In the Night-sky

As of late, I’ve been going out into our backyard, to sit during the early evening hours where I enjoy the slight evening breeze and warm air. During this time, I tend to listen to a podcast or two, sometimes an audio book and stare up at the soon-glowing stars.

From time to time, I see lights speeding across the open expanse. Often I can tell that these are aircraft from their intermittent flashes of red, green and white lights.

Other times, they are simply a white light, that zooms by in a straight-line. Some of these lights will wink out should the craft be making a banking movement and likewise, blink in during the same kind of maneuver.

My belief is that these are often random objects, debris flaming in or out as they skip through the upper atmosphere. I’m also certain that some are meteors crashing towards the earth, burning up as the drop and tumble.

Then there are those times where something I see has no category in which to place it. To wit, last night, as I watched in silence while a light, moving from left to right and slightly southerly, halted and then making a sharp left angle, came north.

As a kid, I used to see the same thing — lights that would suddenly stop and take off at an angle far too sharp for the average aircraft. Even more exciting were the lights that didn’t stop before making a sharp directional change.

These were usually off-set by jet fighters attempting to catch up with them. I never saw any of those fighters get anywhere near whatever those lights might have been.

But last night was different…

Seconds after moving north this particular light divided in to three ‘smaller’ lights. Each of them, as if synchronized, zipped in three differing directions (northeast, southeast and southwest) before blinking completely from sight.

I’ll leave it up to you to call it what you will, but for me, I’ll be out there again, sitting, listening, watching and enthralled.