The 6000 miles… UFO post

Cape Town is abuzz with news of UFO sightings last night. Now, usually, what I would do at this point is ignore the crazies and get on with my life, but today I find myself in a rather awkward situation.

Cos last night, I saw it too.

Just after footy down at Hellenic in Green Point, so probably just before 8:30, we were having a post game chat when I spotted the thing in the sky, probably over Sea Point kind of area and moving slowly from left to right – notably across the gusty SouthEaster. It was a bit “odd”, and I pointed it out to a few on my mates, and we watched it for probably about 45 seconds.
At first I thought that it was a helicopter in the cloud. We could occasionally see one or two lights, but the majority of the light was a cone shape, like an aircraft light shining into low cloud.

Which is what we thought it was, but there was no cloud. It was a completely clear evening.

And then, after about a minute, it just faded away. The lights we saw simply weren’t there any more. There was still no cloud – you could clearly see the stars, despite the light pollution from the city.

Here is a perfect example of that “cone” light effect from the Life is Savage blog. That’s what I saw. Right there.

And here is a video: check about 12 seconds in for a very clear light and – again – that cone shape.

You know me, Ted. I’m very sceptical.
And I’m in no way suggesting that we’re about to be invaded, kidnapped or probed by aliens.

But I simply can’t explain what I saw last night.

UPDATE: We are not alone! No, I don’t mean that I believe in aliens, I just mean that lots of people saw the UFO last night.

UPDATE 2: And here’s the answer. All man made. Nothing to see here.

24 thoughts on “The 6000 miles… UFO post

  1. Certainly looks like a light shining into clouds. I’ve been looking for satellite images of Cape Town last night without success, to see if there were perhaps any high-level clouds that might have been difficult to spot with the naked eye. But as you say, the night appeared completely clear, so I can see how this is perplexing. If it was a craft of some sort, the images we have make it appear something quite far from aerodynamic, though.

  2. Lauren G > Or… me to suddenly disappear. *sudden paranoia*

    Jacques > It seemed low though – like a few hundred feet? Like a helicopter and about the same speed as well. The weird bit was that you couldn’t see the helicopter and you really should have been able to.
    The video (at 12 seconds) shows what I saw, with the light “source” and the apparent cone quite separately.
    This has upset me quite a lot. I don’t like things I can’t explain.

  3. Could it be space junk burning up? North Korea launched a rocket yesterday, and it’s launch trajectory was south… or it was just other old space hardware?

  4. I couldn’t watch that video. I kept on expecting some scary monster thing to pop up right in front of the camera and scare the living poop out of me… I have been ruined by that happening to me waaaay too often.
    I ‘watched’ the video out of the corner of my eye.
    Didn’s see the light.
    Disappoint.

  5. Diva > Please. One that could be seen from Noordhoek, Hout Bay and Green Point? Have to be hot air balloon sized.
    (And no, it wasn’t a hot air balloon).

    Richard > By some distance.

    Michael > So many reports of the same thing – and so widespread. Very odd.

  6. Charming….a week before the supposed “end of the world”. Funny, we spotted something a couple of years ago we thought looked way out of the ordinary. Was around March time and it was definitely not an airplane or helicopter. Will be interesting to see what else appears in the sky over the next few nights. Let’s hope we’ve all just seen too many alien movies / disaster movies.

  7. hey guys we spotted the same object in Kuils River area about that time 20h30….it was kinda strange we were about 6 people and the funny thing is we still argued that it was not a plane and to be honest it was not!!

  8. 6000 -> No not too serious, but as I heard it was tumbling out of control, I thought it was a remote possibility. After listening to the CapeTalk’s audio snippet, I am happy to hear that it is space hardware. A launch from Florida makes much more sense than North Korea, I admit.

  9. Ronnie > Lots of people saw it.

    Melanie Chisnall > I think we’ll see planes, birds and other stuff. It’s not like the world is actually going to end, now is it?

    Ronnie > I wasn’t. I like rational clarity and a lack of aliens. And anyway: Secret Space Plane?!?!

    Velasco > Well, it kind of was in the end. Sort of.

    Joris > I’m glad we’re not under attack from DPRK.

  10. I was thinking something more along the lines of an alien laser beam, giving all who saw it a cool super power.

    Yes I do miss my favourite program Misfits and yes I do believe in aliens. *awaits onslaught of sarcastic ridicule* 😉

  11. We saw this UFO from Swellendam on Tuesday night. We heard on the radio that it was a rocket re-entering the atmosphere. The cloud was fuel that had escaped from the rocket and the two lights following it would have been pieces of the rocket itself. This cloud was as big as your hand with arm outstretched.

  12. Ronnie > I don’t do sarcastic ridicule. Sorry.

    Huckleberry > Yep. Quite spectacular, very weird, and now, totally explicable.

  13. Every day I find it more and more difficult to uderstand mankind. There are litterally hundreds of daily sightings of weird and UFO Sightings, and we still tend to fround and say ” No way !”

    I can no longer regard myself as a “May be ” person and can swear, that UFO Vistors are regular in our Cape Town skies. I video them during the day and at night time. So I have seen them flying or shadowing Aerobatic Planes ( ID ZSZUV) and Choppers over Cape Town. Why are we reluctant to belive, and the all of a sudden, we call ourselves EXPERTS in Ufology, yet know very little if anything, about these Visitors ? We have nothing to base our studies upon, so we cannot even write a theory about it !
    We need to ensure our sightings are not based upon Chinese Lantern Flyers and their Hoaxing in Cape Town area. These Arsonistic Fools, have fooled many of the viewers ! We need t take care with our reporting of UFO !
    Wow, now al this, made me feel better.
    Kind regards
    Andrew Botha

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