NUFORC Sighting 88677

Occurred: 2012-04-24 23:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2012-04-26 11:41 Pacific
Duration: 30 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Lincoln (UK/England), , United Kingdom

Shape: Light

Bright light that then dimmed and slowly travelled horizontally across small portion of sky.

I live <10 miles south west of the centre point of Lincoln,UK, I have a prior interest in UFOs, I have some experience at identifying aircraft, satellites including Iridium flares, ISS, planets, birds, chinese lanterns in this area, meteors, commercial and military aviation traffic in this area and various other conventional phenomenon.

I was laying in bed looking through some poorly fitted slats (single glazing) at the night sky, at aproximately 2300-0000 on the night of 23/04/2012 or 24/04/2012. I had no internal lighting in my room, the windows were clear and I had a very obstructed but comfortable view of a low wedge of northern sky from aprox North to North East (<45 degrees azimuth arc), and <45 degrees inclination arc.

The weather was cloudy, lots of sodium light pollution, very orange tint, a relatively low layer of disparate cloud allowed some view of the night sky. There was little to no wind judged from tree movement, it had been raining recently quite heavily in the area.

Based on looking at stellarium I think I was looking at either Deneb or Vega, East of North, low to the horizon just above a houses pointed roof as seen from my vantage point, it was not particulary bright as I remember probably due to the cloud cover veiling it.

I saw a point of light, orange tinted that preceded to get very bright, within a second it was very bright - it is hard to define but I would say brighter than I have seen Venus or Jupiter, not as bright as a very low magnitude Iridium flare that I have seen before, brighter than any chinese lantern I have seen.

The light was very noticeable and after a second at full brightness it dimmed down again. During this time I did not notice movement.

The light then dimmed to the level of a rather bright satellite and travelled slowly across the sky from left to right, before dissapearing behind a tree. At its dim level of light I did not notice flickering, strobes, or any indication of size of other detail such as nav lights etc.

It travelled very slowly at the speed of a light aircraft and slower than Iridium sats I have observed, it also seemed to travel at a constant altitude and I did not discern any indication of a curved trajectory during the brief time I observed it (5 seconds or so).

There was no trail or any other indication of its presence.

I alerted someone in my house to this and we looked in the area for it, about a minute after the first incident another light source of the same luminosity characteristics of the first travelled along the same path and dissapeared behind the tree again, this light source did not get bright or change in any way other than moving across the sky at the same speed.

That is my sighting :) Sorry for lengthy description of simple sighting, I believe that a more likely but not certain explanation for this is a satellite flare, though the "pause", speed, and seemingly flat path of the light source(s) I have not witnessed before with LEO man made satellites.

NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that date of sighting is approximate. PD

Posted 2012-05-13