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Space Report
As usual, there were quite a few space activities that produced UFO reports in March-April. I found it refreshing to note that Peter Davenport correctly identified nine UFO reports as being produced by the rocket body re-entry on 23 February. Thanks to a heads up from Ted Molczan, he was also correct in identifying sightings produced by the second stage of an Atlas 5 second stage venting fuel in orbit. However, he did not identify the sightings that were produced by the launch itself.
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Falcon 9 rocket launch
At 10:50 PM EST, on March 1, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral. There were four reports from Florida listed in the National UFO reporting center (NUFORC) that were related to this launch.
The first came from Sunrise, Florida near Fort Lauderdale. The time of the sighting was listed as 2200 but it matches the character- istics of the launch:
Watched orange/white object with a red tail following it that would come And go moving north to south Changed direction heading east Lost it cause it dissipated and than could see a cloud with a dim light moving opposite direction of other clouds.1
The next sighting came from Miami, Florida. This was listed as 22:55, which is only a few minutes after liftoff. The details leave a lot to be desired but it appears to describe the rocket’s appearance to the casual observer.
A red trail caught my eye as I was driving home on the highway. Looked like a plane that was red with a red trail. I soon realized that it wasn’t moving and I stopped my car. I watched as the object trailed turned to a gray or white color and disappear. The object turned to a white light. A plane flew by at high altitude. The object started moving at a rapid pace. It slowed down again and just disappeared. I watched the sky for a few minutes after to see if it would reappear. Nothing happened.2
The next observation came from Kissimee, Florida, south of Orlando. The witness describes the object descending, which is what appears to occur as the rocket goes downrange. The sighting time was 2300.
Fireball looking sphere object coming towards earth for about a minute then turned and went back up towards space for about another minute or two and just disappeared3
The final sighting from Orlando, Florida, was interesting because the witness described himself an expert on identifying rocket launches. The time of the sighting was listed as 22:14.
We was in the parking lot close to mco and a super orange bright light show up from the horizon disappearing way up... I know the pat- tern of flight of the airplane I lived her since 2010 and is a unusual route to se a craft... The weird thing looks like is coming from north-east (cape Canaveral) I check the NASA launch schedule and nothing come up for today....4
They apparently did not look close enough because there was a launch scheduled and it wasn’t scrubbed.
These observations are lacking in details that could conclusively identify them as rocket launch observations but the coincidence that they were made close to the time frame as the Falcon 9 launch indicates this was the source of their reports.
Atlas 5 launch March 12
This launch was from Cape Canaveral at 10:44 PM EDT on March 12. This produced a few reports in the NUFORC database. The first was from Coral Springs, Florida, north of Miami, at 23:00.
While on my way home I needed to stop off at the grocery store. As I turned north extremely high in the sky the most unusual fire orange color object moved in an eastern through the sky. I have seen the orange colored objects twice before but this one was more comet shaped whith what I can only describe as a tail. I was so amazed. Before I could video the object I lost site of it in some cloud I guess. But this thing appeared to get brighter and then dim out slightly.5
The next report came from the north of the cape, near Daytona Beach. The time listed was 22:45 and the description is what one would expect from the launch.
Looked up at the sky and saw a round orange ball traveling toward me just to the immediate south of my house, and to the immediate west of the Halifax River. As the object got closer to me, 4 strobe lights appeared to flash approximately every 3 seconds. As I exited the screen room, an orange tail appeared behind the object and it turned due east toward the river and ascended quickly into the sky until it disappeared.6
As in the Falcon 9 reports, these reports, while not precise, do appear to describe the Atlas launch. There is no reason to suspect they were observations of anything else.
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Atlas 5 second stage
The March 12 Atlas launch also produced UFO reports when the second stage was seen venting fuel in orbit as it made a pass over the US around 4:30-4:40 UT (12:30AM EDT/11:30 PM CDT/10:30 PM MDT/9:30 PM PDT). Astrophotographers in several locations recorded the event. Both MUFON and NUFORC received UFO reports of this event.
10:30 PM Troy, Montanna
My wife and I set outside every chance we can to watch meteors and there was a lot of activity last night we saw over 6 or so. My wife then looked over to her left and at the tree top of one of our trees was a glowing like perfectly round object.At first it was very bright it was about the size of our outside table. It had a star like object inside of it that moved along with it. As it moved slowly in a very horizontal line to the North it grew in size and there were no clouds at all in the area, it just appeared out of nowhere! As it was moving it grew larger in size slowly and on the very outside edge there was another star like object that went into the center of the other star object. Our dog [Item Moved/CMS/nd] who also sits outside at night with us took off under our trailer so what ever it was it scared her. My wife went into the house to get our sons to show them what we were seeing and they also were mind blown by what we saw. This is not the first time we have seen something out of the ordinary But it is the first time we had seen something of this nature. It finally disappeared to where we could not see it anymore. From here on out we are going to try to film anything we see like this, unfortunately all our cameras are out of date so we could not get it on film. This is truly something not of this planet! I can draw you a sketch and send it via email if your interested in looking at it, Just contact us back and we would be more than happy to do so7
9:30 PM Oxnard, California
When I first observed the object it appeared to be in lower orbit flight or very high altitude flight. It had a plasma type cloud surrounding it. Once I began to track the object it suddenly started descending at an incredible rate of speed. It continued to descend changing into a more “cloud-like” appearance. Once it was about the size of a basketball it started moving towards where I was located. As it approached it began changing from a cloud to a solid object. It was enormous. I’m approximating the size to be at least a mile in width. It came to rest directly over where I was located. It also turned the exact color of the sky until it was undetectable. I lost visual on the object after that.8
9:45 PM Stockton, California
I had stepped outside into the back yard at around 9:45PM when I noticed a bright blue flourescent colored sphere in the North sky and was flying erratically in a North Easterly direction. The object was flying relatively low but there was no sound of a propulsion source. I noticed the object make several short changes in flight path which made for an erratic pattern of flight. I called to my wife who was in the back room of our house to come see this beautiful looking blue light in the sky. In the time that my wife took to step out of the house which was approximately 45-50 seconds the light had traveled a considerable distance. She was able to make out the light seconds be- fore it disappeared. The objects bright blue almost flourescent color was what initially caught my eye and was different than anything I have ever seen before. The bright color of the sphere plus the fact that it made no noise was also very strange. The sphere’s flight pattern was erratic and made several changes in flight path as it traveled, unlike an airplane or helicopter? I felt that what I was witnessing was something unlike any known aircraft that I have ever seen before. I am a veteran of the US Army with 9 years active duty and nothing in my experiences have I ever seen anything like what my wife and I witnessed that night on March 13, 2015. The sphere continued flying in a North Easterly direction and continued making changes in flight path until it disappeared from sight. I had left my phone in the house otherwise I might had been able to capture the sighting in a video! The total amount of time that the sphere was seen in the sky was about three to three and a half minutes.9
Thanks to Ted Molczan, Peter Davenport was able to identify the two UFO reports he received that described the event. The first came from Stevensville, Montanna at 22:00
A circular cloud growing to double concentric circular clouds with a yellow/orange colored object in the center of the cloud. Radius of cloud approximately between 5 to 10 moon diameters at maximum extent.
Object moved with cloud and cloud became fainter and larger over a period off 15 min but could still follow faint colored object as it moved very very slowly across the star background. Sighting occurred first east of the star, Sirus and moved north east in the sky. Thought initially it was a supernova but could see an object in center of cloud move with 10x50 binoculars.10
The other sighting came from Fallon, Nevada at 21:16.
A pinpoint of light just below canis minor was slowly engulfed by a small white blurry puff. I pointed it out to my husband. We watched the object move in an accelerating straight line towards Regulus, just under Jupiter. As it moved steadily across the sky, the puff of whitish mist around it steadily grew in circumference. A tiny pinpoint of light could always be seen at the center of the growing “puff.” The object moved steadily across the sky toward Regulus (I whipped out my star tracker app to track it), it suddenly slowed and came to a stop just under Jupiter. The puff continued to increase in circumference and dissipate. The object then began to move slowly again towards Regu- lus. As it approached Regulus it again slowed, stopped. The tiny pinpoint of light could still be seen, the white puff around the object had now grown in size to such a circumference it could barely be seen. The light then disappeard as the puff of white completely dissipated.11
It is good to see that Ted Molczan is providing good information to Peter Davenport. One hopes that MUFON is also doing their homework. Otherwise, these sighting might appear on an episode of “Hanger one” as a mass sighting.
The other launches these past two months were daytime events and did not involve many UFO reports because they occurred in daylight.
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I know what I think I saw
Once again, we see that space activities can, and do, produce UFO reports. I am not trying to show the witnesses as being in- competent or stupid. What I am trying to demonstrate is that they often do report events that happened but can fool them- selves into thinking they saw something exotic or will make errors in their reports that can mask the true source of the report. The witnesses and the UFO promoters will say, “They know what they saw” but is what they reported an accurate reflection of what they truly saw?
Quelle: SUNlite 3/2015
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