed two brief flashes, similar to a mirror at a great distance reflecting sunlight. The flashes were quite brief but 3-4x brighter than the stars. These occured about a minute apart from each other and were overhead in the area through which the objects had passed. At this point i was all set with skywatching for the evening and promptly closed my eyes and eventually drifted off.
((NUFORC Note: We are aware of the U. S. Navy "NOSS" satellites which currently are in orbit, but they are not in a polar orbit, to the best of our knowledge. Also, they probably would not be visible at 3:00 a.m., since they probably would be in the Earth's shadow at that time. We do not know what the witness saw. PD))
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Walden
USA
2 minutes
2 minutes
formation
VT
Occurred : 9/8/2002 03:00 (Entered as : 09/08/02 03:00) Reported: 9/12/2002 9:48:14 PM 21:48 Posted: 9/13/2002 Location: Walden, VT Shape: Formation Duration: 2 minutes Characteristics: There were lights on the object
triangular light formation