I've seen these things too. The first time I saw one, it was dusk and I was putting my airplane away at Greenlee County airport. I was without binoculars or telescope. This one was a Venus bright object in the northern sky. I knew it couldn't be any star or planet because of its position. I moved so the object appeared straight above a telephone pole and watched for about 3 to 5 minutes. I observed no noticeable motion. I suspected it was a large helium balloon. This suspicion became stronger when, as the darkness deepened, the object faded until finally it couldn't be seen. The next time I saw one I was home. I grabbed some binoculars, and sure enough it was a large mylar balloon. At least I think it was large. I could see a gondola suspended underneath, but without reference points it was hard to tell its size for sure. I even grabbed the camcorder and taped it. Unfortunately at the magnification necessary to see the actual shape of the balloon, it was too pixelated to really be able to identify it on tape. I feel sort of like a pinhead because all I really had to do was grab my astronomical telescope and film through the eyepiece, but I didn't. I was afraid that by the time I got it set up, the object would have faded to invisibility. Bill Lockman Edward Lunt wrote:

OK all you smart people, what did I see? This evening (12-7-05) at approximately 5:15pm, I was looking at the moon and saw what appeared to be a star directly east of the moon. I could see Venus to the west and Mars was not yet visible. I watched the "star" for about three minutes trying to figure out what star would be brighter than Mars (although nowhere near as bright as Venus). It was still too early to see Deneb or Capella and that is why I was paying so much attention to the "star" because I couldn't figure out what star could be seen so early. (Although it had set in the valley, the sun was still shinning on the mountain tops) After three or so minutes the "star" had disappeared so it clearly was not a star. My conclusion was that I was seeing the reflection of the Sun off of some object, but clearly it was not a plane, as it did not change position relative to the Moon for at least three minutes. So what was it? My uneducated "guess" is that it was a satellite but I didn't know if a satellite could give off enough of a reflection to look like a star so I am asking those of you who know a whole lot more than I do about such things; what was it? Ed L

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Ed, I am certain a satellite would not stay in the same position for any length of time. It would not be near the moon for even 15 seconds. So my guess is it's a -- no, I won't say it. It was a flying object that we can't identify, let it go at that. Thanks, Joe