Camping out on a clear night, I saw a white cone of light touch the ground from outer space.
In 2002 I hiked the length of the Appalachian Trail. It was around the first or second week in May when myself and four other friends where camped out close to Mt. Rogers. We were hiking north, but on that particular night we had been dropped of down the trail so we could hike south into Damasus, VA for the annual TrailDays Festival. We had set up camp out on an open field atop of a ridge where cows were grazing, a place which someone had named 'the boomer trail' (the words were carved on a wooden fence post at the end of the field). The view from ridge - essentially you could see for miles down into the valley in front of you, and miles in the opposite direction, down into the valleys behind (probably north and south views). A small part of our side to side (east and west) views were obstructed by hilltops along the ridgeline we were on.
It was not too long after sunset when all of us were sitting in a circle chatting and drinking tea. I was looking up at the stars. It was an amazingly clear night. Not one cloud in the sky. And since we were kind of isolated from any civilization, the stars were extremely prevalent. I believe there was also a full moon that night which was rising behind me, towards the south.
I was looking up and towards the northwest when, in almost the exact spot I was checking out, an amazingly bright light caught my attention. It was a white light and atleast as bright as moon, if not brighter. when I finally focused on the light, I saw that it was aimed somewhere behind me. A couple seconds went by when the light panned over top of us and down through the valley directly in front of me. It was then that I realized the light was in the shape of a perfect cone. It's hard to say how far across the light at the bottom of the cone was, but i would guess no more than 1/4 of a mile (pretty narrow).
When the spotlight had shut off it had already moved maybe two miles away from us. This whole process had lasted about 5 seconds. Although it appeared that the light had been shut off, there was still 2-3 seconds where you could see light coming from the source, kind of like the was fading out. However, I dont think the light was dimming. Rather I believe the beam had come from so far away that it just took a while for the light to finally dissipitate. When the white light had finally burnt completely out, it became obvious that the source was in outer space. What this light finally amounted too after this event was a near miniscule, dim, red dot that was slowly tracking across the sky. One probably would not have noticed it if the had not seen the powerful white beam that shot from it.
It would appear that it was a type of satellite, but I have never heard of any satellites that shoot perfect cones of light that touch the ground... About 5 minutes had past before the tiny red dot had tracked to the east and was no longer in our view....We all saw the red dot tracking, but only one other witness had seen nearly the entire length of the white-light incident. And, atleast one other person in the group, besides he, caught the tail end of the event.
All in all it was an amazing site to see and I have yet to tell the story to anyone that has any idea of what could have created such a powerful light. We were near a military base, so it may not be so suprising that something weird like that took place... The following day we were hiking across an open ridge and saw two planes doing manuevers coming toward us down in the valley below. One of the planes flew right over my head and it was so low I swear I could just about see the features of pilots face in the cockpit....Anyway, I would much like to learn what that light was and what purpose it has.......
In 2002 I hiked the length of the Appalachian Trail. It was around the first or second week in May when myself and four other friends where camped out close to Mt. Rogers. We were hiking north, but on that particular night we had been dropped of down the trail so we could hike south into Damasus, VA for the annual TrailDays Festival. We had set up camp out on an open field atop of a ridge where cows were grazing, a place which someone had named 'the boomer trail' (the words were carved on a wooden fence post at the end of the field). The view from ridge - essentially you could see for miles down into the valley in front of you, and miles in the opposite direction, down into the valleys behind (probably north and south views). A small part of our side to side (east and west) views were obstructed by hilltops along the ridgeline we were on.
It was not too long after sunset when all of us were sitting in a circle chatting and drinking tea. I was looking up at the stars. It was an amazingly clear night. Not one cloud in the sky. And since we were kind of isolated from any civilization, the stars were extremely prevalent. I believe there was also a full moon that night which was rising behind me, towards the south.
I was looking up and towards the northwest when, in almost the exact spot I was checking out, an amazingly bright light caught my attention. It was a white light and atleast as bright as moon, if not brighter. when I finally focused on the light, I saw that it was aimed somewhere behind me. A couple seconds went by when the light panned over top of us and down through the valley directly in front of me. It was then that I realized the light was in the shape of a perfect cone. It's hard to say how far across the light at the bottom of the cone was, but i would guess no more than 1/4 of a mile (pretty narrow).
When the spotlight had shut off it had already moved maybe two miles away from us. This whole process had lasted about 5 seconds. Although it appeared that the light had been shut off, there was still 2-3 seconds where you could see light coming from the source, kind of like the was fading out. However, I dont think the light was dimming. Rather I believe the beam had come from so far away that it just took a while for the light to finally dissipitate. When the white light had finally burnt completely out, it became obvious that the source was in outer space. What this light finally amounted too after this event was a near miniscule, dim, red dot that was slowly tracking across the sky. One probably would not have noticed it if the had not seen the powerful white beam that shot from it.
It would appear that it was a type of satellite, but I have never heard of any satellites that shoot perfect cones of light that touch the ground... About 5 minutes had past before the tiny red dot had tracked to the east and was no longer in our view....We all saw the red dot tracking, but only one other witness had seen nearly the entire length of the white-light incident. And, atleast one other person in the group, besides he, caught the tail end of the event.
All in all it was an amazing site to see and I have yet to tell the story to anyone that has any idea of what could have created such a powerful light. We were near a military base, so it may not be so suprising that something weird like that took place... The following day we were hiking across an open ridge and saw two planes doing manuevers coming toward us down in the valley below. One of the planes flew right over my head and it was so low I swear I could just about see the features of pilots face in the cockpit....Anyway, I would much like to learn what that light was and what purpose it has.......
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Mount Rogers
USA
6-9 seconds
6-9 seconds
cone
VA
Occurred : 5/2/2005 21:00 (Entered as : 05/02/2005 21:00) Reported: 6/28/2005 7:36:21 PM 19:36 Posted: 7/5/2005 Location: Mt. Rogers (near), VA Shape: Cone Duration: 6-9 seconds Characteristics: The object emitted beams, The object changed color
Camping out on a clear night, I saw a white cone of light touch the ground from outer space.