Did a UFO buzz the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse?
Snyder’s camera picked up the object at 10:20 p.m. on Jan. 7, while he was facing the south southeast sky. The object was seen for a total of 166 seconds or just under 3 minutes total.
“I spent a night at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse shooting time lapse photos in order to create an up coming video,” Snyder wrote on Facebook. “While I was looking through my footage I realized there was something in the video that I could not explain. Its much larger than your typical plane appears, and its moving way faster than clouds. Can you explain what this object could be?
In the video, the object appears at 10 seconds, and lasts a total of 16 frames. Each frame represents a 10 second photograph, Snyder said. Because it was visible for close to 3 minutes, it seems unlikely to be a meteor.
So what was it?
Theories in Snyder’s comments ranged from fireballs (fast, bright meteors) to space junk, to the International Space Station or just plain aliens from Outer Space.
“I have seen a lot of weird things on the coast at night,” one person commented.
I mentioned this in a couple of places…….It’s interesting that this is such a debate. The launch on January 7th of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a geosynchronous satellite for Europe was postponed to 9:15 p.m. I watched it from my house in Buxton not far from the lighthouse. This is exactly what it looked like, a little wispy and lower than most launches travel on the southern horizon. Most launches follow the coast up to Cape Hatteras and then continue out over the ocean. A trajectory a little further to the east makes it seem lower on the horizon. I saw it beginning around 9:20. Wes Snyder reported recording it at 10:30 p.m. As for the hour difference, is it possible that something is still on daylight saving’s time?
Most probable scenario was a military helicopter, probably a Chinook. The glow you see is most likely the kopp-etchells effect.
The Kopp-etchells effect happens when the edge of the rotor, usually titanium, contacts sand in the atmosphere. The sand floating in the atmosphere acts as an abrasive when the high speed rotor hits it, it is essentially sanding itself down. The glow is created from the sparks from the abrasion. There are many videos on you tube showing this effect, which usually happens on take off or landing in a sand environment. However, the effect has been observed on aircraft as high as 1700 ft.
It is not uncommon for military helos to fly around 1500 ft along the coast as I’m sure many people here can attest to.
This, in concert with the photographer taking a timelapse video, would result in a blur moving across the sky…. Or who knows, could be E. T.
I bet it’s The Phantom Cruiser! aka Space Ghost’s ship!! You can just about make out the ooooooo’s as he flies by.