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Venus

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trainedobserver

trainedobserver

Paranormally Disenchanted
I got a phone call last night. "Dad, what's that bright light just hanging in the sky in the southwest?" On the way out to the back yard I say, "It's probably just a planet." I step out on the patio and, "Wow!" I get my wife to look through the binoculars. "Looks like a string of lights sometimes, like it turns on its side." My eyes are so screwed up, I get the camera and take a zoomed in picture. Just looks like a light in the sky. A really, really, really bright light in the sky punching out over the city light haze. Incredibly brilliant.

I googled an astronomy article talking about what was in the sky that night. Venus of course, but a good example for me of how Venus has been mistaken for something strange in the sky since ... well, there's been Venus.
 
trainedobserver said:
I got a phone call last night. "Dad, what's that bright light just hanging in the sky in the southwest?" On the way out to the back yard I say, "It's probably just a planet." I step out on the patio and, "Wow!" I get my wife to look through the binoculars. "Looks like a string of lights sometimes, like it turns on its side." My eyes are so screwed up, I get the camera and take a zoomed in picture. Just looks like a light in the sky. A really, really, really bright light in the sky punching out over the city light haze. Incredibly brilliant.

I googled an astronomy article talking about what was in the sky that night. Venus of course, but a good example for me of how Venus has been mistaken for something strange in the sky since ... well, there's been Venus.
Click to expand...

**SNAP** I was looking at Venus last night as it was very bright indeed and like your good self I can fully understand why it gets mistaken for a UFO.
 
On some clear nights I'll.go out w/some coffee & stare at the sky while resting my head on the patio wall. It's not really sky watching per say as I live in the middle of a large city and don't have a whole lot of stars to look at. Regardless it doesn't take much imagination to SWEAR that some of those stars ate moving ( they aren't) ever so slightly and thus come up to the logical conclusion it must be A Ufo trying to not be too obvious.
 
Wade Ridsdale said:
On some clear nights I'll.go out w/some coffee & stare at the sky while resting my head on the patio wall. It's not really sky watching per say as I live in the middle of a large city and don't have a whole lot of stars to look at. Regardless it doesn't take much imagination to SWEAR that some of those stars ate moving ( they aren't) ever so slightly and thus come up to the logical conclusion it must be A Ufo trying to not be too obvious.
Click to expand...

I do much the same spooky but I think the light pollution here is a little less thank in the USA. Sit there on a deckchair and watch the sky to see if something moves... and every so often things do move but most of that is either a meteorite or a satellite.
 
I too got a good look of Venus just yesterday. I am totally fine with Venus being often the explanation for some 'UFO' sightings.

What does annoy me is those times when the debunkers trot out Venus or another planet, to explain sightings that were also radar returns, or even better, reported objects that literally traverse the sky, possibly going from one extreme direction to another in short time and seen by a pilot flying in a straight line! Debunking reports like this are ridiculously numerous and would be comical if they were not so damaging in that when the majority of the public read anything 'official' that explains a sighting as 'just Venus' - they tend to believe that explanation.

Yes Venus is visible often and yes it is large and very bright compared to stars in the sky. It does not however, move wildly or make turns, and it most certainly will not be picked up by radar!
 
There are times when refractive effects of the atmosphere can turn Venus into a multicolored light show and with almost no imagination, it appears to be changing colors. It's hard to tell how much of the color is real and how much is manufactured in the brain. But the effect can be impressive.
 
Hey thanks for the post trainedobserver. I saw this brilliant light in the sky a few days ago at dusk. No stars could be seen yet and here was this bright light hanging in the sky. So I rush in and get my camera and tripod and began videoing it. I had to get right next to the road in front of my house to get a view. People must have been wondering what I was doing as they drive by. Anyway as has been mentioned here Venus can really put on a light show, flashing green and red in this particular case. This was interesting so I run in and grab my gigantic astronomical binoculars to view the light. So this light sets and I pack up my equipment. I remember when I first saw this I thought I'll eat my hat if that's a star. Lastly, I remembered I had a real time astronomy app on my phone. Star walk I think it's called, that I went out and pointed in the direction of this light and sure enough it was Venus. Yes I could see how people could mistake it for a UFO. Pretty cool looking though, and at least I don't have to eat my hat :)
 
Great-accounts, and good rational conclusions, all. However these accounts are why I don't take lights-in-the-sky reports too seriously. Here's a personal reason as to why; one Fourth of July night a few years back my brother and I saw an amber light in the sky, moving at a good clip, then peeling off very rapidly. Now it moved fast, really fast, but not faster than a conventional aircraft could have, nor in a fashion that a hover-capable craft couldn't. My conclusion was that it was a helicopter but it almost, 'almost' fit into what I would classify as a UFO. My point is I look for flight patterns and craft silhouettes. Venus doesn't move (perceptively) so whenever I see her in the sky I stop, watch the light for a few seconds, and realize when she's not moving it must be Venus. Perhaps I have my filters set too high regarding requirements but it stops me from considering a lot of false positives.

Just a few more pennies in the pot..

J.
 
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