At approximately 3:30AM 11-21-14 my 1 year old grandaughter woke up crying. After getting her comforted and back to sleep (about 4:00AM), I stepped out on the back porch to have a cigarette. The sky was clear with stars visible.
At that time directly east there were 3 white "stars" of about 1st magnitude arranged in a straight line and evenly spaced and equal brightness. The axis of the lineup stood vertically above the E horizon just above a neighbor's house, or on an E-W axis. I had never seen a formation of stars with a pattern like this and thought it was unusual.
The stars did not move or change brightness exactly like normal stars except that there are no stars that even remotely resemble that configuration and brightness in that part of the sky at that time. My husband is an amatuer astronomer and MUFON field investigator and checked the star charts and Stellarium planetarium software. Whatever they were, they were not stars.
After viewing them for a few minutes, I looked at the sky straight up, and to my surprise another IDENTICAL equidistant straight-line pattern of 3 stars were visible. They were exactly the same, except they were dimmer at about magnitude 2, but still easy to see. Again, there are no stars known that meet the observation.
During the approximate 5 minutes of observation, both of the configuations just appeared stationary. But that's not all. The SAME CONFIGURATION of three 1st magnitude "psuedo-stars" made another appearance just this morning (12-3-14). Exactly the same phenomena. During 5 minutes of observation (clear sky & other stars visible) they just stood there just like stars of magnitude 1 or so.
Tried taking a picture with my cell phone but it didn't come out.
After 5 minutes had to go back indoors to check on the grandaughter. At 5 AM went back outside on porch, and the "psuedo-stars" were gone.
Husband checked CalSky for possible satellite etc but nothing visible that could cause this.
At that time directly east there were 3 white "stars" of about 1st magnitude arranged in a straight line and evenly spaced and equal brightness. The axis of the lineup stood vertically above the E horizon just above a neighbor's house, or on an E-W axis. I had never seen a formation of stars with a pattern like this and thought it was unusual.
The stars did not move or change brightness exactly like normal stars except that there are no stars that even remotely resemble that configuration and brightness in that part of the sky at that time. My husband is an amatuer astronomer and MUFON field investigator and checked the star charts and Stellarium planetarium software. Whatever they were, they were not stars.
After viewing them for a few minutes, I looked at the sky straight up, and to my surprise another IDENTICAL equidistant straight-line pattern of 3 stars were visible. They were exactly the same, except they were dimmer at about magnitude 2, but still easy to see. Again, there are no stars known that meet the observation.
During the approximate 5 minutes of observation, both of the configuations just appeared stationary. But that's not all. The SAME CONFIGURATION of three 1st magnitude "psuedo-stars" made another appearance just this morning (12-3-14). Exactly the same phenomena. During 5 minutes of observation (clear sky & other stars visible) they just stood there just like stars of magnitude 1 or so.
Tried taking a picture with my cell phone but it didn't come out.
After 5 minutes had to go back indoors to check on the grandaughter. At 5 AM went back outside on porch, and the "psuedo-stars" were gone.
Husband checked CalSky for possible satellite etc but nothing visible that could cause this.
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Hickory Hills
USA
5 minutes
5 minutes
41.73
-87.83
light
IL
Occurred : 11/21/2014 04:00 (Entered as : 11-21-14 4:00) Reported: 12/3/2014 10:03:53 PM 22:03 Posted: 12/5/2014 Location: Hickory Hills, IL Shape: Light Duration: 5 minutes
At approximately 3:30AM 11-21-14 my 1 year old grandaughter woke up crying. After getting her comforted and back to sleep (about 4:00AM