What did I see just now?

[Orrex]

I'm about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh. I was looking skyward at about 21:40 and saw what I assumed to be an airplane of some kind, heading due south and almost perfectly overhead.

I noticed that it had only a fixed white light that I could see, rather than blinking lights, and it appeared to be pretty high and moving pretty fast. I can't say exactly why it seemed to be at particularly high altitude, but comparing it to other planes that I could see, it sort of gave that impression.

Was it simply a plane that was too high for me to see the blinking? Or is it possible to see satellites this way?


If all else fails, I'm hoping that someone will post a pic of that hair guy.

[rug]

1. It saw you too.

[onehandle]

2. Sounds like a satellite. They are easy to spot in the hour or two after sunset. nt

[pinboy3niner]

3. Guy was driving...

[Orrex]

4. Thank you.

[RebelOne]

5. I would see something like that every morning on my way to work.

It would usually be about 6:30 and it was still dark. I just assumed it was either the space station or a satellite.

[hedgehog]

6. Could it have been a high flying jet that was reflecting sunlight even though it was

dark where you were?

[Orrex]

8. I wondered about that

It seemed to be crossing the sky more quickly than a jet at that apparent altitude would be able to do, but as hypotheses go, it would certainly fit the facts!

[Wounded Bear]

7. Easy.....

Kay: All right, Beatrice, there was no alien. The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.

[Orrex]

9. That explains why I want to buy a new dress and some new shoes.

[NightWatcher]

10. Have you heard of the town of Butler just north of there?

There is a Top Secret govt facility in the mountain up there.

(Cues X-Files music)

[Orrex]

11. Butler's about 20 miles away

Didn't know about the X-Files facility though!

[NightWatcher]

12. Iron Mountain is somewhere between there and Annandale

It's a huge, heavily guarded underground facility. Disney even has an office under the mountain where they keep the original film from their movies.

Several companies and agencies are setup under the mountain in the huge maze of tunnels. It's considered nuke-safe, if there is such a thing.

[Orrex]

13. Oh, Iron Mountain

Yeah, they do document storage and disposal for a ton of companies around here.

I knew that they kept other privately-owned stuff there, like vintage cars and the like, but I didn't realize that they stored secret government stuff.

[NightWatcher]

14. I used to work in there

There's miles of tunnels and the last I heard, they were still digging more tunnels and offices.

The worst thing was, since you're breathing recycled air, if one person had a cold by the end of the week everyone would be sick.

[Denninmi]

15. Comforting to know Mickey will survive the nuclear holocaust.

Because damn, along with food, shelter and medicine the few survivors are really gonna need to see The Little Mermaid and Finding Nemo.