Large bright aircraft with two distinct beams of light separated into large bifurcated gaseous cloud over southern New Mexico tonight.
My husband and I saw a large bright aircraft in the southern New Mexico sky near San Lorenzo tonight, traveling east at around 7:20 p.m.. It was bright enough to be moonlight, but the moon was not up yet. It looked about the size of Saturn when it is closest to the earth, but it kept increasing in size, then we noticed two sections of lights on either side that looked like searchlights on a VERY high flying plane. We continued watching, then suddenly it shifted into something that looked like a rocket that had separated from its fuel source, then it “bloomed” into a large gaseous cloud that had two distinct sections that emerged out of the areas where the “searchlights” had been. The gaseous cloud grew to occupy a large section of the southern sky, then merged into one big balloon shape preceded by two distinct horizontal stripes of light as it reached the southeastern horizon.
As the gaseous cloud faded, two of our neighbors came up and said they had also seen the whole event, from the bright light with “searchlight” beams of light emitting from it, through the visual separation into two sections, to the “blooming of the gas cloud” and its subsequent disappearance in the east, preceded by two stripes of light.
Did SpaceX fall out of the sky tonight???? My husband has been an astronomy professor for the past 30 years and has never seen anything like this in the night sky. This is how he described it to his colleagues when he inquired if they had seen it: There was a strange elongated bright light to the west (near Fomalhaut at about 7:30pm. As it got closer it drifted to the south and then fired(?) rockets for a few minutes then they shut off. At first the rocket plumes (reflected sunlight I assumed) were short and out to the side of its travel. I interpreted these as some sort of lateral thruster or azimuth control. Then the rear engines lit off and created a huge plume (20-30 deg) across the southern sky (in Eridanus mostly so pretty far south even from here). Very bright, fan shaped and very pretty. After a while the plume disconnected from the bright point at its apex and then faded slowly away. The bright point( : ) continued in a SE direction and was lost below the southern hills from our house. I assume it was trying for a safe place to land. I hope it did not hit anyone.
Please let me know if this was plausibly SPACE-X.
((NUFORC Note: Possible result of launch of Space X rocket from Cape Kennedy? PD))
My husband and I saw a large bright aircraft in the southern New Mexico sky near San Lorenzo tonight, traveling east at around 7:20 p.m.. It was bright enough to be moonlight, but the moon was not up yet. It looked about the size of Saturn when it is closest to the earth, but it kept increasing in size, then we noticed two sections of lights on either side that looked like searchlights on a VERY high flying plane. We continued watching, then suddenly it shifted into something that looked like a rocket that had separated from its fuel source, then it “bloomed” into a large gaseous cloud that had two distinct sections that emerged out of the areas where the “searchlights” had been. The gaseous cloud grew to occupy a large section of the southern sky, then merged into one big balloon shape preceded by two distinct horizontal stripes of light as it reached the southeastern horizon.
As the gaseous cloud faded, two of our neighbors came up and said they had also seen the whole event, from the bright light with “searchlight” beams of light emitting from it, through the visual separation into two sections, to the “blooming of the gas cloud” and its subsequent disappearance in the east, preceded by two stripes of light.
Did SpaceX fall out of the sky tonight???? My husband has been an astronomy professor for the past 30 years and has never seen anything like this in the night sky. This is how he described it to his colleagues when he inquired if they had seen it: There was a strange elongated bright light to the west (near Fomalhaut at about 7:30pm. As it got closer it drifted to the south and then fired(?) rockets for a few minutes then they shut off. At first the rocket plumes (reflected sunlight I assumed) were short and out to the side of its travel. I interpreted these as some sort of lateral thruster or azimuth control. Then the rear engines lit off and created a huge plume (20-30 deg) across the southern sky (in Eridanus mostly so pretty far south even from here). Very bright, fan shaped and very pretty. After a while the plume disconnected from the bright point at its apex and then faded slowly away. The bright point( : ) continued in a SE direction and was lost below the southern hills from our house. I assume it was trying for a safe place to land. I hope it did not hit anyone.
Please let me know if this was plausibly SPACE-X.
((NUFORC Note: Possible result of launch of Space X rocket from Cape Kennedy? PD))
No
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Off
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San Lorenzo
USA
10-15 minutes
10-15 minutes
NM
Occurred : 2/6/2018 19:25 (Entered as : 02-06-18 19:25 PM) Reported: 2/6/2018 8:33:35 PM 20:33 Posted: 2/16/2018 Location: San Lorenzo, NM Shape: Duration: 10-15 minutes Characteristics: There were lights on the object, There was an aura or haze around the object, The object emitted beams
Large bright a/c with 2 distinct beams of light separated into large bifurcated gaseous cloud over S NM. ((space debris??))