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Year View| Summary| Highlights| Month View| Tuesday 29 October 2002 (Day View) – The day the UFO came

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29.10.2002 – Tuesday 29 October – The day the UFO came

• Today was an interesting day. Mum and I went to town in the evening. I photocopied my doctor’s letter and had it verified as a copy of the original of which it purported to be a copy etcetera, and then posted it with its cover letter to Brisbane School of Distance Education (BSDE).

• Not long after dark had fallen (and halfway through doing something on my computer) the power rudely failed, leaving me in thick darkness. Mum and I sat outside, near the garden, talking. I was watching the stars, and Mum was staring blankly at the ground. I noticed a satellite passing overhead, so was watching it intently. It passed into a cloud, becoming abruptly brighter, whereupon I said to Mum “look at that star, its getting brighter”. It then appeared to shine a light directly at me, the brightness of which was impossible to say as I was staring directly at it. Moments later it passed out of the cloud and back into the sky, and then behind some trees, continuing on its satellite way. Mum was asking me what had happened as she had seen the flash of light, bright enough to reflect off the trees and the ground, but hadn’t looked up and seen the “star”, and me asking her what she meant.
  I assumed it was an airplane, which had passed into a cloud and its lights had reflected downwards, so I waited for its engine noise. It was mildly windy, with very light clouds passing rapidly, and many stars visible. The night was mainly clear, no other light around, except for the dim fading light of the setting sun still just visible on the horizon. The engine noise never came, and it occurred to me that there had been no flashing light either, as is usually visible on a commercial aircraft, and also that the cloud which the “satellite” had passed into probably wasn’t there, I assumed there was a cloud due to the way in which the light suddenly got brighter. I still haven’t been able to think of any logical explanation. The light was bright enough to reflect off the trees and flash around, which is bright. Where we live, trees surround us and they are tall, blocking a lot of the sky and hemming us in. Any light would need to be considerably powerful to penetrate and reflect the way this did, and the way Mum saw it. I seriously doubt any normal aircraft could have caused a light that bright, and that focused, and for such a short time, without having been very low – in which case it would surely have made some noise and also its flashing tail lights would have been visible.
  I’m still not sure what it was, but I am almost considering making a fool of myself and phoning the power company to ask what was the official reason for the power to fail, which failed again a few hours later, at which point I went to bed a little scared.
  As far as I know nothing abducted me during my sleep – but how would I know?

Comment by Ned – Sunday 6 July 2003, 10:06 PM

  The official sceptic’s story: Satellites roll and catch the sun, especially if they’re near the horizon (which this wasn’t). I can’t imagine a flash of reflected sunlight from a satellite being as bright as this, but who knows?

Comment by io – Wednesday 10 September 2003, 7:56 AM

  You should have phoned the power company. If it wasn't isolated, they would probably already have a pre recorded message telling you that areas "x" having a power outage. If not, then meh.. Power companies should provide a reliable supply and if they don't, you have the right to know. A flash or reflected sunlight can be very bright.. The possibility exists that it may have been an Iridium flare [which are known to be quite bright]. What was the size of the UFO?