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It's Not a UFO - It's Venus

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Curt Renz

Well-Known Member
Mar 5, 2013
7,748
117,774
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911 operators are already getting reports of a bright UFO low in the west-southwest after sunset. Actually it's Venus returning to the evening sky following its conjunction behind the Sun on October 25.

Each coming day after sunset, Venus will be appear further above the western horizon as the brilliant evening star. Its current evening apparition will conclude next August.

My detailed article previewing Venus’ 2014-15 evening apparition appears under the links for my related graphics at: Venus

Photos and descriptions of Venus during its current evening apparition would be welcome additions to this thread, but flying saucer sightings should be reported elsewhere. :wink:
 
Terry W. Virts on Twitter:

(from ISS)

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Curt, that's hilarious that anyone would be alarmed or think that pinpoint of light was a "UFO" (with everything that implies) since it has no apparent movement to the naked eye.

911 operators are already getting reports of a bright UFO low in the west-southwest after sunset. Actually it's Venus returning to the evening sky following its conjunction behind the Sun on October 25.
 
Curt, that's hilarious that anyone would be alarmed or think that pinpoint of light was a "UFO" (with everything that implies) since it has no apparent movement to the naked eye.
Actually it does seem to follow you if you are moving (as will the Moon or any other celestial object), and it's not a quite a "pinpoint" like a star as it is clearly a disk, and so bright on a clear night that many will see chromatic bands of color at the edges which seem to dance and move with the turbulence in the atmosphere (atmospheric seeing), so if you stare at it intently you'll swear it has colored lights moving around the edges.

Being so far away the parallax movement seems "wrong" and different than other much closer illuminated objects like airplanes or street lamps. Once you get that queer "something isn't right" feeling, the "UFO" explanation isn't far behind.
 
+1

Back in the days when I taught Astronomy, I would tell my students that they had probably seen Venus far more often than they realized, but probably mistook it for an airplane. (I also had a student who was utterly convinced that the airplane she saw was an astronomical object, but that's a whole different story -- sigh...)
 
Not sure if this is an urban legend, but apparently once a pilot panicked and radioed the closest tower asking permission to change his altitude since another plane headed straight towards is not responding to any call signs.

Turns out that was Venus.
 
Curt, that's hilarious that anyone would be alarmed or think that pinpoint of light was a "UFO" (with everything that implies) since it has no apparent movement to the naked eye.

Ten-second YouTube comment: Jesse Ventura - Venus - Jose Chungs From Outer Space - YouTube

- - - Updated - - -

Below is the text of a post on the Chicago Astronomer forum in 2010:

"Hello! My family and I have been seeing the Red, white and Blue flashing star almost every night. Some nights it is so large that we can view it with binoculars. There are horizontal and vertical balls of the above mentioned colors swirling around it, at an irregular pace. Also there are 2-3 other stars of question in the sky that are a solid golden color that appear to be related to it's passage. What ever it is, it is abnormal and my children are freaking out about it, because it looks like a space ship, but I feel it is related to the planetary alignment that is about to happen. It upsets me that the government has not addressed it's presence. Obviously it can't be ignored too much longer.
- Ashtabula County Ohio"


Link: Red White and Blue Flashing Star | The Chicago Astronomer

It was the third post in that thread. Both the forum administrator and I (screen name Centaur) suggested she was seeing Venus, as almost certainly was the case, since it had recently begun appearing low in the west after sunset as with the current situation.



 
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