8 April 2010

Bright light in the Canberra sky

| Ben82
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Ok, I’ve tried to start this post without it sounding like I’m a fan of UFO conspiracies, but I’m going to fail cos as soon as you mention bright lights in the sky that don’t look like stars, planes or Harry Potter’s wand it sounds crazy.

So I’m driving northbound along William Hovel Drive about 5:50pm last night (Tuesday 6) and I see this bright white light high in the sky to my right. I figured at first it was a close star, but then realised it was moving and labelled it as a plane. It seemed to be flying at high altitude and pretty quickly. When I glanced back at the sky after driving another 50 metres or so, I was surprised to see the light was significantly closer and was very bright. I expected to see the red blinking lights of a plane accompanying the white light, or maybe vapour trails, but there was nothing other than the single light.

Figure it was maybe a forces aircraft or something but just wondering if anyone else saw it? Or if I should book myself an appointment with the friendly neighbourhood psych?

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Satellite?

Gungahlin Al10:14 am 09 Apr 10

Clearly it was one of the new floodlights on the Harrison district playing fields that were turned on for the first time this week – to much disgust of nearby residents. Despite assurances GCC got when the DA was notified, they are positioned such that they light everything else BUT the sport fields.

ET go home!

Thanks for the amusing/creative and informative responses guys

@SolarPowered – good to know that someone else saw the light on the Tuesday night!

The truth is out there.

I thought I was mad for a while until I could tie in the time of the UFOs with the Canberra Airport arrivals.

ah, but ufos have the flight times, too, and use them as cover. obviously!

SolarPowered12:10 pm 08 Apr 10

Yep, I saw it too. It was a good one last night.

It’s a plane. I see it quite regularly from my backyard. When we first moved in I used to stare out the back door every night at the same time trying to work it out (my husband thought I was bonkers), because I couldn’t see the tell tale flashing lights of a plane. So I looked up the flight paths at http://www.canberraairport.com.au/PDF/currentflightpaths.pdf and I think it is the Curved Approach Flightpath coming in from the south. As the plane makes a turn the landing lights make it look like there is something dangling in the sky, for want of a better description.

I thought I was mad for a while until I could tie in the time of the UFOs with the Canberra Airport arrivals.

troll-sniffer11:11 am 08 Apr 10

The chances are it was an ordinary airliner approaching Canberra with its landing lights on. They switch them on I believe below 10,000′ (someone may correct me on the actual altitude) so they are visible for a long time. You won’t see the other lights of the aircraft because they are hidden in the glare.

I have also seen lights to the west that I assume are some form of chopper exercises, perhaps SouthCare, perhaps another organisation.

There was a Rockwell Commander took off and headed west over Belconnen not long after 5.50pm last night, it would almost certainly have had its landing lights on as it climbed out. Methinks that’s what you saw.

aliens, looking for tim the yowie man..?

Rawhide Kid No 210:13 am 08 Apr 10

Chopper in stealth mode with a spot light?

Woody Mann-Caruso10:01 am 08 Apr 10

If you don’t know what it was, then you couldn’t know its size. Therefore, you could not possibly know how far away it was, how high it was or how fast it was travelling, and you certainyl weren’t in any position to judge that it had moved ‘significantly closer’, particularly if it had changed in brightness.

The best you could do would be to have it move in front of something you did know something about (a cloud, which would indcate altitude; a mountain range, which would indicate distance) – even then, the best you could say about the object was that it was no higher / no further away than that object.

Can’t explain the sudden closeness, but the Southcare chopper gets around at low altitude with it’s search lights on a lot of the time.

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