What did I see on 4/6/04 at approx 21:00?

On 4th June at approx 21:00, I saw a black perfectly round object
travelling silently overhead in a straight line towards Edinburgh.
Apparantly circling beneath the object was a large bird. Puzzled I
looked at the object for wings or other aerodynamic part but saw none.
I could not gauge its diameter or tell if the bird was near the object,
i.e. if the object was 50ft or 10000ft above the bird. Perhaps at a
guess I thought I was looking at something 5000ft above ground.

There was cirrus cloud cover so further reinforced my reasoning that the
object, being below these clouds, could not have been a satelite. Also
I believed that satelites were silver not black.

My next thought was if it could be a rogue weather, or even a kids,
balloon but this surely would not move in such a straight line and at a
speed (depending on what the real height above ground was) possibly as
fast as a plane.

The object was travelling towards me and almost overhead so I asked my
wife to fetch the x8 binos. She returned in about 30 secs but by this
time the object had travelled what I guess was 2 miles past me and
apparently still at the same height. Certainly far enough to be just
perceptable with the naked eye.

There was no perceptable wind at ground level and I just cannot imagine
how a ballon could move so fast and it certainly it was not in any jet
stream.

As a closer to this report I was yesterday intrigued to see on TV the
image of Venus traversing the Sun. Yes you guessed it, my thoughts
jumped to thinking how similar the image of Venus was to what I had seen
last Friday night and I just had to write this.

I have only a general interest in astronomy and no interest at all in
any discussion of a paranormal nature. Can anyone enlighten me as to
what I saw?

Beemer

"Beemer" wrote in message
...
On 4th June at approx 21:00, I saw a black perfectly round object
travelling silently overhead in a straight line towards Edinburgh.
Apparantly circling beneath the object was a large bird. Puzzled I
looked at the object for wings or other aerodynamic part but saw none.
I could not gauge its diameter or tell if the bird was near the object,
i.e. if the object was 50ft or 10000ft above the bird. Perhaps at a
guess I thought I was looking at something 5000ft above ground.

There was cirrus cloud cover so further reinforced my reasoning that the
object, being below these clouds, could not have been a satelite. Also
I believed that satelites were silver not black.

My next thought was if it could be a rogue weather, or even a kids,
balloon but this surely would not move in such a straight line and at a
speed (depending on what the real height above ground was) possibly as
fast as a plane.

The object was travelling towards me and almost overhead so I asked my
wife to fetch the x8 binos. She returned in about 30 secs but by this
time the object had travelled what I guess was 2 miles past me and
apparently still at the same height. Certainly far enough to be just
perceptable with the naked eye.

There was no perceptable wind at ground level and I just cannot imagine
how a ballon could move so fast and it certainly it was not in any jet
stream.

As a closer to this report I was yesterday intrigued to see on TV the
image of Venus traversing the Sun. Yes you guessed it, my thoughts
jumped to thinking how similar the image of Venus was to what I had seen
last Friday night and I just had to write this.

I have only a general interest in astronomy and no interest at all in
any discussion of a paranormal nature. Can anyone enlighten me as to
what I saw?

Beemer

This does indeed sound like a balloon, and it is very difficult to judge the
height or size of balloons. The circling object could have been some sort
of "payload" attached by a thin string that you couldn't see. Could be
anything from a kid's escaped balloon to a weather balloon, or one of those
advertising balloons that broke its moorings.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)

"Beemer" wrote in message
...
On 4th June at approx 21:00, I saw a black perfectly round object
travelling silently overhead in a straight line towards Edinburgh.
That reminds me of a strange object I saw a few weeks ago. It appeared as a
rather liquid looking dark sphere that was undulating and moving slowly
around a church spire about one mile away. I stood and looked for several
minutes, as did several other people who noticed it. I would have guessed
the diameter to about fifty feet. I was cursing that I had left my camera at
home.

The blob eventually moved in our direction and suddenly it resolved into a
very tight flock of starlings. At the original distance my eyes were
insisting that it was a solid object.

Jo

In article , platinum198
@pants.btinternet.com says...



This does indeed sound like a balloon, and it is very difficult to judge the
height or size of balloons. The circling object could have been some sort
of "payload" attached by a thin string that you couldn't see. Could be
anything from a kid's escaped balloon to a weather balloon, or one of those
advertising balloons that broke its moorings.


Mike,

I've done a rough calculation on my timing. If it took 30 seconds for
my wife to return with the binos and I thought it had travelled 2 miles
that says it was travelling at around 240mph.

Beemer

"Beemer" wrote in message
...
In article , platinum198
@pants.btinternet.com says...



This does indeed sound like a balloon, and it is very difficult to judge
the
height or size of balloons. The circling object could have been some
sort
of "payload" attached by a thin string that you couldn't see. Could be
anything from a kid's escaped balloon to a weather balloon, or one of
those
advertising balloons that broke its moorings.


Mike,

I've done a rough calculation on my timing. If it took 30 seconds for
my wife to return with the binos and I thought it had travelled 2 miles
that says it was travelling at around 240mph.

Beemer

Unless it was smaller than you thought and closer. The fact that it looked
deep black suggests it was pretty close; see, for example, the Condon UFO
report where one of the cases was investigated using the shading of the
object. Something further away would have looked grey.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)