Rotating orange beam appeared to stop and zig-zag away from approaching comm. airplane
I was skywatching on a very clear night through my car's sunroof while waiting to pick up my daughter. At 8:12pm, I saw what appeared, to me, to be something akin to an irridium flare or bright plane landing light dim and go out about 12 o'clock high. One minute later at 8:13pm, to the west, I picked up an orange light approaching at 2-3x the speed of the incoming airliners (on flight path to PHL from West to East).
Initially just orange, the light pattern of the object became a clockwise rotating orange beam, similar to a "bow tie" rotating clockwise. I payed close attention - no blinking lights and it roated about 40-50 RPM (one clockwise rotation per second or so). Initial thought was it looked like a recent viewing of a flyover of the ISS. However, it got interesting at this point. After viewing the craft for 5 seconds, it stopped. Stopped! This is where my heart started to beat quickly. I did not take my eyes off of it and in a very short time, it reversed direction from due-east to what appeared to be almost a 180* direction change and it appeared to start heading up. It changed direction again 2-3 more times, going east again, then another zig back to north west where it dimmed and disappeared. The point it disappeared was not too far from the point in the sky I had seen the flare-type effect at 8:12pm. It had done this activity at about the same time I caught, out of the corner of my right eye, the bright headlight of a commercial airliner traveling from East to West on an opposite path toward the object (a normal flight path from PHL outbound to the West). The object appeared to have "sensed" the airliner heading its way and it made a choice to zig zag away and then out of sight "upward" in a course correction effect.
The object didn't seem too out of the ordinary as a rotating orange bar of light. What was astounding was that it stopped and changed course a number of times in a matter of seconds.
The size of bar of orange light would have been 2-3 times the width of a commercial airliner at 25K feet. Possibly just under the width of my pinky fingernail held at arm's length. I do not know if I can judge the height of the object but would approximate 15-20K feet. The color of the object was orange at all times - changing from bar to point of light to small point of light to nothing during its flight.
I was skywatching on a very clear night through my car's sunroof while waiting to pick up my daughter. At 8:12pm, I saw what appeared, to me, to be something akin to an irridium flare or bright plane landing light dim and go out about 12 o'clock high. One minute later at 8:13pm, to the west, I picked up an orange light approaching at 2-3x the speed of the incoming airliners (on flight path to PHL from West to East).
Initially just orange, the light pattern of the object became a clockwise rotating orange beam, similar to a "bow tie" rotating clockwise. I payed close attention - no blinking lights and it roated about 40-50 RPM (one clockwise rotation per second or so). Initial thought was it looked like a recent viewing of a flyover of the ISS. However, it got interesting at this point. After viewing the craft for 5 seconds, it stopped. Stopped! This is where my heart started to beat quickly. I did not take my eyes off of it and in a very short time, it reversed direction from due-east to what appeared to be almost a 180* direction change and it appeared to start heading up. It changed direction again 2-3 more times, going east again, then another zig back to north west where it dimmed and disappeared. The point it disappeared was not too far from the point in the sky I had seen the flare-type effect at 8:12pm. It had done this activity at about the same time I caught, out of the corner of my right eye, the bright headlight of a commercial airliner traveling from East to West on an opposite path toward the object (a normal flight path from PHL outbound to the West). The object appeared to have "sensed" the airliner heading its way and it made a choice to zig zag away and then out of sight "upward" in a course correction effect.
The object didn't seem too out of the ordinary as a rotating orange bar of light. What was astounding was that it stopped and changed course a number of times in a matter of seconds.
The size of bar of orange light would have been 2-3 times the width of a commercial airliner at 25K feet. Possibly just under the width of my pinky fingernail held at arm's length. I do not know if I can judge the height of the object but would approximate 15-20K feet. The color of the object was orange at all times - changing from bar to point of light to small point of light to nothing during its flight.
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Guthriesville
USA
15 seconds
15 seconds
disk
PA
Occurred : 9/24/2007 20:14 (Entered as : 09/24/07 20:14) Reported: 9/24/2007 6:45:57 PM 18:45 Posted: 10/8/2007 Location: Guthriesville, PA Shape: Disk Duration: 15 seconds Characteristics: There were lights on the object
Rotating orange beam appeared to stop and zig-zag away from approaching comm. airplane