Friends & I saw a zig-zagging star

khz

I was sitting with friends on the street, and we saw what appeared to be a star that was zigzagging. Of course, it wasn't a star. The zig-zagging wasn't in straight lines or anything, it was just moving, faster than any plane, it was very far away (just appeared as a pinpoint of light), and wasn't moving in a straight line. It moved across perhaps 1/3 of the visible skyline in a few minutes. We weren't drinking or on any drugs.

Evo

If it was last night, it was a meteor.

zomgwtf

Yup, there are many of possible explanations for why some meteors appear to travel in a jagged or zigzag path. Most likely it's because it was travelling in a spiral or the meteor path split up, remember we only have one point of view down here of the incoming object.

Do you by any chance live in North/central USA... or around there? There was a pretty spectacular midair explosion last night from a meteor which had broken apart, maybe you didn't see the explosion for some reason but instead saw one of the pieces which broke off, or maybe you saw the original meteor tumbling?

Ivan Seeking

I've never heard of a meteor taking several minutes to cross the sky. Also, our friend here seems to be in the wrong location to have seen the meteor reported last night.

MotoH

Could have been the clouds moving around it. Clouds can make stars appear to move in sporadic patterns. When you look at venus at night, and the clouds are whipping by, it makes it look like it is moving around.

khz

Few years ago. Since this is the case, my memory of the actual visual image in my mind is no longer like a movie. What I do remember is being with 3 friends, looking at a star-like light dot in the sky not moving linearly, having sporadic motion, seemingly without regard to inertia (i.e. it wouldn't stop then go another direction, it would just be going in different directions). We were starting at it constantly for the time we were observing it (perhaps 10 minutes) - so it's not like we stopping looking then looked up and went "oh hey it moved from where it was".

I do not see how clouds could've produced the illusion, but who knows.

It did not seem to be controlled intelligently based on our knowledge of the various reasons of why crafts would change direction, but I cannot think of any alternative explanation. Although, even if it was an alien spacecraft, I see no reason why it would be emitting photons, unless it had something to do with a byproduct of their propulsion system. Then again, it seems strange, if it was an alien spacecraft, why it would have been travelling so slowly (if it could reach earth you'd expect something much more competent)

zomgwtf

Could have be high altitude and grazing our atmosphere, or it could have been large and slow moving (hence the tumbling).

How do you know that? He could have seen debris in the sky from many places... he could have even seen the original meteor prior to the fireball it created.

Greg Bernhardt

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/15/m...ex.html?hpt=T2

zomgwtf

Ohhh, I've seen these before. One time driving to New Brunswick on the TransCanada high way I looked out the car and saw a little speck of light moving around quite rapidly. It was day time mind you, couldn't have been a plane it changed directions too quickly and it would had to have been WAY too high (it only looked like a dot of light). I recall looking up an explanation and finding one but I can't seem to recall what it was exacty lol.

Ivan Seeking

Staff members can determine the location of a poster. In fact he was on the wrong side of the planet.

Ivan Seeking

khz, perhaps you could share your location and the [local] time that you saw this?

khz

3.5-4 years ago, Sydney, Australia. I cannot specify a date: even so, it's unlikely to be corroborated from other sources, this sighting required you to be actually staring at the night sky, it was very covert, but at the same time it wasn't hallucinatory as those who I was with saw it as well.

zomgwtf

You could have just said you did an IP trace, kind of creeeeepy.

khz

Was it plausible? Did it require staring at the sun?

Greg Bernhardt

PF has satellites, drones and agents EVERYWHERE, mauahahaha

Ivan Seeking

khz, also, it would be helpful to know the direction of travel.

Ivan Seeking

Most likely, it seems to me, it was a satellite that appeared to be zigzagging due to the ideomotor effect.

Was the zigzagging subtle, or was the motion distinctive?