NUFORC Sighting 109995

Occurred: 2014-06-06 04:24 Local
Reported: 2014-06-06 01:49 Pacific
Duration: 2 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Charlottesville, VA, USA

Shape: Light

Single steady white light, no sound, moving from West to East

Doing my usual star-gazing this morning, I saw what looked like a star heading West to East. It did not fly in a straight line, but had the erratic movement that I'm used to see in these things now. Reminds me of a drunk trying to get somewhere fast.

It was a about as bright as a star, smaller than Jupiter, and the light was steady. No contrail. Definitely not a meteor. It crossed the entire sky and must've been really high, as it faded out of sight after a couple of minutes for a few seconds, and then came back into view for 20 seconds or so before fading out for good. There were no other lights, nothing blinking, and there was no noise accompanying it.

Within 10 seconds or so after that disappeared, I heard what I though was a helicopter coming from where that light had originated, and looked back Northwest to where the light had come from, only to see an even bigger light moving even faster, bearing southwest this time. At first I thought it was a helicopter, but the sound accompanying it faded out while the light kept moving. I then thought it might be the ISS, and it turned out it was. I was able to verify that it had just passed over when I came back inside using the tracker site.

I watched the ISS speed away, and immediately saw a third light directly above me, heading straight South. This one was smaller than the first, and I pegged it as a satellite because it had the usual dim steady light and relatively slow straight movement compared to the first light.

Posted 2014-06-06