NUFORC Sighting 74985

Occurred: 2010-04-10 12:00 Local
Reported: 2010-04-12 07:59 Pacific
Duration: 7 minutes
No of observers: 0

Location: Greenville, NC, USA

Shape: Unknown
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object, Aircraft nearby

Daytime moving star seen over Pitt County

I was letting a friend’s dogs out into their backyard near Winterville, just west of Firetower Road. There was high visibility--light cirrus clouds near the horizon, low-lying but nothing but blue sky above 10,000 feet. I looked up and saw what I thought was a star. This took place around lunch-time, between 11:30 and 12:30 roundabouts. The star was very bright and I thought it was strange because I couldn’t see any other stars. Then it started to move, very, very slowly west to northeast over the course of the next 7 minutes.

I tried not to take my eyes off of it because it was small and clearly above 30,000 feet as I could see some 747s making contrails (short trails due to such clear conditions) below and around the “star”. It was not using any of the sky-lanes that planes normally use.

Occasionally, maybe three minutes in, and then at the five or six-minute mark, it would stop totally for 30 seconds. It also seemed to have a perfect circlular aura that almost pulsed outwards, only faintly discernible from the object and the blue sky around it. I was wearing a good pair of sunglasses with polarization so the sky was very blue and the star quite bright against it. When I took the glasses off the star was still visible but difficult to track.

The bizarre thing is that my eyes went right to it, and there was 360 degrees of clear blue sky. If I hadn’t immediately seen it or known it was there, I could have missed it. Would have missed it.

It was very bright. Again, I thought it was a star. That high up, that shape, that type of light. The weather was perfect – spring time and about 72 degrees. I wanted to shout to the neighbors to ask “what is that”, but for those 7 minutes the neighborhood was a ghost town.

I didn’t take a picture because my phone was inside the house and I knew if I took my eyes off of it I might lose it. Sure enough, just as it passed directly overhead I glanced away for a second, maybe two, and then it was gone. Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. I work outside and I know the air traffic here. This was highly unusual.

Posted 2010-04-13

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