2014-06-29 - New Orleans, LA - Unknown

Large pulsating (5sec) white light in sky above New Orleans for 20+ min.

A friend and I saw a white light in the sky directly overhead as I was leaving her house tonight, around 2:40AM in New Orleans, La, June 29, 2014. It appeared to be holding a position for 5-10 minutes just above a cloud layer that obscured most of the stars, and could not have been more than a few miles above the ground. The object appeared to be roughly the size of a house (but I’m normally not a great judge of size at such a distance). I can say for sure, though, that it was either extremely large, or very close, as in, incomparably larger than the perceived size of a star at my distance. I should also make clear that we never saw its contours--we only saw the light coming through the dark cloud layer that created the almost starless night, tonight. It quickly faded to full brightness and back to darkness (as opposed to blinking) periodically, every 5 seconds, the entire time it was in-sight.

I sent my friend to retrieve her point and shoot camera, hoping it would have better light sensitivity than my iPhone 5S, but as soon as she returned, the light disappeared. We stared for another 2-3 minutes and it did not return. Before finally leaving, I walked back inside to attempt to see if anyone had spoken with the New Orleans Police Department, but no one answered their non-emergency line. After about 20 minutes of that and speaking with my friend about the occurrence, I stepped back outside to leave. The light was back. This time, it appeared just to the right of the same pair of stars it had appeared near earlier. I ran back inside to grab my friend and we watched it pulsate for another several minutes, attempting to video tape, but the light was too faint for the camera. This time, the light appeared to be moving away and then towards us. I thought I saw a flash or two from possible neighboring objects, but it was so faint that I can’t tell for sure. My friend als! o claimed that the light was faintly tinted blue, and I may have caught that once or twice, as well, but once again, I can’t tell for sure.

After a good bit of thought, the following are the points that stand out to me:

1. I have only ever seen a combination of red and white lights coming from man-operated aircraft. The fact that this light was purely white is interesting to me.

2. The regularity of the pulsating of the light (5 seconds between ON states. For whatever reason, this made me lean towards “man-made.” But, who knows?)

3. The size and proximity. My friend suggested that it could be a satellite, but I don’t think it could be so close or so big. I will research the likelihood of this as soon as I’m done filing this report.

4. The fact that the object “disappeared” and “returned.” I believe it’s possible that there were multiple thin layers of obscuring clouds, and that enough finally came between us and the object that it was finally obscured completely. Thinking in these terms, its return was simply those clouds continuing past the object. From this, one may conclude that it disappeared and reappeared, or that it never left. From this, one might also infer that it was moving slowy the whole time and was not exactly static as implied in the first paragraph of this report.

5. UPDATE: 4:38AM, CURRENT TIME: Said friend just called and said someone walked into her back door (that she negligently left unlocked). She believes she say a T-shirt, so we’ll assume he was human. This most likely has no connection to the white light, but I thought I’d mention it.

6. Apparently, the International Space Station has just passed over us, but that was the evening before this one, Friday June 27 2014 at 8:41PM:

http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/view.cfm?country=United_States&region=Louisiana&city=New_Orleans#.U6_1aY1dVH0 a.

Also, the ISS is described as having a constant white light, and specifically not a flashing light, from the two articles I’ve read on it.

That is all! Decide for yourself!