Cloud of Moving Stars: Astronomy Phenomenon I Just Saw

[tonyxon22]

I just saw an astronomy phenomenon with the following description:

a) It was like a "cloud of stars" containing approximately 1.000 shiny objects
b) It moved relatively fast (I compare the speed across the sky to the movement of an airplane that is so far away that you can hardly see it -at night of course-)
c) The general shape of the cloud changed slowly as it moved

At the beginning I thought it was just like a group of birds or something ordinary like that... but suddenly I realized that it was moving in the sky just across the position of Jupiter, and that when it really got my full attention and curiosity. I looked at it as long as I could before it moved to a region in the sky where my vision was covered by buildings.

It also caught my attention because it was partially clouded... I could see Jupiter clearly, but not many stars... It also caught my attention because as it was passing over Jupiter, some of the points kind of looked like Jupiter’s moons to me... That's when I ran to my room to look for my binoculars (I have the Celestron SkyMarter 20x80) but by the time I came back to the yard the "cloud" had moved away from Jupiter and I could not check if it was the moons or not (I thought it could be some kind of lensing effect on the atmosphere due to hot gas or something like that, so trying to look at Jupiter moons would help me confirm my theory).

Nevertheless I looked to the "cloud" through my binoculars and I identified two more characteristics:
d) All the shiny objects had roughly about the same brightness and the same color white/very clear blue
e) They all twinkled with the same frequency, about two or three times per second but not all together, more like random

-IT WAS OBVIOUSLY NOT A GROUP OF BIRDS-

I came home to look on the internet the explanation of this phenomenon but couldn't find anything serious with the same description. I actually found one post about other two people asking about a similar phenomenon and something that really caught my attention is that the other two people that apparently saw something similar were both in Portugal, which happens to be the same country where I live. They witnessed whatever they saw three years ago and both from the south of Portugal while I live (and saw it) on the north. Here is a link to that post if you are interested in their description:

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120715115559AAqiVvpI saw this phenomenon today February 20th at approximately 00:12.

I also found a comment on a similar thread about a lensing effect caused by liquids on the outer atmosphere or something like that which sounded more realistic to me but the information was very short and poor. All the other information that I found online was pretty crappy and not serious talking about UFOs and other things that I do not take seriously.

The only reason I'm posting this here is because I respect this forum and the people who participate here and I have learned many things with your help, and as an amateur astronomer and a lover of physics I could not think of a better place to ask about the experience I just had. Hopefully this thread is not breaking the rules of the forum and some of the members here can give me a good feedback.

Thanks and best regards,

 

[davenn]

a) It was like a "cloud of stars" containing approximately 1.000 shiny objects

how did you come by that number? did you count them ??

 

[tonyxon22]

No. Impossible to count, that number is just an estimation..

 

[russ_watters]

You say it was obviously not birds, but what you describe sounds a lot like birds to me -- so what about it made you think it wasn't birds after first thinking it was?

 

[tonyxon22]

I thought it was birds at first when I just glanced because of the random movement, but then when I looked better I saw that there were shinning objects, especially when I used my binoculars to see them better. I don’t see how a group of birds could shine in that way. It was midnight, so I don’t think birds could be visible like that. There is also something about the dimension of the cloud and the size of the individual objects that doesn’t seemed to me like the correct ratio for a group of birds. Moreover, assuming that they were in fact birds that shinned that way because they were somehow reflecting light coming from below, one would expect the twinkle to be related to the movement of the wings, which in this case also didn’t seem quite right because the frequency was very high, about two or three times per second, which seems very fast for the movement of bird wings, even more if they were big enough for me to be able to see them at great distance…
I live next to the D’Ouro river in Vila Nova de Gaia, and I am used to see a lot of seagulls fly in groups all the time around my house and maybe that’s why at first glance I thought it where birds. However, I have always been able to identify seagulls easily when they fly in groups, and even identify single individuals. In this case it was nothing like that at all..

 

[russ_watters]

...one would expect the twinkle to be related to the movement of the wings, which in this case also didn’t seem quite right because the frequency was very high, about two or three times per second, which seems very fast for the movement of bird wings, even more if they were big enough for me to be able to see them at great distance…

Google "wing beat frequency". 2-3 hz is relatively LOW for a bird in cruise and consistent with large birds. For example, one link I found says a wandering albatross, with a wingspan of 3m and mass of 8.5 kg has a beat frequency of 2.5 hz.

 

[tonyxon22]

Google "wing beat frequency".

Yes, actually just after I posted my answer to you about the frequency I googled it..
Well I guess then it is plausible that it was not an astronomy phenomenon but instead just a bunch of birds. That makes me a little sad, thou… But if nothing else makes sense then I’ll have to get used to that idea, even if it certainly didn’t look like birds and still have the shinning issue kind of open in my head.. If it was birds, they were very star like shinny, very bright points. I hope I have the chance to see something like that again...

Thanks for the support!

 

[Pepita]

We just the same kind of moving star cloud tonight around 23H in Lisboa! Have never heard or seen anything like it! It moved away within 2-3 minutes!

 

[Chronos]

Apparently it was moving way too fast to be astronomical. The bird theory, however, sounds plausible. Could also be an aircraft or cell phone tower reflection combined with atmospheric effects.

 

[mns19]

I saw it last year and saw it again today! Both times in Matosinhos , Porto (Portugal). Definatly doesn't look like birds.

 

[Fervent Freyja]

I saw it last year and saw it again today! Both times in Matosinhos , Porto (Portugal). Definatly doesn't look like birds.

Maybe not, but it certainly isn't stars moving around in the night sky...

 

[mns19]

Maybe not, but it certainly isn't stars moving around in the night sky...

I know it isn't , it's just weird!

 

[Fervent Freyja]

I know it isn't , it's just weird!

Maybe? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...6-perseid-meteor-showers--how-many-how-big-a/

 

[davenn]

Maybe? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...6-perseid-meteor-showers--how-many-how-big-a/

naaa

the Persieds or any other meteor shower wouldn't account for the description of what was seen
plus the Persieds are now, not back in February Dave

 

[Bystander]

What was the phase of the moon?

 

[Dotini]

On February 20, 2016, the moon was waxing gibbous, 95% visible, age 19 days.

 

[Dotini]

• 

Did it look like this?

 

[Fervent Freyja]

naaa

the Persieds or any other meteor shower wouldn't account for the description of what was seen
plus the Persieds are now, not back in February Dave

mns19 said he saw something Saturday.

Why so nice Dave?

 

[rootone]

If it's moving noticeably compared to background stars (or even planets), then it has to be something in Earth's atmosphere.
Maybe a small soft meteor that disintegrated quickly?, even a re-entering bit of human made space debris might explain it.

 

[Chronos]

A meteor would apparently be much faster than the observed effect. Even a bolide is rarely visible for more than a few seconds. That suggests more pedestrian explanations - like birds, aircraft or atmospheric phenomenon.

 

[Jacquie]

I saw something like this tonight. I thought it was a cloud at first , but I was moving a lot faster then a cloud. It was a pretty calm evening too. I thought it was possibly a flock of geese, but I watched it until it disappeared. I then saw another one about 5 minutes later come from the same direction only this one was much smaller. I saw a third one after that come from a completely different direction and it was smaller the the first two. It almost looked like anew outfielder of a ghost floating in the dark sky!

 

[BenAS]

I just saw an astronomy phenomenon with the following description:

a) It was like a "cloud of stars" containing approximately 1.000 shiny objects
b) It moved relatively fast (I compare the speed across the sky to the movement of an airplane that is so far away that you can hardly see it -at night of course-)
c) The general shape of the cloud changed slowly as it moved

At the beginning I thought it was just like a group of birds or something ordinary like that... but suddenly I realized that it was moving in the sky just across the position of Jupiter, and that when it really got my full attention and curiosity. I looked at it as long as I could before it moved to a region in the sky where my vision was covered by buildings.

It also caught my attention because it was partially clouded... I could see Jupiter clearly, but not many stars... It also caught my attention because as it was passing over Jupiter, some of the points kind of looked like Jupiter’s moons to me... That's when I ran to my room to look for my binoculars (I have the Celestron SkyMarter 20x80) but by the time I came back to the yard the "cloud" had moved away from Jupiter and I could not check if it was the moons or not (I thought it could be some kind of lensing effect on the atmosphere due to hot gas or something like that, so trying to look at Jupiter moons would help me confirm my theory).

Nevertheless I looked to the "cloud" through my binoculars and I identified two more characteristics:
d) All the shiny objects had roughly about the same brightness and the same color white/very clear blue
e) They all twinkled with the same frequency, about two or three times per second but not all together, more like random

-IT WAS OBVIOUSLY NOT A GROUP OF BIRDS-

I came home to look on the internet the explanation of this phenomenon but couldn't find anything serious with the same description. I actually found one post about other two people asking about a similar phenomenon and something that really caught my attention is that the other two people that apparently saw something similar were both in Portugal, which happens to be the same country where I live. They witnessed whatever they saw three years ago and both from the south of Portugal while I live (and saw it) on the north. Here is a link to that post if you are interested in their description:

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120715115559AAqiVvpI saw this phenomenon today February 20th at approximately 00:12.

I also found a comment on a similar thread about a lensing effect caused by liquids on the outer atmosphere or something like that which sounded more realistic to me but the information was very short and poor. All the other information that I found online was pretty crappy and not serious talking about UFOs and other things that I do not take seriously.

The only reason I'm posting this here is because I respect this forum and the people who participate here and I have learned many things with your help, and as an amateur astronomer and a lover of physics I could not think of a better place to ask about the experience I just had. Hopefully this thread is not breaking the rules of the forum and some of the members here can give me a good feedback.

Thanks and best regards,

I've seen something like this myself, many years ago. I saw it twice. It was a group of lights, bright like a low flying aircraft except it was quiet. It looked very low and slow (best guess 5000ft and 50mph), if it was high up, like 20-30k feet it would mean it was bright and fast. Maybe as many as a few dozen lights that moved amongst each other. It was lights, not birds. I've never been able to explain it. Definitely not an astronomical phenomena.

I know it isn't , it's just weird!

 

[JorgeSilva]

Saw it too this night (01/08/2017) around 23h30 and it stood for several minutes. I am from Coimbra, Portugal. it looked like a swarm of little lights same size as stars. what surprised me was the fast they could shine and movements they did. the cloud or swarm could take diferent shapes and always shining super fast, like is discribed in this post. besides the reason i found this post is because i googled what i saw to find a answer/reason to it. its really weird and first time i saw it, i couldn't tape it, my phone is old and i don't have a camera.

 

[rootone]

It would not be surprising if the US, or even an EU country decided to test rockets and stuff in the North Atlantic, so clearly visible from Portugal.

 

[JorgeSilva]

It would not be surprising if the US, or even an EU country decided to test rockets and stuff in the North Atlantic, so clearly visible from Portugal.

maybe is more like a star cluster https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-sees-star-clusters-orbiting-a-galaxy
Star clusters visible to the naked eye include Pleiades, Hyades and the Beehive Cluster
can star clusters shine super fast and the way they shine make them look like they can take diferent shapes?

 

[rootone]

Constellations are called that because they don't change shape, they look the same every day, and probably will look the same in a thousand years.
Your man Magellan figured that out

 

[JorgeSilva]

Constellations are called that because they don't change shape, they look the same every day, and probably will look the same in a thousand years.
Your man Magellan figured that out

yes i know they can't change shape, but since they are thousands together they can shine in random ways making it look like they are moving no? kinda like a screen, u have so many tiny pixels that when some are on and others are off create diferent shapes to our eyes.

 

[infinitebubble]

I've seen something similar to this while on the NAVY base at Andros back in the early 1980's... we were all at the beach sitting around talking just after the sun had set... in the sky we noticed a group of stars all of a sudden start moving in different directions and then come together as one bright object... it traveled across the sky (not birds or planes) and then for about several arcs across the sky they split again and zoomed off at high velocities each going in different directions. Now some of us were pilots and officers and we could not even think about what we just saw. We know it wasn't airplanes, meteors (they wouldn't change directions), or birds since we knew these were definitely in the outer orbit of Earth. To this day the only thing we saw that came close to what we saw was in the movie Close Encounters when the small UFO crafts were flying around in the scene where they went off the cliff with police officers chasing at minute 7:36.

 

[Jeper]

Hey there!
We saw that phenomenom yesterday at pinzio, Pinhel (Portugal). Another Group in a Near village saw it too.

I'll try to explain:
There were thousands (uncountable just by looking) of "Stars" moving above The sky (from northeast to southwest). They were blinking and shining like a cold light you know from LEDs in bathroom. It seems like they were Moving in Formation. Just a little Group of this "Stars" were a little Bit away from The big group. They moved a little bit faster as airplanes. You could See this phenomenom just a few minutes After the lights were move away at southwest (They didnt disappear at The horizone- they just lose their shining like they were too fast away to See them anymore).

We thinked about that it Could be something like LED lanterns of a festival far away. But we are not really sure because The lights were toooo many and The movement was too fast .. we used this lanterns once in past.

Google says that a lot of people saw something like that at 2003, 2012, 2013, ...

Has anyone a new Idea what that could be? How about The man who created this Thread?

Thank you very much and ... yea - I am really sorry for my english ^^.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Sounds like cloud formations and atmospheric phenomenon (e.g. tricks of light and reflections). No way they can be stars. All stars are charted and predictable.

What were the winds like in the region at the time? (ground and higher altitudes) Is it possible to obtain airtraffic control data?
Was it by any chance near the air-way path of your region?

Another thing it could perhaps be: military formations (of latest technology projects), or some kind of excercise ...

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Has anyone a new Idea what that could be?

Also (cf. my previous separate post), one has to consider the possibility of Auroral Activity. We keep having current geomagnetic conditions (due to the sun's activity) every now and then, that would allow it. Including on the day that you mention. And Aurora can be very tricky! ... You always think it's something else ...
[However, I don't think we had aurora visible at middle altitudes lately.]

 

[davenn]

yes i know they can't change shape, but since they are thousands together they can shine in random ways making it look like they are moving no? kinda like a screen, u have so many tiny pixels that when some are on and others are off create diferent shapes to our eyes.

NO ... sorry but that is so very wrong

Dave

 

[jtbell]

It's impossible to do anything but speculate blindly, with only these written eyewitness reports to go on. After two and a half years, we don't seem to be making any progress. Therefore this thread is now closed.

If a verified explanation does eventually emerge, and someone wants to post it, please use the "Report" link at the bottom of this post to contact the Mentors (moderators), and we will consider re-opening this thread.