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Another Colored Lights in the Sky Sighting

I know there is an old post about lights. But I thought I'd share what happened tonight. My daughter Toni called me tonight to inform me of a weird sighting of lights over the Maumee River tonight.

My nephew was down at the river behind Marshall School(near 75) and called her to see if she could see it, as it was above his head. Sure enough, Toni, my parents and neighbors all saw it. She took pictures and described it similar to Christmas lights. She did not notice any "V" formation.

She called WTOL and was told to send the pictures. Only one picture turned out, but you can just make out the lights. Weird huh. I received the pictures and fiddled with the brightness and contrast. As soon as I can figure out how to post the pictures, I will.

Just wondering if the mystery has been solved yet from the other sighting? Someone tonight mentioned a high powered light beam over at a Chinese place on Dorr and Byrne,I don't believe this to be the culprit as I would think that would rotate around the sky and not sit in one area for 10 mins or so. And this also had red, blue and green lights. She also described them in the manner in the previous posting, referring to police lights.

created by ToledoLatina on Oct 05, 2007 at 01:15:32 am     Comments: 17

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Do you have an account at a photosharing site like flickr or photobucket? If so, upload there and post the URL to the page here. If you don't have an account, consider opening one at some photosharing site, since they're free. Or you can e-mail me the photo at admin@toledotalk.com, and I can post it.

posted by jr on Oct 05, 2007 at 06:33:59 am     #



It's carty recieving instructions from the mother ship. That's why he's so into lights in trees, bridges, etc. He's hoping to generate enough ground light to drown them out.

posted by billy on Oct 05, 2007 at 08:28:31 am     #



Darn...missed them again.

The truth is out there.

posted by MaggieThurber on Oct 05, 2007 at 08:55:15 am     #



I saw some lights near a church in Perrysburg last week when I was driving through with a friend. Upon investigation, it was a group of kids and parents with some kites and balloons that had flashing lights attached to them. In other words: not UFOs. Seemed kind of boring to me, but whatever.

posted by Ace_Face on Oct 05, 2007 at 10:43:18 am     #



Interesting, wonder if it was the aurora borealis. While we are a bit to far south to see then normally, a friend of mine said he saw them here in Ohio back in the mid 80's. Not impossible :)

posted by jshriver on Oct 05, 2007 at 11:42:38 am     #



Sounds like a reasonable explanation. But how would that account for it being over my nephews head, and being seen in 2 different locations back in sept around the same time. Rossford(on the river) and Jackman area.

posted by ToledoLatina on Oct 05, 2007 at 11:47:01 am     #



The other lights thread is titled Did anyone see that mysterious blue light in the sky Saturday night? - Sep 24, 2007.

For this thread, here are six photos from ToledoLatina: "the orginal picture, then the redid contrast pics".







posted by jr on Oct 05, 2007 at 02:04:25 pm     #



Probably Tom and Katie making a landing aboard the S.S. Psychopath.

Katie was spotted not having dinner at Tony Packos that night.

Tom was of course, at Bretz.

posted by Ryan on Oct 05, 2007 at 02:07:31 pm     #



very cool pics...did you contact UT's astronomy department?

posted by MaggieThurber on Oct 05, 2007 at 09:26:37 pm     #



I saw the spotlight, Chaser bar had on Friday night. Vibrantly lighting up the sky, letting all Toledoans know they were open and selling beer.

"contacting with the mother ship...classic"

posted by jdmsbyrd on Oct 06, 2007 at 09:04:07 am     #



Can't be UFO's from another planet, if its one thing Roswell taught us is that Aliens are bright enough to build craft that can fly from light years away, however like our government they must use low bid builders because for some reason these craft can't navigate through our atmosphere and crash. Now I personally believe that alien life exisit and that it quite possibly is as inteligent as we want to think we are if not greater, However most likely if they came here they would have left still searching for inteligent life.

posted by roygbiv on Oct 06, 2007 at 11:13:21 am     #



All kidding aside, the observers of the Maumee River phenomena might consider a visit to the National UFO Reporting Center.

posted by historymike on Oct 06, 2007 at 01:40:07 pm     #



I was thinking, if this is over the river from Pilkerington(sp), the glass factory, if there is broken glass that could be reflecting these colors in to the sky. hmmm, if only I had the technology to find out.

posted by ToledoLatina on Oct 07, 2007 at 11:58:12 am     #



So I have this friend Dennis that is working in Antarctica and I sent him this information and he passed it on to the head science guy there and this was his response.

Angie, I got this back from our head Dr. of the 10 meter telescope, Steve Padin.

Hi Dennis,

I looked at the pictures. I don't know what the colored lights are,
but they aren't an aurora (too small) and they don't look like
something astronomical (too big and fuzzy compared with the stars
in the pictures). I can't tell from the post if they were moving,
and if so how fast. Could be aircraft, lights from the ground scattering
off clouds (although the pictures suggest it was a clear sky).
I think you'll need someone with local knowledge to help sort this out.

Thanks,
-Steve

Back to the drawing board :-(

posted by ToledoLatina on Oct 08, 2007 at 06:30:22 am     #



hey you guys....Saturday Night we did the Annual "LIGHT THE NIGHT" Walk downtown and we had balloon with lights in them that we carried for the walk...that flashed, I dont know if maybe that had something to do because I know a lot of us just let ourt balloons go after the walk ended.....

posted by stooks on Oct 08, 2007 at 06:31:41 pm     #



This happened Thursday night.

posted by ToledoLatina on Oct 08, 2007 at 07:00:38 pm     #



but a very plausible explanation Stooks.

I did email the University and this is the response.

Dear Angie:

Thanks very much for writing to Ask the Astronomer! And thanks for
your extensive report. I checked out the toledotalk web site where
your pictures are posted. (Good work posting the pictures.) I'll
investigate further, but, for now, the comment from Ace_Face about
kites and balloons with colored lights makes sense to me as an
explanation for the colored lights.

As for the flashing light that moves with the stars, probably it was
a star. Stars "twinkle" or change brightness because of changes in
the Earth's atmosphere. Twinkling is most pronounced when the star is
low above the horizon, and in that setting the star can change color
as well. I have seen this myself.

If you could tell me what direction Toni and the others were facing
and what time it was, I could probably tell you what star it was,
since it must have been a very bright one.

Sincerely yours,

Nancy D. Morrison
Professor of Astronomy and
Director, Ritter Planetarium
Mail Stop 113
The University of Toledo
2801 W. Bancroft Street
Toledo OH 43606-3390

Phone: 419-530-2659
Fax: 419-530-5167 (Ritter Observatory)

posted by ToledoLatina on Oct 08, 2007 at 07:02:55 pm     #