[madaxe_again]

It’s totally anecdotal, and I’m just some guy on the internet, but I’ve seen these, or at least something similar, twice - once above Bath, UK, in 2012 - the first hint something was up was a pair of sonic booms as two typhoons hurtled into the airspace over the city. Needless to say, ran out of the office to gawp, and the fighters were circling a thing hovering at about 20,000 feet - bulky ovular object with greebles and lumps, just sitting there in the sky. As they approached it moved sideways as though on rails, and after a few minutes, a cloud formed around it, which then dissipated over a minute - the thing was gone. This was written up in the press the next day as a helicopter pilot in distress. Here’s the story the press ran with - there was no helicopter, I swear it. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2129133/Sonic-boom-r...

The other was at night in the Kazakh steppes, watching a triangle of lights dance in impossible fashion, before zooming up into the sky and disappearing - although given that I was near Baikonur, I give more credence to this one being man made.

But the thing over Bath was enough to break my mind. I still struggle to believe I saw anything. Others who saw it with me took the helicopter story and clung to it, because the alternatives are just too damn weird to process. I can understand why the pilot in the story you link was mocked - giving credence to something like this invokes painful cognitive dissonance.

Anyway. I’m just a guy on the internet, but I know I saw something.

Also, don’t forget Foo Fighters - pilots have been seeing odd things since at least WWII. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_fighter

Oh, and there was this peculiar sighting a few years ago - not by me, but credible and bizarre - but again, maybe mundane. https://jpcvanheijst.com/red-lights-over-the-pacific-ocean-a...

[mrspeaker]

Doesn't sound the same as yours, but I saw the "triangles in the sky" in the late 90s in Australia. I came home from work at about 1am, and noticed three lights up in the sky moving at the same slow speed in a triangle-ish formation (For a while I thought they were connected, but then seemed to move independently, and just looked... odd). I watched them for a couple of minutes go across the sky, then had to go and wake up my parents to show them and prove I wasn't imagining it. I tried to take a photo, but this was the 90s and my night-time SLR skills were bad ;)

20 years later someone described the exact same thing on /r/astronomy and I remembered it. I spent a weekend "researching" it and there were lots of article and sightings but no real info (I was pretty intrigued at that point!). Then someone replied on the astronomy post that it was "Maybe the NOSS satellites."... I looked them up, and yep - it was exactly what I remembered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxN2ieE8N9A

[valuearb]

I saw the lights in Phoenix, they hovered in the sky far too long to be parachute flares, but guess what, they were parachute flares.

[King-Aaron]

In 1996 (Around June I think), myself and around 200-odd people at the Karratha drive-in cinema witnessed a nearly identical phenomenon as you describe. It was about 9pm - 10pm, and I have fond memories of everyone around us staring straight up, instead of at the cinema screen.

[mrspeaker]

Karratha?! I was south of Perth - maybe it was the same ones! I went to call the observatory, so I dialed the operator (remember operators?) and she said "You saw the lights too? If you find out what they are, call me back!"... I never got through to anyone though and just let it go.

[King-Aaron]

It would be interesting if it was the same event. Though unlike the formation you showed, I recall the three stars initially coming together from different locations in the sky to form the triangle - they weren't initially in formation. They stayed in formation then for a few minutes, before disappearing

[bwooceli]

1998 in Colorado Springs, same thing for me. (edit: should note that in my viewing, they did suddenly dash off to the South, which is what shocked my friend and I driving down the highway)

[pluto9]

> the fighters were circling a thing hovering at about 20,000 feet - bulky ovular object with greebles and lumps

How were you able to see such details from 20,000 feet away?

[madaxe_again]

Because whatever it was it was big - hundreds of metres long, and reflecting oddly - as to the range, judged it from the apparent size of the typhoons as they circled it - used to fly, and judging range is one of those things you have to get used to.

[perseusprime11]

Before you saw these incidents, what was your belief system in UFOs? I ask this because sometimes we can see what we want to see and sometimes we cannot see what we don't want to see.

[madaxe_again]

You mean confirmation bias. I don’t have any belief systems whatsoever - I just tend to err towards “highly improbable until proven impossible” with all things.

And I didn’t want to see something that has made me question my sanity for five years...!

[iankp]

I'll share that I had an encounter that seemed unnatural/impossible and I wasn't alone at the time. It also was reported in our local paper the following day. I contentiously (regardless of the experience) have never and do not believe in aliens.

[aluminussoma]

Would you mind to share what your impossible encounter was like? Did the paper report something else (like the Daily Mail reporting on a helicopter as the cause)?

[Amezarak]

> The other was at night in the Kazakh steppes, watching a triangle of lights dance in impossible fashion, before zooming up into the sky and disappearing - although given that I was near Baikonur, I give more credence to this one being man made.

I was struck by your account, as Thomas Pynchon mentions in Gravity's Rainbow a mysterious phenomenon called the Kirghiz Light, seen on the steppes.

https://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?titl...

Maybe a coincidence, but Pynchon drew a lot on real history and events, and I wonder if there was not something on the steppes people have been reporting for a while. I never could find anything on the Internet about it, but it makes me wonder.