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On the morning of 14 August before sunrise I went to a secluded area to watch the meteor shower. At one point, I noticed what at first seemed like a regular meteorite around the zenith point, but I soon saw that it was moving around. I'm familiar with the optical illusion that stars sometimes seem like they dance around, so that was my second thought, but this one moved around so much that it seemed clear as day that it was actually moving.

It was a neon coloured light that was about as big as a bright star.

I tried out a few tests to see if it was really moving. The first thing I did was put a finger in front of my eye, slightly underneath it. It soon went behind my fingernail, through which I could still see it, and then disappeared completely behind my finger for a few seconds before appearing again and dancing around above the area covered by my finger. One may think that I was unable to hold my finger steady, but if that was the case, I would constantly see it appear and disappear. I made sure to keep a reasonable buffer space between the object and my finger. Instead it calmly went behind my finger, hung around for a few seconds, then went back to a higher point. The distance that it covers in position to my finger is out of proportion with how much my finger naturally vibrates. The former was a couple of centimeters while the latter is millimeters.

My second test was to look at it for a moment and to then fix my gaze at the same point through willpower. I felt that I was simply staring at a single point. It immediately left that point and danced around near that point.

I also tried to track its position in relation to actual stars but it wasn't too close to any others. I did get the impression that, by the end of me observing the object, it was closer to a few of the stars than at the start. It was around this point that the sky began to turn blue and the stars became invisible. The object I was observing was one of the last ones to turn invisible.

There was a fourth, unintended test. As I started walking away I looked up to the sky one last time and thought I spotted it again. It disappeared to the right of my vision at an accelerating pace. But as I looked to the zenith point again it came back, and I still saw it with my eyes closed. Clearly this was the impression of the object burnt onto my retina so to speak. The lights that you saw lingers on in your vision and it escaped my field of vision simply because I was trying to track it. But what this shows is that it was actually off-centre. That doesn't happen when you simply stare at static lights.

One thing that further convinces me that this was a UFO is that it was the only object of which I had this impression of hovering around. If it's a natural optical illusion I could just pick out any star, look closely, and it would appear as something that's moving around. It moved around so much. It completely stood out from all the other objects.

What do you guys think this could've been? @JasonCarswell @Tom_Bombadil @newJiminy

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[-]JasonCarswell2(+1|0)

Did it make a noise like a drone or helicopter?
How many shrooms did you take?

But seriously, you have a way better idea than I do about what it was, much less how it appeared.

neon coloured light

They make lights with gases in many colours.

[-]Zapped2(+1|0)

The moving light versus the other stagnant lights in the sky could depend on that light being terrestrial. Maybe something like a Morgana effect.

[-]LarrySwinger3(+2|0)

Thank you. Yes, this seems like a good direction in which to think but what I'm wondering about then is what could it be if it's terrestrial? It'd have to be a spaceship. It's not like something like that will be a random satellite. I don't think there are stationary satellites that aren't on the equator line since it'd have to constantly expend energy to move alongside the earth's rotation. I'm not even sure how many stationary satellites there are in the first place. That isn't what it was.

Come to think of it, I feel like this may have been a planet as it had the same outline where it appeared that part of a sphere was lit, and there was a dark part, much like you can see with the moon's surface but smaller. If so it should still be there. Hm. But planets don't appear on the zenith point from here so that's still a discrepancy.

I was too sleepy to wake up early last night. Also I didn't take my phone along that time, I was cautious from having almost lost it the night before but I can just be careful. With my phone I can just see what Stellarium has to say.

[-]JasonCarswell3(+2|0)

Mercury and Venus can be pretty bright but will inevitably be near sunrise/set.

[-]Zapped2(+1|0)

And Venus looks like it jumps around at times.

[-]LarrySwinger3(+2|0)

It was near the zenith point while I'm in north-western europe so it couldn't have been a planet afaik, all planets orbit the sun in the same plane.

[-]Zapped2(+1|0)

Yeah. You said that but I was still thinking horizon. My father talked about seeing something like you saw when he was kid in the 1950's or 1960's. Looking straight up while on a hay ride, I think he said that he saw three points of light slowly come together and then shot off in different directions. I'll have to ask him about the story again.

[-]Neol2(+1|0)

Satellite? Did it move in a straight line?

Coincidentally this video was just recommended to me on YouTube:

Huge Object Traveling in the night sky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbXrZqBQgJE (1 day ago)

[-]JasonCarswell3(+2|0)

ISS, especially near the end.

[-]LarrySwinger3(+2|0)

That's the thing: it hovered around the zenith point. If it moved in a straight line it would've been a meteorite. The sky was full of those as we were going through a meteor shower. And indeed, on any other day that would've been a satellite. But it was for certain neither of those. The alternative is a star which I'm somehow mistaking for moving around in spite of all the tests that suggest it did indeed move. Otherwise I feel like it has to be some kind of space ship. (Which doesn't even imply an alien life form as there are secret as well as open space programs.)

Well I actually UFO'd a spotted once which is unbelievable I know.
13Dfv#7ZCS6XPG2H

[-]newJiminy0(0|-1)

Yeah it turns out all the super fast flying lights UFOs were people playing with powerful lasers.