2017-07-01 - Aurora, CO - Changing

Bright object over Aurora that changed shapes as it left.

We were sitting outside late afternoon and noticed a stationary light at high altitude. It appeared to be “twinkling” and we wondered if it might be a weather balloon. Looking at it through binoculars, we saw that it appeared to be a sphere with two smaller spheres that were either rotating around it, or the object itself was revolving, as the central sphere would shine a very bright light which would then disappear, only to reappear within a second or two. We had a difficult time at first determining its shape because of the brightness of this light that appeared and disappeared.

The light, which we at first thought might be just reflection, was very strong, and seemed to have a “diffraction” effect around the edges, which were blurry and rainbow colored. We decided that it was no reflection, but that the sphere was actually emanating the light.

After about 15 minutes, the object drifted north, and we followed its path, still observing through binoculars. The drift made us decide it might be a balloon after all, but we kept watching because it was so unusual. After about 10 minutes, it drifted south again, to return to its original spot. This of course sharpened our focus, as its movements were now not simple “drifting,” but purposeful.

Then, suddenly, it started to head west, which would bring it almost overhead. It accelerated slowly at first, and as we watched we noticed that its form seemed to shift. Overhead, we could see that the material it was made of was extremely shiny, almost like glass, and highly reflective.

The object was flying in a straight line but it “rocked” and “pitched” a little, so that the light emanating from it plus the reflectivity made it difficult to determine what was happening, as it seemed to be changing shape, elongating, and splitting into a boomerange shape, but with a middle sectio! n that was slightly smaller than the two edges.

Within a few seconds it lost all luminosity and became a dull dark grey triangle with what looked like 5 darker circles, one at each apex and two between those at the top and bottom.

It flew perpendicular to the earth so we could see the shape clearly, and rapidly disappeared in the distance.

After about twenty minutes, we looked in the same direction we had originally seen it, and it was back in the same spot, but this time at a much higher altitude. It stayed in that spot for about ten minutes, looking like the sphere with the light and the two smaller spheres rotating around it, then it changed to the dark grey triangle again. Suddenly what looked like a puff of “vapor” emerged from it and the triangle shaped shrank rapidly and disappeared.