2005-09-08 - Spirit Lake, ID - Light

Object due north very bright (redish) and stationary then faded and 30 seconds later moved rapidly downward

I was in the backyard with my mother, as we had just watched the International Space Station go overhead about 10 or 15 minutes before, and I had her telescope out looking at the moon to the southeast. I got into a conversation with her about the tilt of the earth, and how it causes the seasons, and explained to her why we see different stars at different times of the year, depending on which side of the Sun we are on, and since our night-time has us looking a different direction. Just about the time I finished explaining this to her I noticed a VERY bright light in the north sky, directly under the North Star, about 1/5 the way up from the horizon to the North Star, not too far above the trees. I said, "What the hell is that?". My mother turned and observed it also. It appeared redish, just like Mars now appears in the Eastern sky, only much brighter, and was as bright as a landing light, but totally stationary. I then observed it fade out and seem to disappear, but I had my binoculars in my hand so I brought them up to look and see if I could still see it. I observed what I thought was the object, but it matched the stars in the background, same brightness and same color, and it was motionless, so I didn't know if it was the object or not, but I kept looking at it just in case I might see something. About twenty seconds later it started moving RAPIDLY downward toward the horizon and disappeared behind the trees. About three to four minutes later I looked to the Northwest, just underneath the Big Dipper and saw a light heading toward where the object was, but it had red and white flashing anti-collision lights and appeared to be an airplane headed that way, but there was no way to tell if it was military or a normal airline flight, but it did appear to be fast enough to be at least a jet.