Saw something unusual tonight around 10:03–10:04 PM from southwestern New Hampshire (approx. 43 N, -72 W, elevation ~1000 ft) moving in a North to South orbit
A minute before, we were photographing the crescent moon with earthshine and Venus low in the west/northwest. Sky conditions were extremely clear and dark. The object appeared separately in the eastern sky.
At first glance it looked like a very faint grayish “scratch” or hairline in the sky (about 1.5 inches between my pointer and thumb if I held it up to measure) moving steadily from north to south (slightly east of overhead). It was NOT bright like a meteor and had no blinking aircraft lights. Motion was smooth and orbital-looking. It took about 1.5-2 minutes to leave our view over the horizon when we captured it
Important details:
- Visible to naked eye, though very faint
- Looked continuous, not like separate dots – ribbon like.
- Long and thin — roughly finger-width at arm’s length
- Maintained coherent shape while moving
- Slight waviness/brightness variation along its length
- No sudden maneuvers, acceleration, sound, or flashing
- Appeared much dimmer in person than in photos
- Very high altitude – we have plenty of reference satellites around us at all times. This was much higher than I've ever seen a moving orbital object in space.
The photos exaggerate brightness due to phone exposure, but the actual shape/appearance was fairly accurate. it was pure luck we saw it, it was such a faint, small scratch in the sky.
What makes this strange to me:
- It did NOT resemble a normal satellite point
- Did NOT resemble a typical Starlink “string of pearls” at all, of which milllions of pictures exist.
- Looked more like a continuous luminous filament or elongated object – ribbon like
Some possibilities I’ve considered:
- unresolved satellite train
- classified orbital hardware
- elongated debris/tether
- sunlit rocket vent/plume edge
- unusual reflection geometry
But I haven’t found a conventional explanation that cleanly matches the continuous “scratch in the sky” appearance.
Curious whether anyone else saw this tonight or can identify it? I had no luck on 4chan and Gemini and Chat GPT could only speculate.
But again, before you all cry Starlink – this was far too high, faint, and ribbon-like. no points of light. also not a meteor – it had no pluming or trail and was too slow. it retained its shape and ribbon like appearance while as long as we could see it. and those photos were taken with three different phone lenses. the blackest background one (default) is the most accurate to life, except far dimmer, and a hairline ribbon like gray scratch in the sky, only about an inch and a half in appearance from the ground.
thanks friends
by COOLFRIENDband
2 Comments
I’m not jumping to extraterrestrial, because this doesn’t match sightings. Clearly orbital but the altitude and solid appearance of it has left me scratching my head.
We are rural so objects in the sky are common, but this is the most unusual thing we have ever seen. Some high orbit space force thing? I couldn’t find any objects with Chat GPT and Gemini that would match that.
There’s about 5 trains up right now, but all of them are spread out and wouldn’t look like this. I can’t find any “tight” ones, but given they go up every other day my suspicion is that this software is the issue not the lack of short trains.
But as you say, this doesn’t look like a train anyway. Specifically, trains have a very distinct blue color when they are close together, and this looks sunlight colored. So if you’re entertaining guesses, this looks more like a methalox upper stage firing.