What was it?

March 9, 2019 4:34 AM

I've been fascinated by astronomy since my early childhood. I've seen a lot of beautiful things related to the stars over the decades, but there's this one thing I could never explain. I wonder if the collective hive mind can say something meaningful about it without immediately resorting to alien technology.

Here are the details. It was the late night of July 7 and the early morning of July 8, 1987. I was 20 years old and traveling from Moscow (USSR) to Leningrad (Saint Petersburg, USSR) by train with a class of Dutch teenagers. It was a study trip to the USSR, arranged by my aunt, who was a Russian teacher in the Netherlands.

So we were bored a bit in the night train, and my cousin and I were discussing life in the hallway of the train, next to where some people were trying to sleep. The train was moving in a distinct NW direction. When we stared out the window, we saw this strange pattern of lights. I have tried to draw it from memory:

https://henszimmerman.audio/downloads/strangeness.png


By that age, I really could distinguish a comet from a meteor, but this was nothing like it. It also totally didn't resemble polar light (Aurora Borealis). It stretched over many degrees in the sky and was completely motionless, i.e. steady relative to the stars. We didn't see it coming, but it was visible for at least two hours before it went down under the horizon. Of course we notified everyone and before we knew it the whole train was awake and people were filming it and leaning out the windows. I couldn't tell if it was emitting light on its own or reflecting off light from the Sun. It was impossible to estimate the distance. One thing I recall was the rather sharp edges of the individual spots. It was just hovering there in the sky, some 30 or 40 degrees over the horizon. I recall we opened a window to listen for strange sounds, but there was nothing there. There was absolutely no movement between the spots, like a steady pattern of holes in the sky. It was in the Northern part of the sky, which could make a case for Aurora Borealis, but then again, the thing we saw was far more steady, almost colorless (slightly yellow I think) and had harder edges. And if you look at my drawing, you can see that it looks nothing like polar light.

Back home I looked for astronomical events or things that might have happened, like an exploded satellite or environmental issue or whatever, but I couldn't find anything even remotely possible to explain the phenomenon. If it was an explosion in earth orbit of some kind, it was not in geostationary orbit because the light formation was going down with the rotation of the earth. That would also mean that it was a very VERY huge stretch of sky to occupy.

Any ideas? Anyone seen something similar?

posted by hz37 to Science & Nature (8 answers total)

Of course we notified everyone and before we knew it the whole train was awake and people were filming it

Some of those films or still photos would be helpful to get you an answer. Have you contacted your aunt or your old classmates for their records or recollections? Have they sought answers as you are seeking here?
posted by JimN2TAW at 4:53 AM on March 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

On July 7, 1987, the USSR performed an underground nuclear test. I don't know if that would have created the phenomenon you saw, but maybe someone else can answer that.
posted by ellenaim at 5:30 AM on March 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

A lot of your details sound like noctilucient clouds. These are extremely high-altitude clouds that are still illuminated by the Sun even after the rest of the sky is dark. They tend to form at latitudes above 50° (which fits) in the local summer (which fits). They're only visible if the Sun isn't too far below the horizon; but even "late at night" in Moscow in early July, the Sun never gets too far below the horizon. At that time of year, the entire night is either civil or nautical twilight, where the Sun is less than 12° below the horizon.
posted by Johnny Assay at 6:23 AM on March 9, 2019 [15 favorites]

NASA has an image of noctilucient clouds that are somewhat as you describe them, especially in terms of color. Love your drawing.
posted by Bella Donna at 6:35 AM on March 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

I like ellenaim's nuclear test suggestion.

Bella Donna's link points out that volcanic ash is thought to be a cause of noctilucent clouds, and a nuclear test could be a reasonable facsimile of an eruption if it injects dust into the atmosphere, and while the July 7, 1987 test took place in a borehole, its purpose is listed as "oil stimulation", and I think we might guess that such a test would be designed to vent to the atmosphere in order to minimize the amount of radioactivity from fission products that ended up in the stimulated oil and gas.
posted by jamjam at 11:01 AM on March 9, 2019

Gorgeous recent photo of noctilucient clouds in Antarctica, without the aurora present in the NASA photo.
posted by Rash at 11:05 AM on March 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I kind of doubt that the Soviet nuclear test on that date had anything to do with the phenomena witnessed, for the simple reason that it was over 2500 miles away from where the OP was at the time. Russia is really big; the location of that test was closer to Tokyo than it was to Moscow.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:34 AM on March 10, 2019

This doesn't super help, but I wonder if a bolide could do this.
posted by lokta at 12:19 PM on March 19, 2019