Orange bright orb gliding high in the sky that dimms to one small white and red light.
August 31st 2013 it was a Saturday night, my family had dinner on the deck. We had the bug zapper on and I forgot to turn it off. I walked out onto the deck at approx 10:05pm CST to unplug the bug zapper. After I unplugged it and started walking back towards the door I looked up in the sky to admire its beauty as I always do. I am constantly looking in the night sky and an amateur astronomer.
Coming from the north east at a very high altitude I saw a huge light. I have a feeling many people saw this it was huge in terms of normal objects in the night sky. If you were to extend your arm towards the night sky with your thumb up it would be the size of your thumbnail. It didn't have a finite shape on the outside. It was almost flaring.
My initial reaction was cool, ISS must be passing over and the sun is reflecting off it. Something I have seen in the past and verified using the heavens above database. However I quickly realized the colors were off. It wasn't just a white bright reflecting type color and it was a lot larger. It was yellowish/white in the center and yellowish/orange on the outsides. It was like it was on fire. The tips of the light coming off it were pointy. It was almost sparkling without the movement. The white light in the center was almost tear drop shaped with the point in the front heading in my direction. I ran into the house and grabbed my wife who was asleep on the couch she ran out to look at it. We both witnessed it. I asked her to keep watching it while I ran in to get my binoculars.
When I got back on the deck she said it’s almost gone it’s dimming down. She said it never changed speed. I could still see it and now it looked more like a star moving like normal satellites looks. However through the binoculars (celestron skymaster 15x70) I could see two star light objects moving. One was white about the brightness of an average star and next to it was a constant red light of the same brightness.
The object never sped up or slowed down. It’s speed was constant and it was silent. We both had the feeling it was silent because it was so high up. From first site the object came from the north east and continued in a straight path towards south west until it was literally directly over our house then it sort of banked to the south east towards downtown Chicago.
August 31st 2013 it was a Saturday night, my family had dinner on the deck. We had the bug zapper on and I forgot to turn it off. I walked out onto the deck at approx 10:05pm CST to unplug the bug zapper. After I unplugged it and started walking back towards the door I looked up in the sky to admire its beauty as I always do. I am constantly looking in the night sky and an amateur astronomer.
Coming from the north east at a very high altitude I saw a huge light. I have a feeling many people saw this it was huge in terms of normal objects in the night sky. If you were to extend your arm towards the night sky with your thumb up it would be the size of your thumbnail. It didn't have a finite shape on the outside. It was almost flaring.
My initial reaction was cool, ISS must be passing over and the sun is reflecting off it. Something I have seen in the past and verified using the heavens above database. However I quickly realized the colors were off. It wasn't just a white bright reflecting type color and it was a lot larger. It was yellowish/white in the center and yellowish/orange on the outsides. It was like it was on fire. The tips of the light coming off it were pointy. It was almost sparkling without the movement. The white light in the center was almost tear drop shaped with the point in the front heading in my direction. I ran into the house and grabbed my wife who was asleep on the couch she ran out to look at it. We both witnessed it. I asked her to keep watching it while I ran in to get my binoculars.
When I got back on the deck she said it’s almost gone it’s dimming down. She said it never changed speed. I could still see it and now it looked more like a star moving like normal satellites looks. However through the binoculars (celestron skymaster 15x70) I could see two star light objects moving. One was white about the brightness of an average star and next to it was a constant red light of the same brightness.
The object never sped up or slowed down. It’s speed was constant and it was silent. We both had the feeling it was silent because it was so high up. From first site the object came from the north east and continued in a straight path towards south west until it was literally directly over our house then it sort of banked to the south east towards downtown Chicago.
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Off
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Ingleside
USA
90 seconds
90 seconds
42.36
-88.15
teardrop
IL
Occurred : 8/31/2013 22:05 (Entered as : 08312013 22:05) Reported: 9/1/2013 9:28:05 AM 09:28 Posted: 9/9/2013 Location: Ingleside, IL Shape: Teardrop Duration: 90 seconds
Orange bright orb gliding high in the sky that dimms to one small white and red light.