Lights in the sky

[Ghoulboy]

Some context: I live in eastern New York. I live near a small city and have never had any eye problems.

I'm coming here for some answers about some lights I saw a month or so back. It was around 9:30 at night and I was out walking my dog with my mom, we had almost reached the end of the street and I was looking straight ahead and saw a flash of orange light in the sky that lasted for about five or so seconds. I though "oh, that's weird" and figuring a transformer had blown. I looked down the street and didn't see any lights go out. About thirty seconds later another flash about five seconds long occurred. Both my mom and I saw these lights. 

The lights had no sound and were a soft glow.

I've been looking for news on the incident around my area and have found none. Been going around looking for other stories on this and have found some talking about SAR flares making lights similar to this. This is quite possible as there are wooded areas and forests around that someone could get lost in. From my limited knowledge of the areas SAR capabilities I don't belive any of the local departments have flares like this. 

I'm just looking to see if anyone has any other ideas.

[freetoroam]

There have been a large number of satelites launched, and I mean large.

Spacex, Elon musk. Rows of them up there now.

Quote

The satellites are part of something called Starlink. This is a project by SpaceX to launch thousands of satellites into orbit, and beam the internet to Earth from space.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2020/04/21/what-are-those-strange-moving-lights-in-the-night-sky-elon-musks-starlink-satellites-explained/amp/

.

 

[Ghoulboy]

This is a good point but seeing as the region I am in is a valley and the light was close to the tree line I would doubt this. There was also never any mention of a satellite re entering nearby. I should also note this took up a large area of my vision and wasn't a small object.... but hey you never know. 

[+Desertrat56]

12 hours ago, Ghoulboy said:

This is a good point but seeing as the region I am in is a valley and the light was close to the tree line I would doubt this. There was also never any mention of a satellite re entering nearby. I should also note this took up a large area of my vision and wasn't a small object.... but hey you never know. 

Did you check the date for meteor showers or other debris falling from orbit?

[Ghoulboy]

Just went back and checked. Dosen't look like we have had any debris fall back around here. An interesting item to note is that we had a meteor explode low over a few towns nearby a few months ago but it dosent line up with when I saw the light. But I'll keep looking.

[+Desertrat56]

25 minutes ago, Ghoulboy said:

Just went back and checked. Dosen't look like we have had any debris fall back around here. An interesting item to note is that we had a meteor explode low over a few towns nearby a few months ago but it dosent line up with when I saw the light. But I'll keep looking.

There was another one more recently that caused a sonic boom in that area (pennsylvania is pretty close) so maybe it was that.  I don't know the details, date or time though.

[Ghoulboy]

5 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

There was another one more recently that caused a sonic boom in that area (pennsylvania is pretty close) so maybe it was that.  I don't know the details, date or time though.

I'll have to look into it. Always happy to look at the probable before the improbable.

[+Desertrat56]

8 minutes ago, Ghoulboy said:

I'll have to look into it. Always happy to look at the probable before the improbable.

I think I forgot to say Welcome to the forum! 

[toast]

"... and I was out walking my dog ..."

"... flash of orange light in the sky ..."

Edited April 22, 2020 by toast

[Ghoulboy]

50 minutes ago, toast said:

"... and I was out walking my dog ..."

"... flash of orange light in the sky ..."

If you read the rest of my post you would see I'm looking for relevant, real world answers. Not looking for aliens. But hey... do you my guy. 

[Essan]

Without seeing it, or knowing the exact location, it's very difficult to come up with a probable explanation.  But given the lights were around tree-top height ....... is it possible they were just lights from vehicles shining upwards?  A car on a road that runs uphill in your direction, before the road then dips again, or turns, so that headlights briefly shine up into the sky before disappearing.   I have seen that happen quite a bit in upland parts of Britain when I've been out camping.  Can be quite eerie first time you notice it.   Admittedly would expect them to be yellow rather than orange though.

On the other hand, you mention SAR - could just have been an exercise (so nothing to report in the papers)?

[Ghoulboy]

17 minutes ago, Essan said:

Without seeing it, or knowing the exact location, it's very difficult to come up with a probable explanation.  But given the lights were around tree-top height ....... is it possible they were just lights from vehicles shining upwards?  A car on a road that runs uphill in your direction, before the road then dips again, or turns, so that headlights briefly shine up into the sky before disappearing.   I have seen that happen quite a bit in upland parts of Britain when I've been out camping.  Can be quite eerie first time you notice it.   Admittedly would expect them to be yellow rather than orange though.

On the other hand, you mention SAR - could just have been an exercise (so nothing to report in the papers)?

Exercise is possible but rare. We have sherriff, state and local police in the area and all are SAR capable (state and sherriff more). I have seen them do escort training but nothing in my 10+ years here about anything with SAR. Car lights are a possibility as there was some snow on the ground but we dont live near a hill and the closest street was void of cars. 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Ghoulboy

[Essan]

2 hours ago, Ghoulboy said:

Exercise is possible but rare. We have sherriff, state and local police in the area and all are SAR capable (state and sherriff more). I have seen them do escort training but nothing in my 10+ years here about anything with SAR. Car lights are a possibility as there was some snow on the ground but we dont live near a hill and the closest street was void of cars. 

It it were car lights they would have likely been several miles away.   But by no means saying that that is what they were.  Just a possibility