Wednesday 25 January 2012

Moon disappears from the sky

Ah I must be going mad, I am pretty sure I have just witnessed what looked to me like a lunar eclipse, but once the moon had disappeared it never truly returned. It sort of flicked around the rim of the moon with brilliant light, changing size and rotating around the bottom half of the rim. It was amazing to witness, but there is no record of a lunar eclipse happening tonight.

I am writing this down straight away before I forget, so as to be as accurate as possible. At around 6:55pm the moon was roughly south west just north of Venus, when I noticed it had nearly all gone. I was standing in my kitchen, all I could see was a bright rim almost a semi circle line of bright light, and it moved and shortened and lengthened, it was amazing to watch. I thought it must be a partial lunar eclipse to begin with, then at around 7:10pm it totally disappeared only to occasionally show up faintly around the rim. Now this was really bright and the only explanation I can make is that it has now gone out of my view point, as it was pretty low in the sky. I have never seen anything quite like this before, what made it stranger was Venus just above to the south of the moon, kept disappearing also, but it was in and out. Now that could be just cloud cover, but the moon definitely disappeared gradually like a lunar eclipse.

Now that is what I witnessed, but what could it actually be?

I only saw the last part of the eclipse so it could have been something else in the sky, but I have never seen anything that look like a slither of the moon, and be as bright and it reminded me of the lunar eclipse that happened last year in June I think, but since its really dark outside as opposed to dusk when the other one was seen, I could see it perfectly.

It was quite mesmerising and held my attention for ages; in fact I stood watching for at least thirty minutes, waiting for it to return properly as it first shone around the rim. The star above to the south which I believe was Venus disappeared also, but that kept flickering and that definitely could have been cloud cover.

If it was a strange hallucination due to cloud cover it was the coolest one I have ever seen, and I look up to the sky constantly at night. Wow I have never had an experience like that before; it felt special, though less special now I see there was no lunar eclipses for tonight. Still I now understand why people think they see UFO’s because if it wasn’t the moon disappearing behind our Earth, and it wasn’t cloud cover, and it wasn’t a hallucination then what was it?

Just before I post I have just read that the moon tonight was a crescent moon and I suppose if clouds were moving in front of it, it may look like a lunar eclipse from my perspective. How boring, still at the time I didn’t know that so the feeling and energy I received from thinking I was witnessing a lunar eclipse was quite powerful, it just shows how incredible the mind is when it believes something to be true.

6 comments:

  1. I just wittneseed the sameeeee exact thing just as you saw it

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  2. Okay, we're (4 of us) on the west coast, California to be exact, and around 7:54 we seemed to have witnessed almost the exact same thing. As far as the lunar eclipse looking part goes, so immediately after getting back from the car ride we googled it and your blog was the first to show up and really, we're just glad we aren't the only ones who have witnessed this strange event. We tried to take a picture of it, but in a matter of seconds the moon was gone completely.

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  3. Wow that's amazing, it was an incredible site, I wonder how many others saw it? Pleased I am not going totally mad.

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  4. I saw it too! The smiling moon started high in the sky and sank down until it was out of sight below the horizon.

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  5. Its scary to me, as i saw it inching away. Never did i see the moon in that form before. The sky was clear, so i knew it couldn't be the clouds covering. It had to be something dealing with the moon.

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  6. Porterville, CA July 22 at around 9-10 PM I saw the EXACT same thing, except I saw the moon reappear very low on the horizon (as opposed to the high point at which it disappeared) AND THEN IT DISAPPEARED AGAIN. It slowly inched away from bottom to top and never appeared again. If it weren't for the fact that my wife was with me and saw the same thing I would've thought that I lost it...Does anyone have an explanation?

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