Reported: 2011-05-14 21:56 Pacific
Duration: 20-30 mins
No of observers: 1
Location: Otis, OR, USA
Shape: Light
Characteristics: Left a trail
"Satellites" that sped away and a vanishing "Constellation"
This is the first of three old sightings that I have been promising Peter Davenport for some time, starting with the most recent.
I have been spending time in the vicinity of Lincoln City, Oregon, six miles inland along the Salmon River in late 2010.
Living near the coast or in major cities for many years I had not had the opportunity to view the stars in a long while. However in this late October of 2010 the skies there were crystal clear though not as good as in the desert. I decided to sky-watch specifically for satellites but also to see how much college astronomy I could remember which, I'm sorry to say turned out to be mostly forgotten.
It was perhaps 10 PM in the third week of October. It took a few minutes to sight the first moving object and I was surprised that there seemed to be so few considering how many now exist.
As I was following one with my eyes it suddenly veered off at an odd angle and sped away! Okay, I haven't kept up with the technology so I thought that maybe they do that now instead of being tied to a specific course.
At the same time I was trying to identify constellations and noted a formation of perhaps eight stars in the low Northeast. I was curious about this as I had viewed this direction before when the sky was not as clear and these had not been visible though they were as bright as the brightest in the sky. Strangely, they all had equal brilliance. Not being too concerned I looked away to again search for satellites and then saw from the corner of my eye a flash from where I had sighted this unknown constellation.
I quickly looked back and didn't notice a change and thought it may have been a farm building's house light that I knew to be in that direction.
I looked away again and AGAIN I saw a definite flash from that direction and turned back. Now I was certain that at least one of the bright starts was gone. Before I could digest that and while looking directly at them ANOTHER of them "flared" to roughly ten times its brilliance, sort of like a Nova and just vanished. Momentarily another flared and also disappeared. Another five did this in succession, flared, then were gone.
Naturally, I tried to rationalize this event thinking that maybe there were some kind of booster rockets on them. I know that some satellites appear stationary but I have never seen any that were white in color (Most I have seen appeared a kind of red, I assume because they are reflecting the sun from their position so high above the planet).
Now the entire "constellation" of eight stars was gone! I continued to scan the skies all around and again saw several more high altitude smaller red moving dots some of whom took off at different angles, including AWAY from earth and at high speed. There were some red moving dots sighted that did not act in this way,as I had expected.
This all took place in about twenty minutes when I gave up and returned inside perplexed. The following days I asked others their opinion as to whether modern satellites could or would maneuver in this way. No one I spoke to thought that possible especially the very bright white ones the size of major stars.
Having seen aerial phenomenon a number of times in my life and not being a skeptic on the subject, I didn't give it much more thought. I have had far better sightings one of which I reported in the past and two more that I need to chronicle for Peter and any investigators.
One thing that I did notice when I looked at the recent sighting reports for on this site is that in the same week there are listed two or three similar reports made in the Pacific Northwest.
Posted 2011-05-29
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