SKEPTIC - The Physics of UFOs

[frogmarch]

61. I can understand

anyone seeing something like that being perplexed and thinking it could be an alien craft. Years ago when I lived rural Wyoming I used to sit on the front porch and watch mysterious lights in the sky dance around, as if playing tag with one another, at a distance that I guessed to be about five miles from my house. Night after night for several weeks one summer I watched the lights - sometimes there were two, sometimes as many as six or seven. I wondered what they were....UFOs? They moved in every direction, and sometimes they hovered. When I learned there was an old uranium mine about that distance from my house, I realized the mystery was probably solved. Even in an inert state, and at room temperature, finely sliced uranium or thinly divided uranium powder can spontaneously combust and glow. That’s what I think my UFOs were – pyrophoric uranium particles.

I’ve seen stars appear to move around. Certain atmospheric conditions can cause this illusion.

I have no idea what the strange light you saw could have been.