I saw something Thursday morning that I’ve never seen before and that I can’t quite explain.  I was on my way to work, driving northbound on I-390, nearing my connecting ramp to I-590N.  The sun was up and the sky was blue and mostly clear, with a line of light clouds to the east.  I drive this same route at this same time five days a week, and what I saw was something completely abnormal.

At 7:20AM in the northeast sky, I noticed a bright spot of light, about 25° up from the horizon.  My first instinct was to think it was a distant planet reflecting the early morning sun, but I’ve confirmed that no planets are currently viewable, and besides… after about five motionless seconds, the light dimmed, then moved… and then vanished.

That’s right. I’m not making this up. The light shined like a beacon for a good five seconds before dimming to a tiny black dot. Then that black dot began to move across the sky, continuing in a straight line for another five seconds before vanishing completely.  I continued scanning the sky for any other signs, but nothing returned.

There are no reports of meteor activity in my area so I’ve eliminated that as an option.  Meteors of such intensity tend to draw a lot of attention, but I haven’t found anyone else that saw what I saw.

My best guess is that it was a high-flying jet passing through an opening in the distant clouds that was allowing the sun light to reflect off of it, and then passing again into shadow - except that jets don’t stand still in the sky, whereas I distinctly noticed that the light was stationary for a few seconds (which is why I originally thought it was a planet).

Blah. This is all over the place and but I’m too tired to edit it.  All I know is that I saw something I’ve never seen before and it freaked me the hell out.

I’m gonna have to start listening to Art Bell and feuding with Bill Nye.