Melbourne meteor?

[MrT]

Hey guys. Hoping you might be able to help with something I saw last night (Friday the 1st). I'm in inner eastern suburbs of Melbourne, where seeing is usually rubbish. Happened to be outside at around 10:45, and saw an orange "object" moving west to east, and to the south of where I was. Initially thought it was a plane (about the speed of a low flying plane), but it had a steady orange glow, and wasn't a point object (roughly disk shaped). It went off into the east, and faded from view.

Then another object, same size, colour and speed came from the west. After it had disappeared, a third. This one freaked me out a bit, as it looked like it was coming straight for me at first! It continued on, and then a fourth and fifth one appeared. All from roughly the same spot in the west. All of them looked like they increased in altitude as they moved away to the east. They each would have taken at least a minute to move across my field of view, and there wasn't a huge gap between the disappearance of one the emergence of the next.

My only thought was they could have been fragments of the same body that had broken up, and were skipping out as they got deeper into the atmosphere. However, not really sure what I was seeing, but never seen anything like it before.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

[Liz]

Welcome :welcome: Tony .... bit of a mystery for sure .... in the movie "Close Encounters" the lights at one stage were helicoptors ?? ;) Not sure what they could be, for 5 to come from the same area, you would think manmade.

[TrevorW]

How much had you been drinking or what have you been smoking and what intersection where you approaching where the lights were stuck on amber due to a power surge.

Just kidding no idea but ring the Melbourne UFO society to see if anyone else reported the same thing.

:ship1:

[Jen]

:eyepop: sounds interesting :thumbsup:

[MrT]

Not even attempting to suggest a UFO. It was something that was unlike anything I've seen before, and thought that someone here might have an explanation. While I was out, I also saw a "normal" meteor trail, roughly at right angles to what I was observing, which I've seen plenty of times before.

What I saw just seemed similar to descriptions I've read of fireball meteors (although no sound, and no visible trail, which may be because it was hazy and cloudy at the time). Granted, it was weird to have five in succession, but its not as if a meteorite has never split apart before when it hits the atmosphere, is it? Just thought that IF it was, then others might know of it as well...

[theodog]

My Bet-
Hot air gabbage bags.

Prevailing westerly winds in Melbourne.
Spluttering (out) as they disappeared.
5 about 1 minute apart from the same spot.
Increasing altitude as they moved away.

Yes -I think a prank.:D:mad2:

[OneOfOne]

For later reference, if you want to see some pretty cool footage of some pretty hot meteors, have a look at this site, they had a small collection of video footage from over the world:

http://www.meteorites.com.au/films/