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Sighting (13th Dec 2022)

feen5

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Feb 9, 2004
Messages
1,349
Ok I'm not sure how exactly I'm going to describe this properly so please bear with me. I may try to draw a diagram later and at it but I'm not great at either drawing or uploading stuff. This happened last night at 11.30 approx. I always let the dog out for a piss before heading to bed and as I was outside I noticed couple of meteors and remembered that its the time of year for the Geminids so I waited for the dog to finish and kept watching the shower.

I was facing directly south (as the back of my house is south facing). The sky was clear (but well enough lit by the Moon which in some way may have helped me catch sight of what I saw). The moon was on my left high enough in the sky (I'd say between 45 and 60 degrees above the horizon) and to the right of that was Orion which was very clear in the sky and well above the Horizon. I was staring directly over head and trying to move my head as little as possible as I find that you can see more of the sky and also catch sight of anything that may not be directly in front of you.

I was outside for about 7 / 8 mins and I'd seen about 6 meteors (not overly bright or long but spectacular enough) when I suddenly caught sight of what I can only describe as a dark triangular shaped object come over the top of my head at a significant speed. My eye caught this very quickly and I was able to follow it for the 3 to 4 seconds that it took for the object to pass over my head and disappear over the horizon in front of me. The object was dark with no lighting but I got the impression that on both sides of the underside there was a patch that was a slightly lighter colour. The object made absolutely no sound what so ever and I'll repeat that there was no lighting at all on the object.

For context I'm not an expert on aircraft or astronomy but I am well used to watching the sky at night, I know where and which planets are in the sky at any time and I can pick out a few of the more well know constellations and stars as I've always had an interest in the night sky. I'm also very keen on ornithology and wildlife in general and I've seen birds fly over my head at night and I can tell you this object was not a bird or bat.

I hope this isn't to much of a mess and that maybe someone else has seen something like it. Its the first time that I have ever seen something I cannot explain in the sky. In fact when I went up to bed a few minutes later I found it hard to explain to my wife what I had seen. That' why I have tried to do this as early as i could this morning so that everything was clear in my head. I will try to draw something later and post it.

I live in a town in the Irish Midlands if this is any help.
 
Ok I'm not sure how exactly I'm going to describe this properly so please bear with me. I may try to draw a diagram later and at it but I'm not great at either drawing or uploading stuff. This happened last night at 11.30 approx. I always let the dog out for a piss before heading to bed and as I was outside I noticed couple of meteors and remembered that its the time of year for the Geminids so I waited for the dog to finish and kept watching the shower.

I was facing directly south (as the back of my house is south facing). The sky was clear (but well enough lit by the Moon which in some way may have helped me catch sight of what I saw). The moon was on my left high enough in the sky (I'd say between 45 and 60 degrees above the horizon) and to the right of that was Orion which was very clear in the sky and well above the Horizon. I was staring directly over head and trying to move my head as little as possible as I find that you can see more of the sky and also catch sight of anything that may not be directly in front of you.

I was outside for about 7 / 8 mins and I'd seen about 6 meteors (not overly bright or long but spectacular enough) when I suddenly caught sight of what I can only describe as a dark triangular shaped object come over the top of my head at a significant speed. My eye caught this very quickly and I was able to follow it for the 3 to 4 seconds that it took for the object to pass over my head and disappear over the horizon in front of me. The object was dark with no lighting but I got the impression that on both sides of the underside there was a patch that was a slightly lighter colour. The object made absolutely no sound what so ever and I'll repeat that there was no lighting at all on the object.

For context I'm not an expert on aircraft or astronomy but I am well used to watching the sky at night, I know where and which planets are in the sky at any time and I can pick out a few of the more well know constellations and stars as I've always had an interest in the night sky. I'm also very keen on ornithology and wildlife in general and I've seen birds fly over my head at night and I can tell you this object was not a bird or bat.

I hope this isn't to much of a mess and that maybe someone else has seen something like it. Its the first time that I have ever seen something I cannot explain in the sky. In fact when I went up to bed a few minutes later I found it hard to explain to my wife what I had seen. That' why I have tried to do this as early as i could this morning so that everything was clear in my head. I will try to draw something later and post it.

I live in a town in the Irish Midlands if this is any help.

Excellent account. Thanks for posting it.

I don't know exactly where you are, but I've used Portlaoise - the largest town in the Irish Midlands - as my basis.

Here is the sky as seen looking directly southwards from Portlaoise at 2330hrs. 13.12.22:

Portlaoise-UFO-Fortean.jpg


maximus otter
 
ADSB and FR24 don't show anything over the Irish Midlands at that time. The (in)famous Black Triangles are usually described with lights so could it have been some kind of stealth aircraft? Were the lighter patches where the sky shows in the area behind the wings?

0_TRMRMMGLPICT000020769201.jpg
 
The town is Mullingar if that's any help but i wouldn't think the sky was much different from Portlaoise. I'm not discounting any of the suggestions so far but I will state again that this object made no sound what so ever and it passed rapidly, much quicker than any airplane I have ever seen.
 
Yer actual B2 stealth bomber is (perhaps unsurprisingly) extremely difficult to spot at night.
They can (and usually do) run without any visible lights on the outside of the craft, and have a sophisticated 'noise suppression' system which can make them silent to anyone on the ground (any engine sounds that do get out are directed upwards).
Their range of nearly 7000 miles means they could easily make the journey from Portugal to Iceland with plenty of fuel to spare, and a direct line of flight would pass fairly close to Ireland - it might make sense (or be a bit of a 'jape') for the pilots to decide to fly over land as much as possible.
With their top speed of over 1000kph it's likely that they would be one of the faster aircraft you're likely to spot (most commercial airliners at their cruising speed, at height, travel at about 900kph +/- a bit).
 
With their top speed of over 1000kph it's likely that they would be one of the faster aircraft you're likely to spot (most commercial airliners at their cruising speed, at height, travel at about 900kph +/- a bit).

Ok but I did say that this thing passed over my head and over the horizon in 3 to 4 secs. I've seen plenty of aircraft in the day and at night and none of them passed that quickly over the same space of sky, not even close. If you watch any commercial aircraft flying overhead you can track it for a long time before it disappears from view. So even taking into account that military aircraft can fly faster than other planes they still couldn't have travelled this quickly.
 
Beats me then, pal.
I guess, assuming that you weren't daydreaming, that you have had either an encounter with some sort of advanced military craft (or a multi-billionaire is developing a super-craft privately), or it was some kind of alien craft (black triangle?).
Or it was a mis-identification of something mundane (unlikely though I expect)
 
Ok I'm not sure how exactly I'm going to describe this properly so please bear with me. I may try to draw a diagram later and at it but I'm not great at either drawing or uploading stuff. This happened last night at 11.30 approx. I always let the dog out for a piss before heading to bed and as I was outside I noticed couple of meteors and remembered that its the time of year for the Geminids so I waited for the dog to finish and kept watching the shower.

I hope this isn't to much of a mess and that maybe someone else has seen something like it. Its the first time that I have ever seen something I cannot explain in the sky. In fact when I went up to bed a few minutes later I found it hard to explain to my wife what I had seen. That' why I have tried to do this as early as i could this morning so that everything was clear in my head. I will try to draw something later and post it.

I live in a town in the Irish Midlands if this is any help.
I saw a very large flying object back in 1997, which I discussed here several months ago, and it too moved like nothing I had ever seen.
It's so difficult to explain the speed these vehicles have, and the other worldly feeling one is left with.
 
A couple of thoughts:

As we know, the UK will on occasion scramble military aircraft to enter Irish airspace in response to, for example, Russian aircraft 'passing through'. This arrangement is tolerated due to Ireland's comparatively low levels of air defences. So perhaps you saw a Typhoon passing over on 'business'.

Given that the object passed over so quickly, perhaps it was small and flying relatively low. A longer shot might be that the UK government is developing drone prototypes using Northern Ireland contractors - I don't know why they'd be flying something around in Irish airspace, or over Westmeath specifically, but who knows?
 
It's not that I don't believe you but could it have been a low flying heron?
I think feen5 already established that it was quickly gone over the horizon. I'm not entirely certain but I am fairly sure that a heron cannot exceed about 35mph (laden or unladen) so that would be unlikely to disappear over the horizon in short order, as described.
 
Since the sighting only lasted three or four seconds, I think that doesn't really allow enough time for an accurate assessment of its shape or flight-path. Indeed, that time is so short that it seems unlikely to be any kind of large craft, alien or not; nothing large could move that fast. I suspect it was a large, vaguely-triangular bird, perhaps a goose or maybe an owl, swooping down to land.

The fact that Feen saw a pair of lighter patches on this shape suggests that the bird had some lighter feathers on the underside; a Canada goose, maybe, which has a patch of lighter feathers under its wing.
il_1588xN.3257362272_6585.jpg
 
Since the sighting only lasted three or four seconds, I think that doesn't really allow enough time for an accurate assessment of its shape or flight-path. Indeed, that time is so short that it seems unlikely to be any kind of large craft, alien or not; nothing large could move that fast. I suspect it was a large, vaguely-triangular bird, perhaps a goose or maybe an owl, swooping down to land.

The fact that Feen saw a pair of lighter patches on this shape suggests that the bird had some lighter feathers on the underside; a Canada goose, maybe, which has a patch of lighter feathers under its wing.
il_1588xN.3257362272_6585.jpg
Owl speeding towards prey? They are totally silent fliers. If it flew right over you, then it must have felt like flying very fast.
 
I see barn owls hunting a fair bit at the moment, their white colour is quite obvious in moonlight though.

No tawny owls in Ireland of course but there are definitely long eared owls in Westmeath. They're not really very delta shaped!
 
Getting back to the stealth aircraft theory: I once saw an F-117 flying over the north shore of Long Island in the middle of the day. I told my cousin about it and he - ex-Air Force, and still working on classified military projects at the time - said it should only have been flying at night and would not have been based nearby. (They were common knowledge but not officially completely acknowledged to the public at that point.) It was quiet as I remember, moved fast, and did not look like it should be aerodynamically capable of flight.

Which is a roundabout way of saying the location, performance, and activity of such aircraft sometimes does not jibe with the official line on them.
 
did not look like it should be aerodynamically capable of flight.
That's because they aren't.
Turn off the computers and they would crash as they rely on the extremely quick modifications to the control surfaces to keep them in the air, much quicker than a person could do with a 'stick'.
 
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