My brotherinlaw and his family witnessed a number of bright orange coloured objects in the sky over Melbourne on Friday night around 7pm and again an hour and half later. The whole family saw the first one and when he was out at 8.30pm he again witnessed three more, one after the other following the same trajectory. They live in an inner city location and he described them as being brighter than any other visible star in the sky and similar in colour to the gas fire that a hot air balloon emits. His young daughter pointed the first one out and it lasted approximately 30 - 60 seconds travelling from a southernly to north westerly direction. He had enough time to capture the first one on his mobile phone camera.
The three more were witnessed at approximately 8.30pm when he was walking to shops and these were identical to the first and spaced approximately a minute appart, all travelling in the same direction (south to north west). He said they traversed the entire visible sky, again orange in colour.
We were thinking debris from the satellite breaking up? Would this have been too early (Friday evening)? Would anyone else know what this could be or perhaps even witnessed the same thing?
I reckon you might be right Heath, fire balls do happen in spectacular fashion, but the see three in a row and all heading in the same direction would be pretty rare, might just be the space junk that they lost for a while.
I'm just disapointed that I didn't see it given how much time I spend outside looking up. The only thing that may not match up with the US satellite breaking up is the sth to nwest trajectory?
I'd put it down to someone setting off fire lighter balloons. Fire lighters, the square type you get in the supermarket , you can get them easily and put them with a plastic bag of sorts and you have your own hot air balloon. Let them go and watch them drift away with the wind. Depending on wind conditions at the time they can last ages, or not long at all... Seen quite a few from here... Very dangerous as they can cause fires.
There was a Southerly wind in Melbourne at around 7pm local time, wind was roughly about 20km/h gusting to 28km/h also... It was also cloudy so the disappearance of the objects could be they ran out of puff, or they went into the clouds...
Anyway just another explanation of what it could be.
BTW I am not expert on this and I have not done it, and would never do it, but have seen them floating about and have seen them through my scope. So they do work...
Possibly chinese lanterns, commercially made...they are heated by a small candle i think and fly like a hot air balloon. i'm not sure where i saw them (in the media within the past 6 months) but they would fit the bill. Similar reports made but from people thinking they were witnessing alien ships.
