Have you ever seen a plane disappears as it approached a star?

Question

Tonight at 11 p.m. CST, in Nebraska, my husband and I were outside our home looking up at the stars while he had a smoke, and we were surprised to see a very fast moving plane (or so we thought it was a plane). My husband commented how odd it was that it was moving so fast at such a low altitude. Suddenly as it approached a bright star (or possibly planet such as Venus or Mars as we aren't astrologically knowledgeable as to what star or planet it might be), the plane seemed to have put its landing lights on. The whiteness turned blue and red as it approached the star, then much to our shock and bewilderment, it disappeared into the star. NO KIDDING!! It is a very crystal clear night, NO CLOUDS at all, and we watched the star for almost 20 minutes, and the plane did NOT reappear anywhere else in the sky. NOTHING reappeared in the sky. We are somewhat baffled and wondering what in the world did we see??? Yes, a UFO, cause it is can be said it was an unidentifiable flying object to us. But as ANYONE ELSE ever witnessed such a thing? What do you think it was that we saw, or that YOU saw if you have had such an experience?

Answer 1

Well, as you said, it was definitely a UFO since it was a flying object that you couldn't identify.  I definitely don't think it went behind the planet or star though, considering the distance involved, whether a planet or a star. If it had been that far away, you wouldn't have seen it.  It certainly didn't behave like any man made aircraft that I know of, so who knows, maybe an alien craft.  I can't wait for all the thumbs-downs I'll get for saying that.

Answer 2

Well, it's true, a UFO is anything someone doesn't recognize.  There's not much here to work with.   The brightest object in the sky right now is Jupiter which at 11 p.m. will be almost due south, just a bit to the eastern side of the meridian, the imaginary line that divides the east side of the sky from the west side.   My general comment is that we I spend dozens of nights a year out under the stars, five, six, ten hours at a time, and I hang out with people that do the same thing.    The general reason that you don't see amateur astronomers reporting UFOs is that as a rule they know what they are looking at; and often have binoculars on hand and other tools to find out what they are looking at.

The next brightest thing that you might see is an Iridium flare.  These satellites catch the sun at certain moments and are even brighter than Jupiter in the sky, but only for short periods.  

The third thing that can often make one do a doubletake, even me, is an airplane gaining altitude with its strobe lights on.  From a sufficient distance these look like bright stars or planets.  If they are traveling towards you they even appear to hold their position.  I often see planes doing this at night over a distant airport.  

So your bright light could be (1) Jupiter (2) an Iridium flare or (3) a distant airplane holding a fairly steady course.  

Now you have a plane heading towards the bright light.  If it is heading directionally towards an airport, you will see the navigation lights on the side.  If the plane is on approach it could be *higher* than the bright light and go *over* it.  

That doesn't answer the question as to how it disappears.  Looking at the cloud pattern over Nebraska tonight, it does indeed look crystal clear over about 1/2 the state, but the upper altitudes do have patches of *zero* transparency.  That means there are high altitude clouds.  I have been out under clear stars enjoying a view in a telescope and been astounded to watch the object disappear.  Close inspection with binoculars at the sky patch I'm looking at in the telescope usually shows a cloud is moving over the field of view, but wayyyyyyy up there.  

Blue and red are hard to figure out here because (a) running lights on planes are green and red which is already pretty close and (b) diffraction patterns separate into blue and red.  Red up top and blue on the bottom is a classic effect of refraction and light passing through water moisture etc.   In fact, in your clear cloudless sky at high altitudes, there might have been some moisture, and you might have seen this classic refraction effect.  Or something to do with the running lights.  

So I wouldn't *exclude* a high altitude cloud, and I also wouldn't exclude a military plane from Offut or Lincoln air force bases turning its lights off and "disappearing" at high altitude as part of a military exercise.    

The sky is a very busy place and if one spends one or two hundred hours a year under the sky one gets to see a wide variety of things.    I remember when I was kid I got freaked out because I thought a badly out of focus star might be an alien ship.    When I give sky talks I get asked all the time about UFOs.  The main thing I have to answer is that we have maybe 50,000 to 100,000 amateur astronomers in the United States--I know a few in Nebraska--and with the Internet it's very clubby. We know each other and exchange emails on chat groups.  Astromart for example has discussion groups and we have 80,000 members.   But in spite of all the hours we spend under the sky we never seem to catch the really great weird stuff.  Those things are usually seen by someone stepping out of a car or taking a night swim or stepping outside for a smoke on a warm summer night.  

So I can't tell you what you saw, I can only tell you how I would tackle the problem.  Incidentally there is no moon right now and you should be aware that all around Nebraska under those clear skies are going to be people with sophisticated equipment enjoying the sky.  They catch all sorts of things including comets, asteroids, and the usual galaxies and stars and planets.  Many of them are doing photography.   These people would have gotten out at sundown and they'll be staying out till 3 or 4 a.m. in many cases.  

Amateur astronomers are not numerous as in the millions, but we are everywhere, and as a rule we're not seeing things that strike us as terribly mysterious.    And we never get abducted.  

It would be very interesting if you caught a space alien!  That would give us some hope that our world will make it through the tough times ahead....if they can do it, maybe so can we.

For reports like yours it helps to know how the object is moving relative to N, S, E, W, where the nearest airports are (civil aviation, commercial, and military) and some sense of what the satellite scene is.    You should be able to get Iridium flare schedules at the link I provided but I'm not convinced an Iridium flare played a role in your UFO sighting.

Answer 3

The "flying object" and the star were not really in the same place, just lined up along your line of vision.  Anyone else, at a different spot, woul have seen them in separate places.  I know that for a fact, because stars are light years away, and you can't see "flying objects" that far.  Or if it was a planet, it would have been millioins of miles away at least.  It could have been a plane that you saw, only its headlight turned away from you just as it reached the apparent position of the star, or it could have turned its lights off for some reason, or went behind a cloud that you couldn't see because it was dark.  The only other possibility was that it wasn't really a star, in which case it could have been anything; little green men for example.  But that would be an assumption based on little or no evidence.