My UFO Story

Last night was a wonderful night for stargazing. I was able to view 5
planets with my 6" telescope in less than 20 minutes.

I was thinking about that today and decided to try and find Venus
during the day. While I was looking along the ecliptic I thought I
found it. I saw a faint object that was about the right magnitude. I
was a little smug until I noticed it was moving. It was very slow and
while I was watching it I noticed a slight blue color to it and it
seem to fluctuate in brightness. I watched it travel about 15 degrees
northward in the sky before I decided to walk across the yard to get a
lawn chair. Once I was sitting in the lawn chair I could no longer
find the mysterious moving object. I was puzzled. I decided to look
for information about veiwing satellites during the daytime. If I had
seen this at night I would be very sure that it was a polar-orbiting
satellite.

I had found some information about Iridium 'flares' but it sounded
like these only lasted a few seconds. I decided to go back out and
look up some more. I saw a large flock of white birds flying at a
very high altitude and I did finally see Venus.

I was stunned to see a twin to my mysterious moving object in about
the same part of the sky. This time it was twice as bright as the
first time I saw it. It was so bright that I felt sure that I
wouldn't lose it if I went inside for my 4" telescope. When I finally
got the telescope set up I had a little trouble finding the object
again. I finally found it and with a little trouble got it centered
in the eyepiece. What would I see? A mysterious spy plane? A real
flying saucer? With a chuckle I realized that my UFO had a string
hanging off it and was filled with helium, a white balloon. The other
that I saw must have been a blue one, and looking back to that part of
the sky near the ecliptic I saw another one.