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Unexplained Point-Like Objects in the Night Sky

-- Jeff | February 11, 2021

Question:

On a dark moonless night during mid August some years ago I observed hundreds of tiny objects, I took them to be
meteors going through dark patch of sky between four dim stars. these weren’t shooting stars that we all have observed
but just tiny objects. They went on for hours and finally I gave up and went to bed. It has always bothered me as to what I
actually saw. I did show several others with me who can verify what we observed. I am not a flying sauce crazy and I don’t even
remotely believe what I saw was extraterrestrial but as I reach my very senior years I sure as heck would love to know if
what I observed were meteors going through a small space in the night sky. No tails were observed and they appeared to be actually
part of the constellation even though I know that is impossible. But I would bet hundreds passed every minute.Hope it is not such a crazy
question.

-- Jeff

Answer:

Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to provide a meaningful suggestion for what you might have seen in the night sky as there are numerous physical explanations for what you witnessed. For example, there are many atmospheric phenomena that can cause astronomical objects like stars and planets to appear to “move” due to variations in the properties of the Earth’s atmosphere along the line of sight between you and a star. Note that on a very clear night far away from light sources the night sky can become almost crowded with the lights from stars which can seem to appear and disappear over time due to changes in the Earth’s atmospheric density and temperature.

-- Jeff Mangum

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