I saw something in the sky tonight..

You're on I-80 doing about 80mph, from about the York/Waco area to about the Milford/Crete area. At that speed, you're talking about 10-15 minutes of observation time, depending on exactly when you noticed it & when you lost sight of it.

I've done a lot of driving at night around Lincoln and Omaha and I've seen things like you're describing. It is almost certainly an airplane on descent to either Lincoln or Omaha. Commercial airliners have headlights that are very bright, brighter than most stars. When they're at cruising altitude those headlights are pointed parallel to the ground and we don't see them, but when those planes are descending they're pointing downward. They can point at you for a long time.

Before I figured out these were planes, I used to think maybe I was seeing a star going nova or something from space (UFO?), but after a few times you realize what they are. They can appear to mostly stay in the same part of the sky, but move up or down or side to side depending on your perspective. You don't see the flashing wing lights because the headlight is so bright.

Checking airlines, United has a flight from Denver to Omaha, which sometimes flies parallel to I-80, landing at 8:16pm.

American has a flight from Salt Lake City landing in Omaha at 8:33pm.

Southwest has a flight from Denver to Omaha landing at 8:35pm.

One of these is your most likely culprit.

 
knapplc said:
You're on I-80 doing about 80mph, from about the York/Waco area to about the Milford/Crete area. At that speed, you're talking about 10-15 minutes of observation time, depending on exactly when you noticed it & when you lost sight of it.

I've done a lot of driving at night around Lincoln and Omaha and I've seen things like you're describing. It is almost certainly an airplane on descent to either Lincoln or Omaha. Commercial airliners have headlights that are very bright, brighter than most stars. When they're at cruising altitude those headlights are pointed parallel to the ground and we don't see them, but when those planes are descending they're pointing downward. They can point at you for a long time.

Before I figured out these were planes, I used to think maybe I was seeing a star going nova or something from space (UFO?), but after a few times you realize what they are. They can appear to mostly stay in the same part of the sky, but move up or down or side to side depending on your perspective. You don't see the flashing wing lights because the headlight is so bright.

Checking airlines, United has a flight from Denver to Omaha, which sometimes flies parallel to I-80, landing at 8:16pm.

American has a flight from Salt Lake City landing in Omaha at 8:33pm.

Southwest has a flight from Denver to Omaha landing at 8:35pm.

One of these is your most likely culprit.
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I appreciate the input, Knapp. It's going to be impossible for me to describe exactly how this light source moved, but I really don't think it was a plane.

I used to work at the airport and am somewhat familiar with how planes descend into LNK from DEN. It didn't move like a plane. It was more sporadic.

 
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El Diaco said:
Did you ever see it directly or was it always seen through a mirror?

I ask because I have had the same thing happen a few times and I've usually traced it back to a fixed light source (light inside the car, streetlight, moon, other cars headlights) and the movement was some combination of the car/item/mirror moving around. I remember these occurances because they were a little freaky prior to actually figuring it out.

I'm not saying this is the case but it could be one logical explanation. Windows and mirrors can cause some weird visual things.
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Oh it was only in the mirror when it was behind the car. After it was inside the car, I was looking right at it except for a few moments when it went so far behind me that I could not turn my head back to keep my eyes on it. I would say the time it was visible from when I first saw the light ball (bright orange - like the sun in color, maybe a little redder orange than that) until it flew out the driver window and off across the field was perhaps 45 seconds. I traveled about 3/4th of a mile at most. Both times were short. It was not something like Hoosker described that went on for 15 minutes or more.

 
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A commercial airplane traveling at about 500mph (which google says is average) would travel about 125 miles in 15 minutes, which would be about your travel time between the Waco & Crete exits. Since you're going the same direction as the plane (roughly), at 75-80mph, you're cutting some time off its fly-by estimate. So it's not unreasonable at all to think you'd see the plane for that long, and appearing in about the same spot.

Someone better at math than me could try and figure out flight patterns and angles and probabilities of that headlight appearing in your field of view for X amount of time based on a cone of vision, but that's beyond me.

I'm just saying, I've seen that kind of bright light several times, and every time it's an airplane. Occam's Razor tells us it's almost certainly an airplane.

Someone, sometime, is going to be the first person to see an alien spacecraft. But the odds that it's you are pretty darned small. So it's almost certainly not that.

 
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The very first picture of "foo fighters" in that link is a fake.

The "foo fighter" picture:

qJEXby2.jpg


The original:

3eruGko.jpg


 
knapplc said:
The very first picture of "foo fighters" in that link is a fake.

The "foo fighter" picture:

qJEXby2.jpg


The original:

3eruGko.jpg
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the picture searched pulled all results. some of them do look to be authentic. some are obviously fake. but it was a real reported phenomenon during ww2

 
knapplc said:
A commercial airplane traveling at about 500mph (which google says is average) would travel about 125 miles in 15 minutes, which would be about your travel time between the Waco & Crete exits. Since you're going the same direction as the plane (roughly), at 75-80mph, you're cutting some time off its fly-by estimate. So it's not unreasonable at all to think you'd see the plane for that long, and appearing in about the same spot.

Someone better at math than me could try and figure out flight patterns and angles and probabilities of that headlight appearing in your field of view for X amount of time based on a cone of vision, but that's beyond me.

I'm just saying, I've seen that kind of bright light several times, and every time it's an airplane. Occam's Razor tells us it's almost certainly an airplane.

Someone, sometime, is going to be the first person to see an alien spacecraft. But the odds that it's you are pretty darned small. So it's almost certainly not that.
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My rational side agrees with you. In that moment, I really wanted to believe it was an airplane just so I could forget it and focus on the road, but I couldn't.

It didn't move like one. It's so hard to describe.

I have no doubts that you've seen lights in the sky at night that have turned out to be planes, but I'm still not convinced we saw similar things.

 
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84HuskerLaw said:
I also experienced something similar although in my case the mysterious light was quite small and actually flew into and around the interior of the car I was driving. It was after dark, and I was traveling along a gravel road on the way home one night from a high school ball game. I still remember it quite vividly.

I first saw the ball of light as I would describe it, perhaps the size of a softbal, which first appeared in my rearview mirror in back of the vehilce as I was traveling perhaps 45 mph. This stretch of road had NO farmsteads or other improvements of any kind and I traveled it many thousands of times over nearly 50 years. It was not near any sort of light source and beyond the electrical lines with transformers and power poles which ran long both sides of the road, I would have no idea what could have possibly created the source of the light so I have no explanation or idea how it happened.

The light ball appeared to follow me in the car for perhaps a half mile and then quite suddenly simply came in through the back glass and circled around the interior of the car, then hung or hovered about the dash and then again circled about the interior of the car and then as suddenly as it came in flew out through a side window and quickly disappeared into the night over a field. I was alone that night but it did happen one other time a couple months or so later and this time I had my then girl friend to become my wife of many years with me. She of course witnessed the event as well. We were not in the exact same location although we were within a mile and half or so.

My initial explanation was to come up with some kind of reflection or other such physical explantion but again, there was no apparent light source anywhere near or apparent. There is almost zero chance it could be explained away as some kind of laser, spotlight or other similar device. This area was nothing but cornfields and pastures etc. I knew well each and every acre of the lands within several miles in all directions. There were no farmsteads, no businesses, no radio or TV or other towers, etc. I drove the same car for over five years after and never once did any kind of similar experience occur after those two. I continued to live in my home a couple miles up the road for another 38 years. It never happened again anywhere or anytime. I was quite awake, alert and sober both times and am quite positive I did not imagine it. Hadn't thought about it for a few years until I read the opening post. Still would appreciate any legit explanations or hearing about others with similar 'close encounters" of the unexplained kind. LOL
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This explains a lot about 84Husker Law
default_tongue.png


 
84HuskerLaw said:
I also experienced something similar although in my case the mysterious light was quite small and actually flew into and around the interior of the car I was driving. It was after dark, and I was traveling along a gravel road on the way home one night from a high school ball game. I still remember it quite vividly.

I first saw the ball of light as I would describe it, perhaps the size of a softbal, which first appeared in my rearview mirror in back of the vehilce as I was traveling perhaps 45 mph. This stretch of road had NO farmsteads or other improvements of any kind and I traveled it many thousands of times over nearly 50 years. It was not near any sort of light source and beyond the electrical lines with transformers and power poles which ran long both sides of the road, I would have no idea what could have possibly created the source of the light so I have no explanation or idea how it happened.

The light ball appeared to follow me in the car for perhaps a half mile and then quite suddenly simply came in through the back glass and circled around the interior of the car, then hung or hovered about the dash and then again circled about the interior of the car and then as suddenly as it came in flew out through a side window and quickly disappeared into the night over a field. I was alone that night but it did happen one other time a couple months or so later and this time I had my then girl friend to become my wife of many years with me. She of course witnessed the event as well. We were not in the exact same location although we were within a mile and half or so.

My initial explanation was to come up with some kind of reflection or other such physical explantion but again, there was no apparent light source anywhere near or apparent. There is almost zero chance it could be explained away as some kind of laser, spotlight or other similar device. This area was nothing but cornfields and pastures etc. I knew well each and every acre of the lands within several miles in all directions. There were no farmsteads, no businesses, no radio or TV or other towers, etc. I drove the same car for over five years after and never once did any kind of similar experience occur after those two. I continued to live in my home a couple miles up the road for another 38 years. It never happened again anywhere or anytime. I was quite awake, alert and sober both times and am quite positive I did not imagine it. Hadn't thought about it for a few years until I read the opening post. Still would appreciate any legit explanations or hearing about others with similar 'close encounters" of the unexplained kind. LOL
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1306235375_cat_vs_laser_pointer.gif


 
If it didn't hurt ya, I'd forget about it.

FTR, the probability of highly evolved life forms forms-aliens-out there is essentlially zero. The probability that there is even some type of the simplest evolved cellular, organic life out there in our universe is, they say, about 1 in a billion. There's nothing out there except stars, planets, more stars, and asteroids and sh#t, which, OBTW, they(a few companies) are already working on plans "mining" for minerals. Already fighting over who gets which asteroids "rights". Privatization as per usual.

It's just us, folks, so you can relax.

Prlly a jet light/helicopter, private plane as described or a satellite reflection or something. There IS a logical explanation.

Take some vid next time.

 
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The Big Nebrowski said:
If it didn't hurt ya, I'd forget about it.

FTR, the probability of highly evolved life forms forms-aliens-out there is essentlially zero. The probability that there is even some type of the simplest evolved cellular, organic life out there in our universe is, they say, about 1 in a billion. There's nothing out there except stars, planets, more stars, and asteroids and sh#t, which, OBTW, they(a few companies) are already working on plans "mining" for minerals. Already fighting over who gets which asteroids "rights". Privatization as per usual.

It's just us, folks, so you can relax.

Prlly a jet light/helicopter, private plane as described or a satellite reflection or something. There IS a logical explanation.

Take some vid next time.
Click to expand...

Finally. Closure.... Somebody call NASA and let them know. All this time, Area 51 was just a storage unit.

 
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