On a flight I was operating San Juan PR to Tampa fl. Departed San Juan the evening of 8/5/22. Enroute to Tampa, around 12:01AM on 8/6/22, when we were around the Dominican Republic, I noticed a very bright white light that would stay bright for 10-15 seconds and then go dim while moving left to right under the pan of the Big Dipper. I mentioned it to my first officer, and he said he saw it too. After having this happen every 2-3 minutes for about 10 minutes, I asked the ATC controller (Miami Center frequency 127.22 I believe) if there were any aircraft off in our 1 o’clock direction, to which he replied no, and why? I mentioned what we were seeing and he said again (I believe), he doesn’t see anything on the radar.
I will say I know there are some US military operations areas in that general direction off the coast of the eastern US, and I was suspicious this was military aircraft doing some night training. But according to the controller, nothing was out there. Although the range was hard to tell. Which is one of the interesting parts of this. The entire time these 3 objects stayed in the same general azimuth from our aircraft while we travelled approximately 400 miles.
So, I asked the controller to ask other aircraft if they were seeing what we saw and the controller asked other aircraft and there was a JetBlue aircraft (don’t remember the flight number) about 60 miles behind us. When I told them to look under the “pan” of the Big Dipper they said they saw it. That started a running dialogue for maybe twenty minutes where we or they would see them and then the other aircraft would concur that they saw them too.
Now, for the maneuvers these objects were doing.
This is very interesting/intriguing/fascinating. The first object started out very bright (I have 2 decent videos-but I am unwilling to share them yet, but would be happy to discuss with you). The first object is round and quite bright white (which is how I noticed it), It moves from left to right for about 10-20 seconds and then the light slowly dims and goes out. Then in a random time frame from 1-3 minutes later it would do the same thing again. After about 5-10 minutes. We noticed the trajectory changing and one of them would actually go vertical. And it seemed a second one would chase it.
One of the objects for about 10 to 15 minutes would start out at the left side of beneath the pan of the Big Dipper, and then while in a slight descent would start these oscillation/undulations and do about 2 or 3 and then stop and then the light would go out.
What is fascinating to me is the distance these objects must have been at (to not be seen on radar), and the height they must have been at (about halfway between the horizon and the bottom of the pan of the Big Dipper, made me think that they were going extremely fast and were extremely high. But that is a somewhat guess on my behalf. The oscillation maneuvers were normally quicker 5-10 seconds so I was never able to get a video of them. By the time I could open my iPhone, get to my camera, get the video on, try to find it on the screen, they were normally over sorry to say. In retrospect I should have kept my camera on, but with the camera screen full bright it was screwing up my night vision so I was trying to turn it off to be able to see better.
This went on for 20-30 minutes. We continued to see them in our 1 o’clock position even after reaching the Florida shoreline (and the object-I believe there was only one by this time) would have been over US soil. But the oscillation and undulations stopped and we only saw one by this point and it would just go left to right and go dim. And then get brighter some time later.
We brought a flight attendant forward from the back of the aircraft (more towards the end of the sighting so he could see it to, and he did).
One of the issues for people on the ground seeing these objects was there was a lower mostly cloudy sky here and there and the slant visual might have made it difficult/impossible to see?
I will say that approximately one year ago on the same general flight path (probably San Juan to Orlando) I saw another very bright object well above me and to the right (just before sunset), but by the time I started to understand what was happening (10 seconds or so), the light went out and never reappeared.
I have also talked with one other pilot friend and he said he saw something in that same area (San Juan to Philadelphia and he saw it off the left side of the aircraft).
I will say I know there are some US military operations areas in that general direction off the coast of the eastern US, and I was suspicious this was military aircraft doing some night training. But according to the controller, nothing was out there. Although the range was hard to tell. Which is one of the interesting parts of this. The entire time these 3 objects stayed in the same general azimuth from our aircraft while we travelled approximately 400 miles.
So, I asked the controller to ask other aircraft if they were seeing what we saw and the controller asked other aircraft and there was a JetBlue aircraft (don’t remember the flight number) about 60 miles behind us. When I told them to look under the “pan” of the Big Dipper they said they saw it. That started a running dialogue for maybe twenty minutes where we or they would see them and then the other aircraft would concur that they saw them too.
Now, for the maneuvers these objects were doing.
This is very interesting/intriguing/fascinating. The first object started out very bright (I have 2 decent videos-but I am unwilling to share them yet, but would be happy to discuss with you). The first object is round and quite bright white (which is how I noticed it), It moves from left to right for about 10-20 seconds and then the light slowly dims and goes out. Then in a random time frame from 1-3 minutes later it would do the same thing again. After about 5-10 minutes. We noticed the trajectory changing and one of them would actually go vertical. And it seemed a second one would chase it.
One of the objects for about 10 to 15 minutes would start out at the left side of beneath the pan of the Big Dipper, and then while in a slight descent would start these oscillation/undulations and do about 2 or 3 and then stop and then the light would go out.
What is fascinating to me is the distance these objects must have been at (to not be seen on radar), and the height they must have been at (about halfway between the horizon and the bottom of the pan of the Big Dipper, made me think that they were going extremely fast and were extremely high. But that is a somewhat guess on my behalf. The oscillation maneuvers were normally quicker 5-10 seconds so I was never able to get a video of them. By the time I could open my iPhone, get to my camera, get the video on, try to find it on the screen, they were normally over sorry to say. In retrospect I should have kept my camera on, but with the camera screen full bright it was screwing up my night vision so I was trying to turn it off to be able to see better.
This went on for 20-30 minutes. We continued to see them in our 1 o’clock position even after reaching the Florida shoreline (and the object-I believe there was only one by this time) would have been over US soil. But the oscillation and undulations stopped and we only saw one by this point and it would just go left to right and go dim. And then get brighter some time later.
We brought a flight attendant forward from the back of the aircraft (more towards the end of the sighting so he could see it to, and he did).
One of the issues for people on the ground seeing these objects was there was a lower mostly cloudy sky here and there and the slant visual might have made it difficult/impossible to see?
I will say that approximately one year ago on the same general flight path (probably San Juan to Orlando) I saw another very bright object well above me and to the right (just before sunset), but by the time I started to understand what was happening (10 seconds or so), the light went out and never reappeared.
I have also talked with one other pilot friend and he said he saw something in that same area (San Juan to Philadelphia and he saw it off the left side of the aircraft).
No
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Off
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35 minutes
35 minutes
circle
Occurred : 8/6/2022 00:02 (Entered as : 08/06/2022 12:02 AM) Reported: 8/8/2022 4:26:15 PM 16:26 Posted: 9/9/2022 Location: , Shape: Circle Duration: 35 minutes Characteristics: The object changed color
Sighting heading northwest from San Juan to Tampa 8/6/22