Seeking clarification of what I saw please

[Harryholt (Harry)]

Hello,

The other night at work I saw something in the sky that has me baffled.

I’m an airline pilot and will provide the details below. I’m no expert with any of this so please excuse my terminology and will try as best to relay what I saw.

Basically what I saw were two lights / bright stars. They almost seemed to be pulsing with slight colour change. They also appeared to be circling each other, but in half arcs if that makes sense. It lasted approx 5 mins maybe then they vanished. This appeared to be approx 30 degrees above the horizon and I was travelling easterly direction at 36000’ . I was 60 nautical miles west of a position 38S 170E at 1630 UTC. Sorry but no photo taken.

Thank you kindly

[Nikolas (Nik)]

This is an astronomy site not a ufo site, if you are a pilot then you would/should have asked control tower if anything was on the radar.

[iborg (Philip)]

True, this is not a ufo site, but, I think asking the the question here is worthwhile.


Venus has often been mistaken for a ufo and asking here could well be useful as it may then have been identified.


Harry, could what you observed have been a reflection in the windscreen? I assume this unlikely, as I suspect you would have been aware of this possibility.


I am guessing you were over the ocean, heading into Auckland about 4:30am local time. Sunrise around 7:30am.


Philip

[ahmed_haider (Ahmed)]

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. Just hope you had gotten photos or a video
A cursory glance at stellarium (a popular planetarium software) for your position and time doesn't show any objects that would explain what you saw. Although Jupiter would be to your north east at around 30 degrees elevation.
If you don't mind answering a few questions:
Over the course of the 5 mins you saw these objects did they change position relative to your aircraft? Just trying to figure out if the objects were in our own atmosphere or celestial. I would assume that you were flying a commercial airliner so your speed would be around 900 km/hr (please correct me if i'm wrong)
Also did you notice the color of the objects?

Perhaps a plausible explanation would be a rocket launch? winds in the upper atmosphere might cause the exhaust jets to rotate. I have seen a rocket from the ground here in Sydney and it just looked like a half arc of exhaust (like the one from a high altitude plane) but it was moving quite quickly and disappeared in a few mins. Here's a news article link to it:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-...dton/100541622

I'm not saying this is what you saw but maybe from your vantage point high in the troposphere the rocket looked like this?

Best regards
Ahmed

[iborg (Philip)]

A rocket launch, with high altitude atmospheric exhaust, could have been lit by the sun. Possibly even if it was low earth orbit and adjusting attitude.
Philip

[Swagman105 (Geoff)]

On 12th June Space X had a space tug spiral out of control while trying to deploy satellites. Not sure if it had extended solar panels but something like that could present spinning lights that blinked on and off as they caught the sun rays.
Anyway the date would determine if you were fortunate enough to witness that.
Just a thought.