I work the mid-shift schedule at my work, so i'm working from 2pm till 11pm 5 days a week. I work very close to our city's International Airport so I obviously see plenty of aircraft coming in and out of the area I work at. I have about a 30 minute drive home after work each day and I almost always see this very very bright white light in the sky.. It's much higher looking than an aircraft and it's stationary. It looks like a star, but you can tell it's not.. it's producing artificial light of some kind. Some nights it's not there.. some nights it is.. And it's ALWAYS in the same location in the sky. When I get into a lot of city lights, all the stars in the sky are drowned out and cannot be seen, but this huge bright white light can still be seen....

Could this be a satellite? Do they shine back light like this?

Jay

The fact that it's stationary makes me think it's a tower.

No no, it couldn't possibly be a tower.. it's WAYYYY up there..

Give me a date, and time.

And, give me the general location, within a few hundred miles or kilometers.

I can at least narrow it down.

I see a burned out star in the north everynight that changes colors but remains stationary. You could be seeing a supernova that happened a billion years ago. Other than that, it's a UFO.

That sounds very odd indeed. What makes you think that the light produced is artificial? Does it do something special? As Leadbelly asked, a location would be good to have

Best,
Badeskov

This will help a lot:

City:
State:
Hours:
Location: N- S- E- W- NW- SW- SE- NE-

I ask this because in early part of Feb. for instance there was a Supernova that took place. That caused a nice bit of news and supposed "UFO sightings", but it was a special treat for astronomers of all level: Supernova.

Jj -

we have something similar viewed from my home at night . I 'm going to make note of time and look at different times , but it's so consistant I always assumed it was a sattilite.

Ripley:

I might be able to help. Can you provide your:

City:
State:
Location in the sky:
Basic Time frame:

Jj -

Just bring a cam with you and film it when it shows up again

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Anywhere from 630pm-onwards.. always same location in the sky, unfortunately I don't know the heading, it's literally almost straight up, not very close to any horizon at all.

I think it's artificial light because it doesn't flicker like most stars and it's bigger and brighter and a true white color than any star i've ever seen. Another reason I believe that is because some nights the light is gone completely.. So something is turning it on and off. And if it's in the same position in the sky every night, I don't think it's a star.. I'd imagine the earth rotation changes the position of the stars gradually, well this "thing" isn't moving as far as I can tell.

What does a supernova look like as an observer on Earth? Any pictures someone can link to me?

Jay

sounds like a star i also see every night i used to look at it when i was young and it changes colours just like you said

also you reminded me of something me and all my freinds seen the other night. it was a dark star filled night and we seen a plane moving but the light was muchbrighter than any normal plane but then it stopped in mid air and we were all like did u see that? and even my freind ashley who is very skeptical couldnt come up with anything, we were staring at it for about 10- 20 mins then it shot off again

Well I honestly don't think this is a star... It looks far too close to be one.. and extremely bright. This hasn't changed colors though, always a bright white, not a flicker, nothing.

I've been told some of the bright white lights you see in the sky could be satellites.. so i'm trying to figure it out.

And I didn't really want to mention it because I probably saw a plane, but I always see interesting things in the sky on the way home at night.. Last night I saw what I assumed was an airplane heading in my direction.. But as it got closer, I expected to hear something.. I can easily hear jets/planes while i'm driving because I normally have my moonroof open.. Well this craft was about 25 seconds away from passing over my car and as I looked at it, I noticed two constant white lights on it's edges.. and I was like, okay those are just for night flying vision.. but I also noticed a red light strobing in the center of the craft. I found that odd as i've never seen red strobes on a plane in the middle like that.. Well I heard nothing as it passed over my car and it looked like it was REALLY low cause I looked out the right window and saw it where it looked like it was maybe 200 feet over the treetops on the right side of the road and this thing honestly looked triangular in shape to me.. And it appeared to just come to a very very slow speed or even a complete stop.. If there weren't so many cars on the road, i'd love to have stopped to check my hearing and see if I could hear it or not.. It looked to have 3 red lights that were constantly on, on it's backside..

Shrug.. I long to see something out of this world, sigh.

Jay

man if you got a digital cam at home please keep it charged an in your car for future use. what your seeing sounds interesting.
so that next time you can get some film of this stuff.

In the past few days, the fourth brighest star, Arcturus, has been near the zenith, before sunrise. It may catch your eye, depending on the lights in the city. I do not see any unusual alignments.

There was a full moon transiting through zenith, before sunrise, starting a week ago. It's brightness has been waning since then. It is now in its third quarter phase, and a little lower in the sky, prior to sunrise.

If you know what to look for, satilites are easy to spot. They move at a steady and slow speed across the sky and generally look like a large, white star. Since satilites are in orbit, they can't stop (that I know of) so you can rule out the possibility of it being a satilite. Planets move across the sky from night to night. You could buy a calendar that maps out the location of planets in the sky just in case though.

Since you live in a rather large city and you're near an airport, It could be weather equipment. The light you see could be a reflection of the city or the sun (depending on altitude) off the object. Does a local university have an astronomy department? You could report the object to them and check up on them periodically.

Venus?

Does sound like Venus.... IF IT IS VENUS I'm giving up... right now..

Get a camera and take some pictures...it could be a planet...or a mother ship if your in florida...

Okay so definately not a satellite.. I already had assumed it looked too close to be one anyhow. Considering it seems to never move until the road starts veering one way or another, i'd say it's quite stationary. Since the light is so bright and never flickers, I don't think it's weather equipment.. I'd imagine weather equipment that high up would have a bit of movement.. could be wrong.

If I had to judge it's height up in the sky, i'd say it looks easily inside our atmosphere, but very close to being out of it... It's brightness is easily 2-3 times brighter than the brightest star I can find in the sky and about 2-3 times it's size as well. Tomorrow I will be packing up my tripod and camera to snap some short and long exposure photos of it. I'm just afraid that it will come out looking like a white dot in the pictures.. I will take pictures of stars (if they come out) and pictures of the bright light I see so that you can see the comparison.

Don't forget that some nights this light is GONE.. no where to be found.. and then 4 days in a row I will see it again.. I haven't seen it gone for more than 1 night though.. I will start making a recording of my observations and try to get in contact with my local astronomy group at the college and see what they think.

Jay

I remember watching Mars last year, it would dim and vanish and then get very bright, dim and vanish, etc. Went on like that all night I suppose.

Wow Diversion, thats really odd. Wish we had some pics of the light though, because I'm having a hard time imagining what you're seeing. You're sure it's too high to be any ground equipment?

It's really not hard to imagine what im seeing, I think people are expecting something big out of this, it looks like a super bright star, but you can tell it's closer than that.. That's really about it.. nothing special otherwise, haven't noticed it changing colors or dimming or getting brighter.. just that somedays it's not there and some days it is.

Jay

Venus.

I think he just need 2 sticks on the ground parallel to the object so he knows if its going to move.

once i saw a very bright red light in the sky, high up. it was a crane, actually, when i took a closer look i saw the outline of the crane and with the light at the very top.

Guys it can all be explained by wheather baloons MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Joken

Update.. the light wasn't there last night on the way home from work.. will update tomorrow and hopefully have pics to provide if it's up there tonight! And no, it's not a crane, or Venus

It's not Venus that is overhead in your sky, but Jupiter.

Hey, I live in Jax too......leaving from the airport, which direction? I'll see if I can find it too. You should also post on Peter Davenport's website, there are a lot of sightings in our area that sounds similar to what you are describing. www.nuforc.org

cool keep us updated.. and keep the camera handy!

Well it's nearly almost straight up, I can't describe it's location as north, west, south, or east.. but if I had to, i'd say it looks almost more South.. to South-west.. but still nearly directly above. I'll check out that website link you posted.. Nice to see other Jacksonville people chiming in on this.. hopefully you can spot this in the sky as well and give us your thoughts. I keep forgetting to bring my camera/tripod with me to work, argh!

Jay

any updates?

Oh man, it's been quite busy and I honestly can't seem to remember to bring my camera/tripod with me to work.. The light is STILL up in the sky.. but it's been REALLY different lately.. it's still in the same location.. but now it's like a blue/purply color and tends to sparkle.. it's not the solid bright white light it was before.. It's still bright enought o discern it to not be a star.. but it's definately changed it's character.

Jay

While you feel that this could not be a natural phenomena it is my belief that what you are seeing is in fact the planet Jupiter.

You claim that this object is overhead, just as Jupiter would be this time of year.

You also state that this object is very bright, brighter than the stars and appears somewhat closer. Right now Jupiter is the third brightest object in the night sky just behind the Moon and Venus. While you feel that it is still in the Earth'satmosphere I feel that it is near impossible to judge distances when you are staring into the night sky, it can be decieving.

You say that the object does not twinkle as the stars do. Planets do not tend to twinkle when viewed from Earth, as they are much much closer.

Like I say this is my opinion but before you dismiss this as rubish, consider this picture http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030403.html

You could very well be right.. Maybe when I can finally produce some photos to evaluate, we can come to a conclusion

Jay

One night i get excited that i was seeing a ufo.
I was looking for it for about 5 minutes then suddenly it went my way.
Whoa ! police helicopter.

Sounds like sleep paralysis and swamp gas to me