Enormous orange planet-like object

Question

QUESTION: Mr. Whiting,

When I was a child, my mother saw something in the night sky that she couldn't explain. I am estimating that this sighting occurred between 1985-1990. She explained to the family that around 11pm EST (not sure about the season) she was lying in bed, restless, and noticed an unbelievable sight. She described seeing an enormous orange ball setting over the hill. The odd part is that this "ball" was just as large as the foothill and the object was setting very quickly. She said she got out of bed and stood staring out of the window, completely alert, and watched it set within less than a minute.

I've always assumed it was Mars. Her story was on my mind today so I did a bit of research and haven't come up with anyone else seeing Mars that big in the sky. I'm probably misinformed because I don't have much background in astronomy. I come to you asking what could she have seen that night?

I have seen an orange planet-like object pass through the night sky along with the moon on the other side of the sky but it was significantly smaller than what my mother claimed to witness. What she described must have been 8 times the size of our moon. I'm completely lost. What do you think it was?

Best Regards,

Christy

ANSWER: Hi Christy, Without exact information....dates, times, compass directions, locations...one can only take an educated guess at it. It obviously was not Mars, nor any other planet except Venus. It obviously was 'something' setting at around 11 pm and it was big and bright. Also we know that there must have been a horrific amount of atmospheric interference...perhaps a temperature inverson, lots of dust and moisture, perhaps a wind, etc.

All stars and planets are pinpoints...the sun and moon should be the same size and color all the time, except for our atmosphere. Our atmosphere causes the stars to twinkle, change color, become blobby in size, even move around a little, appear to set slowly, or rise rapidly off the horizon, or even the reverse. It gives us brilliant red sunsets, crepuscular rays, flattened suns and moons near the horizon, rainbows, haloes, clouds, converts a crescent moon to a swelled up spherical blob near the horizon ...in fact, any star or planet or moon that looks out of the ordinary...we know it's all our atmosphere doing it. So your mom probably saw a 5 or 6 day crescent moon setting around 11 pm over a distant hill.... distant clouds made it look rather circular instead of crescent shaped, and the dust, haze, moisture, and possibly a temperature inversion (or distant factory smokestacks, some form of heat up on that hill, or just over the hill's horizon), also influenced the shape, the color, and fast setting time, of the mal-shaped, big orange crescent moon. My second guess would be the same atmospheric conditions, but it was the bright planet Venus setting, as a large orange blob from the same atmospheric conditions. High moisture content in the air can even magnify the view.

We weren't invaded by aliens in the late 1980's so that eliminates UFO....and she says it set and lasted at least a minute, so that rules out a meteor fireball....so what else could it be except the setting moon or Venus at around 11 pm local time? Nothing, using straight logic. She probably won't agree with that, but that's the best I can do with your non-exact information. Hope this helps, Clear Skies, Tom Whiting Erie, PA

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Mr. Whiting,

You gave me a chuckle at the end; of course it wasn't a UFO, that seems far-fetched to me and I don't buy all that silly alien business.

By reading your profile, I realize you are well versed in the skies. Because I did not see what my mother saw, I have to agree with you. I know that our moon can become magnified by the atmospheric conditions at the horizon, so she very well could have just seen the moon or venus setting in its glorious magnified state. That's something I wish I could have seen for myself. That answers my question about mom's freaky giant orange ball since that's all the info I have.

I hope that you won't mind that I am still curious about what I saw years later. Recall that I did mention that I saw an orange planet (i suppose) setting toward the west while our moon was positioned in the east. It was moving fast, setting near the same foothill my mother saw the magnified moon or venus object. In my experience, the object seemed to be the same size as our moon. This object was not near the horizon when I spotted it. This was probably 1993 in late summer. We lived in Corbin, Ky.

Again in 2001-2002, I saw it again setting fast in the west but was just a slither of a cresent with our moon positioned in the east once more. This time, I had other people with me who also saw it and can vouch that I wasn't just seeing things.

What the heck was that?

Best Regards

Christy

Answer

Hi Christy,

Thank you for the nice compliments....yes, I know my night sky quite well as that's been my

specialty for over 50 years. But I wish I had a compass direction of your object, perhaps to the Southwest? And a date and a time of night. As I said before, anything departing from the ordinary... is all atmospherics. So let's see, you live near the I-75 corridor, and that's valley country between 2 parallel mountain ranges, isn't it? I've been down I-75 from Cincinnati to Florida and Kentucky/Tennessee; it is a beautiful autumn drive with the mountains, colorful leaves, and all that. In any case....

That's the worst possible place for an observer to be for high resolution (stars as pinpoints) viewing that one can choose; in a relatively flat valley between two mountain ranges. The air at 3000 and 4000 feet is much faster than at ground level. Mountain waves set up as the air flows over and around the surrounding mountains creating all sorts of eddies in the upper atmosphere. That's bad enough for poor resolution, and yet you have another resolution problem...I see there is a very large reservoir just west of Corbin....Holly Bay or something like that behind a large dam? Cumberland and Laurel rivers? All this moisture rising up over that reservoir will further enhance the blobby-ness of stars and planets. You could have easily seen Mars the apparent size of the full moon under those horrible observing conditions, even on a clear night. Plus, is there a large flat roofed warehouse or building (Wal-mart store?) in that same direction? If heat at night rises up off buildings and roofs in the direction you are viewing, they too can cause severe deformation of what would normally be a pin-point object. (Anytime you see something like that, check it out again on a following evening. If it's a star or planet, it will still be, within a few weeks, still roughly be in the same relative spot in the sky.) If it moves relative to the stars, then it could have also been the very bright International Space Station too, but that would have been in the Southeast as it enters sunset at 200 miles high, while you are in darkness on the surface...thus the orange color.

There are several bright reddish-orange-yellow stars too..Betelgeuse in Orion, Antares in Scorpius, Arcturus in Bootes....to name a few. I've seen Arcturus swell into the apparent size of the full moon viewing it over a distant factory with high smokestacks emitting lots of heat and moisture. But Mars is bright reddish-orange too, at times. So it could have been a distorted view of Mars, I just don't know unless you give me an exact date and time for my computer to search. In any case, it is still all atmospherics that causing the pinpoint to swell into an orange blob. Sorry, but that's the best I can do with the information given. Clear Skies, Tom Whiting Erie, PA