Star-like object at high altitude slowly moving over house to the southwest.
On the evening of Nov 24th 2009 at approx 6:45 pm EST I had gone out on my deck. The sky was dark and clear with stars and a nearly full moon brightly shining in the high eastern sky. I have a deck that faces SW and I have a nice piece of sky to view down to approx 20 degrees off the horizon to that direction. I was watching some high commercial aircraft traffic on the Victor Airway above my house flying as usual from SW to NE, when I noticed directly above my deck a much brighter than usual star-like object moving slowly to the SW and then I noticed it had no strobes or navigation lights. So I discerned this was a satellite and watched it for approx 10 seconds until it stopped for approx 3 seconds with no change in luminescence, then quickly it did a 90 degree turn to the left or easterly from its original course lasting approx 2 seconds. It then turn 90 degrees again to the right and proceeded on a SW direction, then it seemed to speed up and disappea! red as to gain altitude and I lost visual reference. So as a private pilot for over thirty years I can tell you that judging altitudes at night is nearly impossible but had to be somewhere above 40,000 ft. No particular shape, sounds or other distinctions were observed because of the altitude. The one distinction that I can make is this was no known aircraft in my inventory of my knowledge that can maneuver as this did.
On the evening of Nov 24th 2009 at approx 6:45 pm EST I had gone out on my deck. The sky was dark and clear with stars and a nearly full moon brightly shining in the high eastern sky. I have a deck that faces SW and I have a nice piece of sky to view down to approx 20 degrees off the horizon to that direction. I was watching some high commercial aircraft traffic on the Victor Airway above my house flying as usual from SW to NE, when I noticed directly above my deck a much brighter than usual star-like object moving slowly to the SW and then I noticed it had no strobes or navigation lights. So I discerned this was a satellite and watched it for approx 10 seconds until it stopped for approx 3 seconds with no change in luminescence, then quickly it did a 90 degree turn to the left or easterly from its original course lasting approx 2 seconds. It then turn 90 degrees again to the right and proceeded on a SW direction, then it seemed to speed up and disappea! red as to gain altitude and I lost visual reference. So as a private pilot for over thirty years I can tell you that judging altitudes at night is nearly impossible but had to be somewhere above 40,000 ft. No particular shape, sounds or other distinctions were observed because of the altitude. The one distinction that I can make is this was no known aircraft in my inventory of my knowledge that can maneuver as this did.
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Off
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Lyman
USA
15 sec
15 sec
34.97
-82.15
light
SC
Occurred : 11/24/2009 18:45 (Entered as : 11/24/09 18:45) Reported: 12/3/2009 3:47:47 PM 15:47 Posted: 12/12/2009 Location: Lyman, SC Shape: Light Duration: 15 sec
Star-like object at high altitude slowly moving over house to the southwest.