An OpenMinds.tv reader in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana spotted something odd in the night sky and was fortunately able to photograph it. The photos show a strange red blob in the sky he and his wife were able to see with the naked eye.
Patrick Malone says he and his wife were leaving the house when they noticed “a faint red blob” in the night sky above them. He decided to go inside and grab a camera. He then took several photographs with two different lenses using his Canon T2i DSLR camera. They watched the object for about 45 minutes. Malone says he was not looking at it, but his wife was, she was trying to get another picture, when it left. Via Facebook Messenger, Malone wrote that she said, “it did not fade it just disappeared.”
Via email, Malone gave me this account:
On the night of Wednesday September 13th, at about 10:00pm, my wife and I were about to leave our house in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Before getting in the truck I looked up in the sky and noticed a faint red blob directly above. I said to my wife, what in the heck is that? She looked up and saw it as well. We stared at it for about 10 minutes before I thought about attempting to take a picture of it with the dslr. The entire time it was in the sky it did not move or shift, it stayed directly above at about 90 degrees. It was at such a sharp angle all of the photos had to be taken free hand. I have included the best photos I have of this weirdism. All photos are directly off of the memory card and not edited, they were all taken with a cannon t2i. The pictures where the blob is zoomed out were taken with a Takumar 55mm lens and the blurry zoomed in photo is with a Vivatar 75-205mm. Both lenses are manual non-electric. All photos have about a ¾ second shutter speed so the blob is brighter in the photo than it was by the naked eye.
The pictures are fascinating. The object does look like some sort of celestial object, but it is awfully bright. Malone says a friend told him that a missile or spacecraft launch could look like this, but he was not able to find a records of such a launch on that evening.
Malone says he does not know what it is, but would like help figuring it out.
I checked the website Heavens-Above.com to find out if anything was in the sky at the time, and there was a part of a Russian rocket — space junk — that circled overhead at about 9:24 pm, but that would look like a point of light crossing the sky, not a red blob. So, for now, at least for the Malones and I, the mystery continues.
If you think you know what it is, let us know in the comments below.
If you would like to analyze the original photos, they can be downloaded here.
My best guess is that it is the auroras. I realize that you’re pretty far south, but I live in Southern Illinois and have seen them twice. The first time it was a washed out blue-green, the second time it was a vivid bright red nearly as bright as a stoplight.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150803.html
Just for reference – I submitted one of the images to astrometry.net and it identified the location of the red blur as lying between 16 and 15 Vulpecula
I live in the NW corner of La. Shreveport. I am a truck driver.
On Oct.24 a Sunday. Between 1130 & 1210. I was traveling east on I-20. About 10 miles form Barksdale AF Base. One the our top B-52 base. I spot what looks like a tracer round. Which very bright even in day light. It was a streak. My mind has my vision locked in on it. I didn’t move. I complete invoked myself to what I was seeing in order to process what is this I’m seeing. Was it someone shooting of out of season fireworks. It didn’t come from ground up.it was from across the sky. As if it was interning our atmosphere. Came a blust of white energy. As it entered. It made a faster than a blink change of direction. Making what I say is a 45* dergree change. It slowed to what looked to me as being suspended in air. and what seem to me was a trailer with the concisdence of what made up a rainbow. At the head of it I saw a pitch black whole. With what look like energy raditating afound the edge of it. Then suddenly disappeared .
Calculating altitude and distance . I conclude it was very high. 36,000 ft at lease I thought. I couldn’t blink this event was happening at blink of the eye speed.
Interesting photography – besides the sphere-like vertical concentrations in the light, Aurora Australis could be an explanation I think.
My friend saw the same exact thing north of Albany, NY last night at 17 thousand feet. They said it was identical in color and shape. Crazy!!
I have a picture that I just took with my cell phone camera. I am located in Baton Rouge, LA. I can email you the picture.
Same thing still happening in Albany area – no explanation yet found online. Keep posting!! I’m guessing it’s not anything related to aurora boreal because we are too far south.
On January 23, 2018, over the Southern Louisiana night
sky, my husband hurried me outside to see the same
phenomenon. There were two streaks that looked like the
ones in the photos. Not sure how long they lasted. We
saw them around 10:30pm CST. Clouds prevented
me from seeing it through to the end. I saw them for at
Least 30 minutes. They seemed to be well above the
moon and appeared to be setting with it.
i just witness somthing very similar to this, few minuts ago but more big, long, large and very high in the night sky,,dont have camera, im in geneva switzerland,,20:10pm on the 1.02.2018
Last Sunday (February 3, 2018) at night in Asturias (Spain) while walking the dogs, my girlfriend asked me: “What is that?” while looking at the sky, and we saw exactly the same red light. I think it was completely vertical, and it looked like it was far far away and massive in size. After half a minute or so it faded for some seconds until it disappeared.