An amusing string of tweets from Phil ‘Bad Astronomy‘ Plait over the last few days. …
9:56 PM May 30th: Tired. Star party=win. Saw 6 meteors, 10 satellites, and a VERY bright flash I cannot identify, and wondering WTH it was. Others saw it too.
10:04 PM May 30th: Srsly, it was like a flash bulb. Draco, ~11p.m.,<1sec long, -8 or so mag, no satellite I could see. Wondering if Swift saw a GRB tonight... 10:27 PM May 30th: Too fast and bright to be meteor, I think. Satellite glint seems likely, though no satellite could be seen. Weird.
Don’t fret though, Phil’s been allowed back into the ‘reality-based community’ fold today with his latest tweet: “Also, that ‘flashbulb’ I saw in Draco was almost certainly an ‘unscheduled’ iridium flare, from either Iridium 22 or 3.” At least he gets to say he saw a UFO, even if it was just for a couple of days…considering that sort of thing isn’t meant to happen.
For the record, my first guess when I saw the tweets was an iridium flare, not extraterrestrial spaceship – though I don’t know whether that explanation is correct or not (worth checking out though, if you haven’t seen one). I just enjoyed seeing the BA perplexed there for a while about something in the sky, given his own regular criticism of straw men UFO researchers. Shame some ‘skeptics’ didn’t shout him down and call him an obsessed UFO whacko for saying it was “weird”, and then investigating further to try and resolve the issue…
Previously on TDG:
