Freaky Spiral in pre-dawn sky over Sydney

Cobra · Post by **Cobra** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 2:30 am

I was flying the red-eye in from Perth to Sydney this morning and as we were being vectored towards 16L the following sight presented itself.

We were heading 050 Deg and the object was going on a track of around 070. It was very bright. The shot was taken with an iPhone which does not perform well in low light so I have lightened it a bit. The spiral did not rotate.

It looks to be a private rocket launch from the US, the SpaceX Falcon 9, but I haven't confirmed this. It definitely was not the ISS which was over Africa at the time. Just an amazing sight.

Beaker · Post by **Beaker** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 2:36 am

Wow that's extreme!

Frazer · Post by **Frazer** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 4:50 am

Interesting!
So it was not moving at all?

Skyhawk · Post by **Skyhawk** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 7:29 am

WOW! Looks like the Norway Spiral, so it happened over Australia as well.

Cobra · Post by **Cobra** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 8:43 pm

It was moving, but the rotation was not apparent for the 2 minutes or so that we saw it.

I am pretty sure it was the Falcon 9 and the spiral was caused by venting gas.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badas ... lcon-ufos/

Frazer · Post by **Frazer** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 8:53 pm

I prefer to believe it was an UFO

Cobra · Post by **Cobra** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 8:55 pm

Call it an IFO then...

Frazer · Post by **Frazer** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 10:16 pm

Allright, fair enuff

Skyhawk · Post by **Skyhawk** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 6:21 am

The Norway spiral was massive, not to mention lower than what you saw in Australia and it left a mysterious blue trail behind it. No one came up and said "hey that was our missile", some think it was the Russians but they never confirmed. The one you saw didn't have that trail and it was much smaller, and anyway if these are missiles, what's with all these testings going on? Isn't it a waste of money blowing up missiles in orbit/lower atmosphere?

Burner · Post by **Burner** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 12:01 pm

Skyhawk wrote:The Norway spiral was massive, not to mention lower than what you saw in Australia and it left a mysterious blue trail behind it. No one came up and said "hey that was our missile", some think it was the Russians but they never confirmed. The one you saw didn't have that trail and it was much smaller, and anyway if these are missiles, what's with all these testings going on? Isn't it a waste of money blowing up missiles in orbit/lower atmosphere?

<sigh>

Beaker · Post by **Beaker** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 3:41 pm

A little more research might be in order?

Cobra · Post by **Cobra** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 6:25 pm

I do a lot of back-of-the-clock flying and hence see a lot of satellites, (mainly because I am always looking for them)!

People ask me if I have ever seen UFO's and the answer is probably not. The giveaway is usually in the motion of the object. If they move in a straight line at a constant speed they are 99.99999999% of the time of earthly origin.

That is what this one did. Constant speed, constant heading. It was an hour before local sunrise so any gas being vented would have been beautifully illuminated as happened here. A slight longitudinal axis wobble would account for the spiral.

Beautiful, but not a UFO.

I say I probably haven't seen a UFO but I did see a bright flashing strobe once around the South Celestial Pole one Christmas Eve that has always intrigued me. It was local midnight so it could not have been a low earth orbit satellite. The strobe did not move in a linear fashion either. I like to think it was Santa Claus doing some manoeuvring but rationally that is probably not true either.

I have seen Iridium flares and that doesn't explain it. A bit of a mystery but doubtful it was ET.

This spiral was so awesome to watch that I think there may be a niche market there for some enterprising people. Imagine launching an advertising satellitte that did nothing but vent gas just before sunrise or after sunset over heavily populated areas. Give it a spin, call it the "Pepsi Spiral" and the advertising would be worth billions!

Just an idea!

Beaker · Post by **Beaker** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 6:42 pm

Cobra wrote:The strobe did not move in a linear fashion either.

Autokinesis possibly a factor?

Post by **Lawndart** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 7:17 pm

Beaker wrote:Autokinesis possibly a factor?

Had a jumpseater not too long ago point out Venus on our arrival into Norfolk late one evening. This seasoned Delta pilot, ex-Navy, clearly familiar with our whereabouts explained having seen this planet many times before in the direction we were looking, so I immediately gave him the benefit of the doubt although I was compelled to say something along the lines of: "Either Venus appears to be moving or I've got autokinesis". Showing my respect to a fellow pilot, who seemingly knew exactly where to find Venus over the skies of his hometown on this dark evening, I kept quiet and I decided to keep my thoughts to myself instead......

That was until, about three minutes later, when "Venus" had grown red/green nav lights, a beacon and white strobe lights to boot, whereupon I just mumbled: "Uhm... there goes Venus!"

Just thought I'd share...

Cobra · Post by **Cobra** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 8:56 pm

Autokenesis would be a factor if there were no background stars. There were plenty, it was a clear moonless night and we used the proximity of the flashes to stars to see what its track was.

I have actually seen this a couple of times. The first time I was over the Tasman Sea heading towards Sydney just after sunset. Same effect. We were at FL390 and I asked ATC if there was any traffic around us which there wasn't. The object was very high, but it was a bright strobe with no illuminated object visible between the strobe flashes. The strobes flashes did not appear in a linear order.

I have no explanation for these sightings. Having no explanation however does not automatically mean that the least likely explanation, ET's, is likely.