Can anybody tell me what this is?

Question

okay so a few months ago it was nighttime and i was outside. i was watching something, at first i thought it was a plane, but then it didn't seem like it. because it wasn't like flying straight like a plane, it seemed to be floating or gliding, like if the wind was moving it, but it was still moving at a speed like a plane. what is this?

Answer 1

It could have been a satalite

Answer 2

alright, meterologists use this balloon type thing to float into the air and they guide it by a remote control, it blinks white real quickly like a strobe and they do these mostly at night, so thats what it might be, also it looks like a solid white light from the ground f.y.i :)

Answer 3

Unidentified flying object in other words UFO!

Answer 4

The object you are seeing is actually a satellite. It orbits the Earth close enough for it to be seen but far enough that it resembles a star, with the exception that it is noticeably "gliding" through the sky. The military as well as the scientific community send satellites into space quite often so it is not uncommon to see these moving specs on a regular basis.

Answer 5

they call them kits cuz they look like one flying but they are ufo if you brlive in that cind of thing  

Answer 6

There are still many (normal) things that can fit your description,  It is difficult to tell without more information.

Satellite (for example, the International Space Station is very bright and often gives the impression of being a plane crossing the sky (from West to East, always).  Other satellites are on North-South (or South-North) orbits.

Weather balloons (I used to follow them by telescope -- very interesting) will follow paths according to the wind at their altitude (direction may change as they change altitude).  When they reach a high enough altitude (something like an hour after they are launched), they burst and the science package falls back to Earth (it is light and has a parachute).

Debris or garbage (e.g., plastic grocery bag) especially if it is high enough to still be lit by the sun after sunset for you: it will look a lot brighter (and may seem to have a strange flickering as the wind spins it randomly) than what you would expect from such a small thing.

Helicopters, glider (although, after dark, I doubt it), etc.

Answer 7

The boringly common problem with people in regard to observation is that they say things like “it was going as fast as an airplane”, or it appeared to be about 5 miles up.  

If you have no idea how high this thing is flying how on Earth can you say how fast it was going?  Case in point – I can wave my hand across the sky faster than anything except lighning.  

Your object could have been a balloon at 500 feet, in which case it was probably going very slowly, or a satellite at 200 miles up, in which case it would be travelling extremely fast.

Your depth vision is limited to a few tens of meters.  In the night sky, if there is nothing to reference the object against, you have no idea whether it is a few hundred feet or in deep space.  

I always wonder why people cannot get this in their thick skulls – no wonder so many people see UFOs.  If you know nothing about the sky, of course you are going to see things you don’t understand, all the time.  

But if you do see something you don’t understand, for heaven’s sake give us something concrete to make a stab at – time, location, direction, height in the sky (ie how far up the sky, like "halfway" or "overhead"), how long visible for, how bright (compared to stars, etc).  

It aint rocket science.

Answer 8

OMG ... i have no idea, i see alot of weird things in the sky to...

Answer 9

it may have just been an airliner far enough away to seem like its gliding

Answer 10

I'm not trying to be cruel, but your account seems vague. It could have been anything, possibly some meteological phenomenon or maybe a plane you're not familiar with. However, I'm a firm believer in the idea that if it makes you think twice, theres something more to the picture. I've had three experiences which I can't account for, one of them interestingly involving an individual who was literally there one moment and gone the next.

Answer 11

Planes don't always fly straight. Also, it is possible the weaving motion was actually an optical illusion and it really was flying straight.

But basically I would have to have seen it myself, because words cannot completely describe a visual sighting well enough to know for sure what it really looked like.