NUFORC Sighting 84617

Occurred: 2011-10-18 05:00 Local
Reported: 2011-10-18 18:21 Pacific
Duration: 15 min
No of observers: 1

Location: Chesapeake, VA, USA

Shape: Light

Bright light travelling across the night sky that dimmed, then became bright again several times as I watched.

I saw a strange sight in the early morning sky on 10/18/2011 at about 5:30 am, over Chesapeake, VA. I've always been one to check out the night sky looking for meteors, satellites, planets, etc. But, I've never seen what I saw this morning in over 40 years of sky watching.

I noticed a bright light moving from the NorthEast to the South, below the moon which was directly overhead. The path was not low, but not high in the night sky, about the level of Orion's belt to the right of the moon. I originally thought it was a satellite that had caught the morning sun not yet above the horizon.

As I watched, the bright light became fainter, almost disappearing, but the object was still visible on it's path. Then, the object became really bright again, then fainter, then bright, then faint before disappearing totally. The speed of the object as it moved across the sky was similar to a satellite - not fast, but steady.

There was no jet noise, that I would have heard if this was an airplane of some kind. Jets fly overhead all the time and usually there is some level of noise even at the highest altitudes, especially during the quiet morning.

I'm not sure what I saw, but there was something unusual in the sky.

BTW - there were no clouds - not even wispy ones - in the sky for the object to "hide" behind this morning.

Posted 2011-10-19