Kelly Whitt's Blog

Posted by Kelly Whitt

I just returned home from a week-plus vacation to the American West. Just east of the Rockies the skies are often sunny, which means a chance for starry nights. The lower population also allows for less light pollution.

As we headed west through North Dakota, we saw an exit for "Home on the Range". As the song says, "the skies are not cloudy all day". And it was true - I looked up and saw no clouds. Our first night out west I was too tired to stargaze. The next night, the famed clear western skies grew dark and it rained. And the next day it rained. And the next day it rained. Every day we spent in the mountains of Montana we had passing showers and patchy evening skies.

By the time we headed home it cleared out. Our first night coming home we stopped at Mount Rushmore just as it was closing. The monument was lit up and would be for the next few hours. What I enjoyed most about the view, though, was seeing the Big Dipper sitting perfectly above the monument, leading visitors to scan from the faces on the rock, to the Big Dipper, to the stars above.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

The last month of stargazing has been a good one, but it has been one that has caused a bit of confusion. We've enjoyed checking out planets and constellations, double stars and more, but as far as we know we have not yet seen a shooting star. Yet meteor-like streaks of light have occurred overhead multiple times each night we were out. The problem: fireflies. As they zip overhead, they light up for a short period of time, creating a perfect streak of light that mirrors the look of a meteor. They also flit about us on the ground and are rather easy to catch. So despite the many falling star-like scenes we have witnessed, so far we are forced to explain them away with the numerous fireflies. Fireflies don't last forever, though, and it is only a matter of time before their season is over and the true shooting stars will make themselves known.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

A contractor working on the Orion space capsule, Hamilton Sundstrand, is asking for urine donations. It needs to 30 liters a day, every day, to test one of the support systems. Orion will be stationed at the moon for up to six months, sitting unoccupied and holding on to the "collections" it received on the journey there. The issue is "What do we do with all the pee?" Urine is acidic and full of solids, make it an especially foul problem. It will take a real "whiz" to solve this conundrum.

Anyone willing to donate?

Posted by Kelly Whitt

A brilliant new light is making people take notice after sunset. In the southeast, Jupiter is now far enough above the horizon in the early evening to make its presence known to anyone who looks. It is so bright that it is outshining all other stars and planets at the moment.

Jupiter is at magnitude -2.7. It is currently lying to the upper left of the handle of the teapot in Sagittarius.

If Jupiter caught your eye, you may also notice a star a little more to the south than Jupiter and shining a reddish hue. This is Antares. Antares is a rival of Mars, which sports a similar color. Mars is the name for the Roman God of War, and Ares is this same god in Greek. So Mars may also be called Ares. Therefore, the Anti Ares, or rival of Mars, is the star Antares.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

The conjunction tonight of Mars and Regulus less than a degree apart in the sky looks like the holes from a stapler. Mars is sitting right above Regulus. Just to their upper left is Saturn, brighter than either of the two.

I showed my son the view out his window. He could see Saturn but not Mars or Regulus. He could spot the very bright Arcturus higher above Saturn. I waited a while for his eyes to adjust to the recently darkened room, but still he couldn't see the Mars/Regulus conjunction.

I left him in the dark room and went to get my husband's glasses, which are weak prescriptions. I brought them back and had him put them on. Now he could see the star and planet. He told me it was because he wasn't looking in the right place before. But then I had him slide his glasses down to check if he could see the two without them on. He couldn't.

A long time ago people saw conjunctions and comets as bearers of news, and usually bad news. Even in the modern era it seems this notion still can ring true.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

Sometimes, during lunar eclipses, the moon can turn color. While orange is traditional, purplish to all-black can result when particles, such as volcanic ash, are present in the atmosphere.

California is experiencing an amazing amount of wildfires at the moment, especially in the northern half of the state. The smoky air at times blocks out the sun, and at other times it turns the sun a violet hue.

The tiny smoke particles are scattering red light, the longest wavelengths, and letting through blue/purple light, the shortest wavelengths.

This phenomenon of turning the sun and moon colors due to particles in the atmosphere is not unique to Earth. Mars has unusual sunsets from the dust scattered in its atmosphere around times of dust storms. Salmon sunsets, blue suns: the Red Planet can provide a rainbow of colors.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

It's been a while since Venus has been up and brilliant in the evening sky, rulling the post-sunlight hours in the west. I've missed it. It may not be that interesting through a telescope or binoculars, but it's a wonder with the unaided eye.

Its brilliant light is often mistaken for an airplane. For those who simply glance and do not observe, it can look like a plane coming in with its landing lights on. Only with a few moments observation does one realize that the "plane" is not moving.

For those of us familiar with the night sky, a quick glance out the window after sunset and the sight of a brilliant point of light may temporarily stop us in our tracks, with the word "Venus" flashed across our brain. In fact, just last night I experienced such a moment. I was walking through the house and one of the windows framed a view of a brilliant point of light in the fading daylight. "Venus!" I thought, a thought that just as quickly vanished as I remembered that Venus is not showing itself in the evening sky at the moment. It was, indeed, a plane.

But good news for Venus lovers! The wait is almost over. By August the planet will once again be making a notable appearance in the evening sky, and that is just the start. It will stay above the horizon after sunset longer each month and become a friendly beacon in the winter skies to come.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

Our family brought a new kitten home last week. He is a sweet little boy we picked up at the humane society. Part of the job of having a new kitten is giving it a name.

We wanted to give our cat a name that the whole family could agree on. We automatically ruled out girly sounding names since the cat is a male. We had a number of non-space-related names, but they were the minority on the list. A few of the names we considered were Fergus, Calvin, and Stormy. Fergus because he's furry, Calvin because we already have a stuffed cat named Hobbes, and Stormy because it has been very rough weather as of late.

Our list of astronomical names for the cat was much longer. We had some names of general items such as Eclipse and Comet. Then there were choices among solar system objects such as Neptune and Deimos. There are a number of great star names to consider, such as Sirius, Pollux, Betelgeuse, and Mizar. Zubenelgenubi is just fun to say but too big of a name for a kitten. Algol has a great meaning in Arabic: The Ghoul. But our cat is good natured. And Nunki is just a word that fit a cute little critter. I really liked the names Zodiac and Draco, but unfortunately they'd already been given negative associations through a serial killer and a troublemaker in the Harry Potter series.

So what did we end up with? Perseus. He's a hero who defeated the Gorgon, slayed Medusa, and rode on Pegasus to save Andromeda from Cetus. But best of all, it has "purr" right in the name. What more could you want?

Posted by Kelly Whitt

The warm nights of June are not yielding starry skies where I am but thunderstorms. We're experiencing our wettest June ever and it's not even half over. This has made clear skies few and far between.

But I find it hard to complain. Sure, I would like some clear skies, along with a vegetable garden that is not sitting under three inches of water. But I am just fortunate to have a dry basement - or a house, for that matter.

Fortunately for my skygazing opportunities, I enjoy looking up no matter the weather. I have seen some amazing displays of lightning and gorgeous cloud formations. A terrifying shelf cloud rolled across the sky last week. I took an array of photographs of the phenomenon.

But even so, I wouldn't mind seeing the sun ... and the stars.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

I let my son stay up extra late tonight to look at the stars. It was beautifully clear, something he noticed this evening as we were playing in the yard, and he wanted to look at the stars with me tonight. How could I say no?

Technically, his bedtime is 8 pm, but he is usually awake well past 9. He is one of those strange creatures who operates on little sleep. At 9 pm I looked outside and it was still light out. The sun may have set but the sky was not truly dark. We looked for Mercury setting near the sun's remaining glow but it was not to be. It has grown too faint for us to catch anymore. Capella nearby sparkled prettily.

Mars, with its distinct reddish color, was easy to spot. As was bright Saturn and Regulus above. We tried binoculars on Mars in the not-quite-dark sky but I was unable to see the Beehive. So I decided to drag my telescope out. Then the cluster easily popped into view next to the little orange orb. We gazed at this scene for about 10 seconds before Saturn pulled our attention away.

Saturn steals just about any stargazing scene. Through a telescope, even a small one (like mine), it is a beautiful sight. And this was confirmed by my son's words as he first looked at it and whispered, "It's a beauty."

Saturn looks like it's practically standing on end at the moment, with the rings looking thin but still clearly seen. Titan was just beyond them at the bottom of our view. If you already have a telescope, it's a free show, appearing nightly.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

A new show on CBS this season is called The Big Bang Theory. It involves a group of young men who work in physics and other related areas. (Although please don't call Sheldon a rocket scientist.) The show is hit and miss. The main character, Leonard, is frequently outshined by his friends.

I can appreciate The Big Bang Theory for the small things, including the picture of a galaxy used as artwork on one of the walls of their apartment. It also has a small sequence at the beginning showing a computerized vision of the universe and solar system. Unfortunately, the theme song sings that "over 14 million years ago expansion started...". Not to split hairs or anything, but the Big Bang occured about 14 BILLION years ago, not million. I realize that this song, sung by one of my favorite groups, The Barenaked Ladies, has "billion" in the written version of the lyrics, but in the song it definitely sounds like "million". Oops.

On a recent episode, the subject of birthdays and astrology came up. The attractive but of average-intelligence neighbor girl is given a lecture by Sheldon on how astrology is fiction, not fact. The girl's response is, "Typical Taurus". This was funny to me, because according to the books, I, too, am a Taurus. I'm not sure if the Taurus trait she was referring to was that of a skeptic or of someone who refutes other's fancies with fact, but either way I'll admit to embodying those traits.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

Now that the weather is not so cold at night I am more apt to spend some time outdoors stargazing. Tonight my son joined me. He just finished a unit on astronomy in school, and it has resparked his interest in the subject. I couldn't be happier!

Tonight we were able to see Mercury before it set. Because it follows the sun's track, it is low in the sky in the last place to get dark. Fortunately you can see it before it gets completely dark and disappears below the horizon. To the upper right we caught the star Capella in Mercury.

Tonight Mars, Pollux, and Castor are lined up from left to right. We saw them and Betelgeuse below in Orion plus Procyon in Canis Minor and our brightest star, Sirius, in Canis Major. Overhead and toward the south we saw yellowish-white Saturn appear next to Regulus before the rest of the stars of Leo filled in. Straight up was the Big Dipper, and then we ventured into our backyard to look east, where the handle of the Big Dipper arced to bright and reddish Arcturus in Bootes and then we sped on down to Spica in Virgo.

The last item we saw was Vega rising in the northeast before I had to hustle him up to bed. And it turned out that Vega was the most exciting thing to him. "I saw one of the stars in the Summer Triangle!" he exclaimed. Which, of course, means that summer is on its way, with more warm days to play outside, more warm nights to stargaze, and best of all for my son, no more school. He couldn't be happier.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

Bright lights and big city appeal to some people on vacation, but others prefer the quiet solitude that will actually allow us to relax.

There are many places in the United States that still have extraordinarily dark skies. And they are easy to find. Just look at a map of the US to see where the artificial city lights are and are not. Maps for Europe and other parts of the world also reveal these locations.

In the US, your best bet is to head west of the Mississippi River. The northwest corner of Nevada or southeast corner of Oregon seems so dark that you wonder if you could see your hand in front of your face on a moonless night.

Another great state for darkness is Big Sky Country itself, Montana. This is where I will be headed for summer vacation. From space, it must appear as if someone forget to pay the electric bill in this part of the country.

While I will be staying in a lodge, campers and backpackers are the ones who have the best opportunity to truly get away from it all, including manmade lighting.

Are you planning a vacation into the wilderness this year? Don't forget to step outside before bedtime and check out the glittering sky above you.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

There are many things that herald the beginning of spring to different people. Some people see the return of birds such as robins as a sign of spring. Others look for bulbs poking through the dirt. But amateur astronomers see Orion disappearing in the west as a sign of spring.

At the end of April, after the sun sets in the west, the sky grows dark and the constellation Orion remains above the horizon. It will follow the sun down, with the bright star Rigel leading and Betelgeuse disappearing last.

Take your last chance to view the Orion Nebula. Nearby, other winter sights are setting for the season. The Pleiades star cluster is also doing down, as is the brightest star in the sky, Sirius.

The entire Milky Way itself, along with all its thick star clusters and nebulas, is sinking toward the horizon. Looking into our galaxy from the side shows us many beautiful deep-sky objects, including those in Orion. But the deepest deep-sky objects are best seen in spring away from Orion, looking out away from our galaxy and into the depth of space, where galaxies and clusters of galaxies lie.

Good-bye winter's Orion, hello spring galaxies!

Posted by Kelly Whitt

Find ways to honor Astronomy Day this year. The date occurs on Monday, April 21. Here are some ideas of what you can do:

• Take a tour of a local observatory. If you don't have a big observatory nearby, check with local astronomy clubs for private observatories that may be open to the public at night to allow for some advanced stargazing.
• Visit a planetarium. If it's cloudy you can still see the night's stars. Planetariums will usually walk you through what the night sky looks like in your location at that time of year so that the next clear night that comes along you will be able to go out and identify stars, constellations, and planets from what you learned at the planetarium.
• View the meteor shower. The Lyrids occur overnight on the 21st. The meteors will occur all night but after the nearly full moon rises it will be hard to catch fainter ones. Take some time to see what else you can spot in the night sky and when the moon comes out, turn a pair of binoculars on it to see the mountain ridges and valleys.
• Borrow some astronomy videos from the library. Try the Cosmos series or some of Nova's space-related shows.
• Pick up a book or magazine on astronomy and learn more about your favorite subject, whether that be starwatching, the science of exploding stars, or the creation of the universe.

Enjoy the Astronomy Day holiday!

Posted by Kelly Whitt

Is there a space object for every color of the rainbow? One of my favorite objects of all is one that shows a rainbow of colors in one place: the Rho Ophiuchi Cluster and Nebula.

• Red - There are many space objects that are red. Mars is considered red as well as the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, however in reality both are a bit more orange in color. The vast majority of nebulae, when photographed, appear red. One example is the Red Square Nebula. There are also many red stars, including Betelgeuse.
• Orange - Mars and the Great Red Spot, as mentioned above, are described as red, but usually appear more like an orange hue in real life. The Flame Nebula is a good example of an orange-hued nebula.
• Yellow and Blue - I put yellow and blue together because so often you see the one color by benefit of it being near the other color. The double star Albireo is famous as being a blue and yellow star pair. There are a number of galaxies that also combine yellow and blue, with lighter colored cores and bluer in the arms, plus yellow and blue star forming regions. The colliding galaxies M51 illustrate the yellow/blue combination well.
• Green - Green is the most common color found close to home, in the aurora or the sun's green flash. Uranus is also a greenish blue, and the Cat's Eye Nebula has a wonderful green edging.
• Purple - Purple shows up often on the outskirts of red nebulae. The Witch Head Nebula also sometimes looks purple instead of blue depending on the processing.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

I just saw the movie Horton Hears a Who with my family. I already knew the story from the Dr. Seuss book. While the movie, by necessity, adds material to the book to make it long enough to fill 88 minutes, it keeps the theme of a whole world of people that fits on a speck.

Whoville, this world on a speck that sits on a bit of flowering clover, feels normal-sized to its inhabitants, but compared to Horton the elephant's world, it is almost immeasurably small.

This is an idea that pops up in the astronomical world. Maybe our universe, while seeming incomprehensibly large to us, is actually the size of a soap bubble floating in someone else's universe.

While there may be only one universe - ours - a popular theory exists that there are multiverses, each one vastly different from the next. The trick, though, is that for the most part universes are not able to communicate with each other so there is no ability to know what other universes are like or even that they are really there.

Dr. Seuss presents this idea of two "universes" yet they are still able to communicate with each other, although with great difficulty. Scientists would love to take a page from Dr. Seuss's book and use a big bull horn to shout at our cosmic neighbors. In any case, the movie or book is a great way to introduce the idea of multiple universes to children.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

Scientists have observed for some time now that around the equinoxes, in the months of March and September, Earth seems to have a greater occurrence of aurorae. While they are still not entirely sure why this is so, it gives us another reason to look forward to spring skies.

I like to check the POES web site if I want to know how active the aurora is. The NOAA POES satellite has various web pages that report the data it is receiving. I check out the location and size of the auroral oval to see if there is a chance of seeing it from where I live. I also like to check the recent data plots page. Under activity level, the bigger the number means the more active aurorae have been. For most people in the continental US to see aurora, the activity level has to be at 10. There is also a link to watch the most recent data blended into an animated movie of the auroral oval as it fluctuates.

If there is no activity near you but you still want to get a glimpse of what other people are seeing, go to spaceweather.com. Here you will find reports of where in the world the aurora is putting on its show, and observers are always happy to share their best shots with the web site.

Tonight the activity level is at a 7, so I am off to gaze at some good photos of the northern lights, and hope that I get my turn to see them firsthand very soon.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

With the slow return of spring, I find myself waking earlier than I do in winter. I don't use an alarm clock and trust myself to wake up when I need to. ALthough sometimes I need a little help.

In the winter, I am often surprised by just how tired I am when my son comes in to wake me up at seven in the morning. It is still dark out and I feel the need to sleep for "just a bit longer". Unfortunately I have to get him ready for school so extra sleep is not possible.

As February turns to March, I find myself waking up earlier (and feeling rested) than I have been for many months, yet I have still been going to bed at night the same time. The difference is that the sun has been coming up earlier and lighting my room in the six o'clock hour. I feel more awake in the morning and ready to face the day on these mornings than I did in the dead of winter.

With the changing of the clocks on March 8/9, more darkness will return to the morning hours. Besides the bonus evening light, this will allow me to sleep a bit longer in the morning and, with any luck, my son too.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

In meteorology, March is said to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. This is because spring is slowly arriving. The North Pole tilts more toward the Sun as Earth orbits in its yearly procession. In the Northern Hemisphere, more daylight hours and more direct rays of sunshine spell a warming on Earth. So while your lawn may be snow covered on March 1 and the weather may be fierce, by March 31 there is a better chance for grass appearing and the gentle warming rays to be ushering in sweet weather.

In astronomy, March begins with the constellation of Leo the Lion rising in the east as the sun sets in the west. As Leo rises, it leads up a vast stretch of galaxies behind it. For astronomical observers, spring is known as galaxy season.

While there is no real "lamb" constellation, there is Aries the Ram, which is as close as we can come to March leaving like a lamb. Aries is ahead of Leo in the sky. Therefore, by the end of March, as the sun sets in the west, Aries the Ram sets just a bit behind it.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

The lunar eclipse on February 20 was watched by many. The next day people relived the beautiful sight of the night before by trolling for photos online and sharing their experiences. But some people were sent an e-mail linking them to a supposed video of the lunar eclipse.

This e-mail is actually an attack on your computer. If you follow the instructions and click on the link for the eclipse and download the video you will have unwittingly allowed a Trojan virus into your computer. A Trojan program such as this could allow an attacker to take control of your affected computer system and more, if your computer is linked to a network.

There are a few things you can do to protect yourself against attacks like this. For one, install and use anti-virus software and keep virus signatures up-to-date. For another, be wary of all e-mails sent to you. Just opening an e-mail to read will not release a virus, but downloading a program attached to the e-mail or following a link and downloading a program from a web site can infect your computer.

If you really want to see images of the lunar eclipse, search for "February 20 lunar eclipse" under Google images.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

Last night we were able to see the eclipse as Earth's shadow began its creep across the face of the moon. There had been clouds before sunset but then the sky grew completely clear. Darkness first edged onto the lower left corner of the moon, slowly swallowing its entirety.

Maybe it's just me, but the partial phases of the eclipse, when the moon is still half bright, make me want to reach my arms out and cast my own personal shadow onto the still lit part of the moon. As if I could. I have had the urge to do this since I was little and saw my first lunar eclipse. Imagine a tiny shadow puppet of a bunny cast upon the glowing portion of the moon.

For the few minutes leading up to totality, a crowd gathered outside where I was staying. They gazed out and enjoyed the beautiful orangish moon with a slight white gleam holding onto the top right corner until that, too, disappeared. When the moon was full it was too bright to see most of the nearby stars, but during totality Saturn and Regulus made nice companions to the moon.

Now it's a two-year wait before our next chance to see a total lunar eclipse.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

It is a big day for space news today. Starting out with the shuttle landing this morning, to tonight's lunar eclipse, and the possible shooting down of the space satellite.

I am on vacation in Florida at the moment. Not all that close to the Kennedy Space Center, which I have visited on other occasions, but close enough that launches can be seen as the plume of smoke snakes skyward. Landings are another matter. Because the space shuttle comes in like an airplane, they are not easy to see from far away. The telltale sign for re-entry for Floridians is the sonic boom.

I sat by the open window as the space shuttle crossed Florida, listening to all the sounds. I could hear the birds chirping, the wind rustling in the palm trees, the splattering of the water fountain in the pond across the street, chattering of people on the sidewalk... but I never did hear the sonic boom.

I watched the shuttle land live on CNN. It was a pretty scene. But I was disappointed I didn't get a personal connection to it by hearing or seeing it. So now I will wait for tonight's eclipse. Hope for clear skies.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

Most of the Western Hemisphere will be treated to a total lunar eclipse on February 20. For information about just when the eclipse occurs in your area, check the article on the eclipse.

Lunar eclipses take a long time to proceed from the beginning stages all the way through to the end. This gives people more of a chance to see it if they are waiting for a break in the clouds.

Another good thing about the length of the eclipse means that you can see different stages of it without having to stand outside for seven minutes straight. With the cold month of February in some of the northern locations, you can just pop out ever so often to see how it's coming along. You could even turn the lights off inside your house and get a decent view through the window.

Try photographing the lunar eclipse. While a zoom lens will give you a better look at the action, if you don't have much of a zoom lens you can try to make the picture interesting by staging it near interesting foreground objects, such as trees or local monuments.

Active volcanoes in south and central America could make for a pretty eclipse with hues other than the typical orangish and red.

Whatever color your eclipse turns out to be, I hope you get a chance to see it!

Posted by Kelly Whitt

Was anyone able to get up early enough this morning and see the Venus/Jupiter conjunction? If you did see it, feel free to share your description with us in the discussion section or send me a picture and I'll post it on the Best Planetary Conjunctions of 2008 page.

As for me, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen the sky so far this year. We've had an active winter as far as weather is concerned. From record high temperatures causing all our snow to melt (and thus produce heavy fog and no chance of seeing the stars) to rain and snow. But mostly this winter has just been a gray pall overhead. There was one evening last month when I turned off the lights in the house before bed and was startled by the bright light outside. It was the moon. I hadn't seen it in so long I had almost forgotten how its light can brighten a snowy white landscape.

The few clear days and nights we've had have coincided with frigid temperatures, including wind chills in the -30s. Which is typical for winter weather. Cloud cover insulates the air below while colder nights are those when the sky is clear and all the heat is radiating back out into space.

I don't know about you, but I hope that spring comes soon!

Posted by Kelly Whitt

To steer my entertaining UFO blogs back onto more stable ground: Yes, there are scientists who study "aliens". However, they are not out tracking UFOs. They are working on projects such as SETI and analyzing the statistical possibility of extraterrestrial life with mathematical tools such as the Drake Equation.

One of my favorite stories concerns the physicist Enrico Fermi. One day he was having lunch with colleagues and they were discussing how if Earth is typical for a planet, and the sun is a typical star, that life should also be a commonplace occurrence in the Universe. This is when Fermi famously blurted out, “Where are they?” Meaning, if extraterrestrial life is so abundant, shouldn’t we know of their existence? Many scientists and authors have tried to answer this question, and Stephen Webb did a great job of it in his book If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens … Where Is Everybody? But Fermi’s Paradox remains unanswered.

I like to think of the question in this way: Shouldn’t they be here by now? But the fact is, the Earth was not always here. So aliens could not always have been here. There has to be a point from before they were here, to when they arrived. Maybe the aliens are on their way. They’re coming.

Now I just have to write a great screen play to go with my theory. And then convince some huge star to sign-on as the lead role, maybe Will Smith. And then of course I need a female role ... how about a strong female character like no one has ever played in Hollywood before. Say, an exotic dancer? Hmm, this is starting to sound strangely familiar....

Posted by Kelly Whitt

In 2005, I bought a book called The W-Files: True Reports of Wisconsin’s Unexplained Phenomena by Jay Rath. At the time I was researching any and all minutiae about Wisconsin and not even thinking of my own close encounter when I came upon the following.

The entry for August 2, 1985, begins, "Around 9:45 pm, 10 people, in a region that spreads from Cross Plains to Blue Mounds, saw a UFO moving slowly eastward. It was white, brighter than a star and ... projected a beam of light that 'moved back and forth like a searchlight.'"

One of the witnesses was Rogers Keene. Keene, a teacher at Wisconsin Heights Junior High School, was walking his dog around his rural home, five miles north of Black Earth. The car in which I was "hiding" during this time would have been parked on the shoulder of the road a mere two miles east of Keene.

I don't know what subject Keene taught at Wisconsin Heights Junior High, but he analyzed the situation like an astronomer, noting that the object was about 75 degrees above the horizon and appeared to be the size of his thumb when his arm was stretched away from his body. He watched it for two minutes as it swept a beam of light across the ground. It then hovered and zig-zagged slowly downward until it was only 20 degrees above the horizon. The light then shrunk until it disappeared.

Madison’s airport and NWS radar did not detect this object. And, even more strangely, on the same night, at the same time, witnesses in six other Midwestern states reported similar sightings.

So was it a UFO? Sure, in that no one has explained it. It remains unidentified. But was it an alien spacecraft? I think it’s fair to say that’s highly unlikely.

Posted by Kelly Whitt

As a hardened skeptic, I don’t take much stock in UFO stories. As an adult I find stories of “paranormal” events to be humorous and entertaining. But I was not so amused back in 1985 on the side of a dark country road as a UFO hovered overhead.

What I remember about the event is that I don’t remember seeing the UFO at all. I was in the backseat of the car coming back from seeing a movie with my parents. It was summertime and already dark but not yet 10 pm.

We were well into the countryside when my parents mentioned a strange light moving above us. We turned off the highway onto a deserted country road. My parents were growing excited now, and they pulled over onto the gravel to get out and take a better look.

What I remember of the event was the adults standing on the road, talking excitedly and pointing upward. And I remember myself, huddling in the far corner of the car, terrified. I felt like I was under a spotlight because the only light on the ground was the one coming from the dome in the car. My parents had left their doors open and a dinging noise kept repeating this fact, drawing more attention to me in my bright cocoon. The car, parked on the side of the road, leaned toward the ditch and I allowed gravity to pull me into the furthest reaches of the interior, hoping that I would not be visible to any beings that were joyriding above us.

Eventually my parents returned to the car where my mother saw me and burst out laughing.

Twenty years later I would stumble across a report of this UFO sighting, which allowed me to fill in some of the blanks....

Posted by Kelly Whitt

On January 8, 2008, dozens of people in small communities southwest of Fort Worth and Dallas reported seeing a strange object in the night sky. Witnesses described it as nearly a mile in length, silent but lit with lights, and low to the ground. Some people have reported seeing the object on more than one occasion.

Major Karl Lewis of the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth has read the reports. While he says there are no military aircraft from the area to explain the sightings, he feels nearly certain that the reports are due to normal aircraft. In the dark it is easy for your mind to play tricks on you and lights from two separate aircraft to appear to be two edges of one larger craft.

Astronomers are often asked about UFOs. Although they are something often seen in the night sky, in reality UFOs are not the focus of any astronomer's studies. But to be sure, many of them have spent a lot of time peering at the night sky, yet by and large they have not seen objects that they could not account for. Scientists are skeptical by nature, and the saying "I'd have to see it to believe it" holds true for most of them. Even then, seeing it would allow them to turn a telescope on it, measure its brightness and angle to the ground, and come up with a logical explanation for it.

Personally, I'd also have to see such a sight in order to believe it exists, and I would look forward to solving the mystery of just what the object was that beguiled so many. And while I can't ever recall seeing a UFO myself, I do have a story of a close encounter....