Ghost of Midnight

UFO sighted over Smugglers’ Notch

After midnight last night, I observed a very large bright red light in the sky traveling north away from Smugglers’ Notch ski area. It appeared to be quite high in the sky, above the mountains and traveling slow. It was not a plane. There was no sound. I ran outside and watched as it traveled over my house. It appeared to go higher as it continued, in straight line path in the sky. I watched until it disappeared over the mountain behind us. I was hoping someone else observed this unusual phenomenon. I would also appreciate any reasonable explanation as to what this could have been.

Posted by Karen on the Cambridge Front Porch Forumtoday!

FOLLOW UP POSTINGS…

• I am very intrigued by your sighting… I’ve visited the crop circles in England and I do think that we have neighbors… Thank you for sharing your experience.
• It was most likely a Flying Sky Lantern.  We have sent those into the sky many times and had neighbors comment on seeing a UFO.
• What you saw may have been a satellite.  I’ve watched them in the past.  Check out the web site stellarium.org for real time satellite and star locations, it’s an amazing site!
• I don’t know how bright or how fast your object was but Mars is a very bright red right now and would be about where you described it at midnight. Planets, especially Mars and Venus are often mistaken for UFOs, especially if scudding clouds give them a sense of greater movement in the sky.  By the way there is a spectacular dance going on between the crescent moon, Venus and Jupiter in the western sky right now during the evening and early night hours. Here’s some info.
• I live just down the road from Smuggler’s View, and although I did not see the large, bright, red light, we now live in unusual times.  With last week’s unseasonable heat wave and the strange behavior of my two pups, I feel inclined to paraphrase Carl Sagan’s epitaph to astronomer Johannes Kepler: I prefer the hard truth to my dearest illusions.  Go with your gut on this one.
• The UFO sighting thread included a comment by a neighbor about sending “flying sky lanterns” “into the sky many times” which were mistaken for UFOs. Please reassure me than nobody would release a balloon or other device with an open flame, combustible materials, or any other hazard that could cause a fire. We’ve just had a period of high risk of brush fires due to dry weather. I’d like to think that everyone who lives in this area is aware of the danger and would not send anything “into the sky” without considering the potential for setting fire to the woods.  Probably unnecessary to point out the obvious, but the concept of a “flying sky lantern” caught my eye. Hopefully this was just a joke, a bit early for April Fools. If I saw my neighbor releasing a balloon-borne candle or such, I’d certainly have a discussion with them, but not about UFOs!

• I want to thank all of my Front Porch Forum neighbors for all of the emails and posts, in their efforts to solve my UFO mystery! I now believe it was indeed a sky lantern. After doing some research and checking out some images on Google, it seems to match what I saw. My guess is the lantern was launched at Smuggs.  Looking forward to a special occasion to launch one myself some night!