2005-01-13 - Stevens Point, WI - Light

Two nocturnal lights almost intersect - one becomes ten times brighter.

I arrived home at 18:05 and noticed an unusual amount of air traffic in the night sky. There were five objects moving in different directions.

Three of the objects were clearly aircraft, with each having multiple red and white lights (one or two blinking on each object).

However, a fourth object - a single white, non-blinking light, which appeared twice as bright as the aircraft lights, and was at a higher altitude - moved from west to east in a straight line. (From time to time, it seemed to zig-zag slightly, and this may have been an atmospheric effect, but I did not see this effect when watching the other four objects.) As the west/east light entered the eastern part of the sky, a fifth object - a smaller, non-blinking white light - moved south to north through the eastern sky in a straight line, on a path and at a speed where it would meet the west/east light. Before this could happen, however, this fifth, south/north light grew very bright (about ten times brighter) and then quickly faded out. The west/east light, after crossing the point where it would have met the south/north light, also faded out. I thought clouds could account for these disappearances, but I immediately checked local and regional radar at Wunderground.com, and the skies were what they appeared to be: "Clouds: clear. Visibility: 10 miles." I also thought that the steady brightness of the west/east and south/north lights could be fuselage reflections of the sun - but sunset was one hour and thirteen minutes earlier, at 16:42. Both objects, though higher in altitude than the three aircraft, were much lower in altitude than satellites I have watched from the same location.