NUFORC Sighting 84349

Occurred: 2011-10-05 19:40 Local
Reported: 2011-10-05 18:19 Pacific
Duration: 4-5 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Alexandria, VA, USA

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

Sitting out on deck. Sky pretty dark for urban area. Looking with 12x60 binoculars in the "summer triangle" for asterism called the "coat hanger"; I was looking up toward zenith.

Then, I saw an oval, dim, cloud-shaped object speeding from north toward south across my field of vision. ( size in 12x60 Oberwerk binoculars was approx. 1/6 the diameter of my field). This thing moved too quick - it was not familiar. (I know how fast a satelite moves when viewed through binocs and this thing was moving 10x faster than any satellite! In fact, a north-south satellite came a few minutes later and it was moving comparatively much slower than the "oval cloud" that preceded it.) It's possible that the light source for the "fast moving cloud" may have been moonlight. There was a moon just past first quarter to the east of the north south traverse of the "object". It's, as if, a translucent substance with an oval or circular structure, passed above me and somehow refracted some moonlight ( or else had a dim light of its own).

I continued to look at the "summer triangle" area with the 12x60 binocs but only saw a "real" satellite running its North-South traverse approx 2 minutes later. I noted that the satelite had a characteristic "drift" towards the west; whereas, the previous, suspicious "object cloud" ran a perfect straight line from North to South. at a speed that was easily 8 to 10 times faster.

Posted 2011-10-10