2007-09-06 - Mechelen (Belgium) - Light

3 big round/ovalshaped balls of light, magnitude -4 aprox., hanging still in a triangle formation 25-30° above the western horizon

Yesterday evening (Thursday 06 September 2007) around 20h25 I was travelling alone by train from Leuven to Mechelen (Belgium) reading the newspaper. When I looked up I dropped my paper cause I saw suddenly 3 balls of light hanging still in the air in a wide triangle-form. My first thought was it was maybe a reflection of my window, but it definitely kept hanging there on the same spot and when a rising cloudformation covered 2 of the 3 objects after 3 minutes of watching it out of my train window, it ruled out the possibility of being a window reflection.

It appeared like they were reflecting sunlight though because they were hanging in the late-evening western part of the sky, and looked orange/yellowish. They appeared to have a round form but rather oval, it’s hard to say, but they definitely didn’t appear to be pointy like a star. Furthermore, the light didn’t appear to be coming from a concentrated spot like you have with the flare of a plane or a planet/star, they looked like bright ‘ink’spots in the air, so they should have been really big.

I believe they were hanging 25 to 30 degrees above the western horizon and I could look at them for at least 3-4 minutes! Then a cloud covered the bottom 2, which formed the basis of the triangle you could say, and only the upper one was visible. The train then made a curve and I lost them out of sight. Later in the car I pulled over a few times to have a look when I was outside the city, but that cloud had risen so they were just gone or behind the cloud but I haven’t seen them after.

I estimate they had the magnitude of Venus at its brightest, magnitude -4, but it was like there were 3 wide (no-pointlike/starlike form but broader in shape) Venuses hanging in the sky exactly in a wide triangle form, on a great distance I guess cause a cloud at the horizon covered 2 of them.

I ‘ve seen all kinds of phenomena and have been a member of an observatory/amateurastronomer for 8 years (not anymore now) so I know basis meteorological and astronomical phenomena. I have watched the skies for so many hours and nights and seen a lot, from magnificent fireballs and meteors to satellites and iridium flashes, but nothing that was unexplainable. Never ever I saw something as yet uncomprehensible like this. If it was there, there should have been lots of people who saw it cause it was bright and clear., I don’t understand it hasn’t been on the news yet.

Thanks in advance for reading