[AZ-Observing] Did anyone at the Grand Canyon Star Party see this light

  • From: "Cary B. Grant," <cbgrant@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2011 21:45:05 -0700

I originally wrote Tom Polakis hoping he could assist but I haven't heard from 
him so perhaps someone in the group can help.  Here is what I wrote Tom.
Tom,
I was flying United Flight 702 from Chicago to Phoenix tonight. We were at 
32,000 feet just east of Albuquerque, when I noticed a bright light in Leo, 
just south of Regulus. I initially thought it might be the ISS but then it 
faded quickly and appeared to perhaps have a slight northern motion. That was 
not consistent with an ISS pass so I thought it must be an Iridium flare. Then 
a short time later it reappeared in about the same location in the sky. I 
continued to see this phenomena over the course of about 40 minutes. It would 
re-appear about every 6 to 8 minutes. On one occasion it grew bright, dimmed 
from sight and then almost instantly reappeared as bright. By this time I was 
expecting its re-appearance and I am sure I observed it to have a northern 
motion after it faded from its greatest intensity. From this pattern, I am sure 
whatever was creating the light was in an orbit coming from the west, turning 
north, then heading west. I continued to see this pattern until we were down to 
about 10,000 feet on the arrival into Phoenix when I had to concentrate on my 
arrival into SkyHarbor. 
I suspect whatever was creating the display had to be at extremely high 
altitude for us to see it from eastern New Mexico all the way to about Payson, 
and the race-track type movement is not consistent with any known object in 
space. I suspect the object was in the Edwards or Nellis Test areas of Nevada. 
I have included a copy of our flight log recorded by Flight Aware:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL702 on the 25th.
The times in the log are eastern but our time over New Mexico to Arizona was 
from about 0400 to 0525 zulu. It should be possible using the log position and 
time, the position of Regulus and Leo at those times, to calculate an angle 
yielding an approximate altitude. I suspect it had to be in the 80,000' and up 
range for us to see it from so far to the east. It is possible it is a UAV but 
it would need to be a fast moving one to make so many turns in a holding 
pattern.  The timing of the re-appearance is consistent with an aircraft making 
a standard rate turn, taking about 2 minutes to make a 180 degree turn and then 
executing about 1 to 2 minute legs.
From your background and experience of shooting the ISS, can you or can you 
recommend someone that is capable of performing these calculations. I'm afraid 
my math skills are little rusty for this. Also with the Grand Canyon Star Party 
occurring, I would think there has to be others that also witnessed the same 
thing I did.
Thanks for your help. I look forward to hearing from you.
Cary B. Grant
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