Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mrspeaker 3110 days ago
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

3 comments

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.
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.
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.
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
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)