[AZ-Observing] Re: West Phoenix Tonight
- From: Paul Dickson <dickson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 01:28:31 -0700
On Fri, 22 Mar 2002 22:01:15 EST, PHXJeff@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Did anyone else see the following or know what was going on?
>
> At about 7:30 PM tonight (Friday) I was set up in my observatory to take
> some comet pictures. As I was making adjustments what looked like a giant
> meteor headed down nearly due west. It was leaving a fiery trail. At
> spots it seemed to be exploding, almost like fireworks. Then just before
> hitting the ground it zoomed nearly straight up. This was going very fast
> and this side of the white mountains. Still leaving a fiery trail and
> what looked like explosions. Finally it faded. A few moments later
> another another one. This time it looked like it came from the ground.
> These may have been rockets from Luke. Then most strange of all another
> one took off did some gyrations like the others, but seemed to merge with
> something will flashing lights. Still moving at what would appear to be
> rocket speeds (way beyond what I have seen jets do, it seemed to slow and
> just the blinking lights remained. I watched this with binoculars (way to
> fast for the telescope) until it had traveled north for a couple of
> minutes. It then circled back slowly, acting like a normal plane at at
> normal plane sped, turned on a landing light and seemed to land. This was
> in the area of Luke AFB. I'm about 10 miles east and could not see much
> below tree level in the distance. My observatory is two story and I did
> get an excellent view.
>
> Did anyone else see this or have a clue what happened. It was very
> spectacular. I was thinking everything from a rocket attack to accident
> with missiles to the arrival of ET. :-)
How about a crop duster.
I've seen them fly at night back when SAC observed from Buckeye-Hills. It
can take numerous repetitions of the flight pattern before the brain
recognizes what it's seeing. I remember watching for 15+ minutes before
what I was seeing actually registered with what was happening. And from
Buckeye-Hills, we were looking north and down into the Gila River valley.
Alternatively, isn't there an air show this month? I know this is down at
Williams Gateway Airport, but the military participants could be staying
and practicing at Luke.
-Paul
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