UFO Floats Over Hawaii

Telescope on Haleakala captures debris of streaking booster, not related to Oct. 24 sighting

A mysterious object shaped like a whale with flashing lights floated over the skies above Hawaii on Saturday, Oct. 24. Many who witnessed the flying object were convinced that it was a space ship from outer space.

"I know it was a space ship from another planet," said one observer on Kauai. Like-minded observers agreed that what they witnessed was an interplanetary ship. 

The occupants of said ship were likely benign visitors checking things out on the magical island chain.

Wait a minute. Could they not have been malicious invaders, ready to take a sampling of the human species home for dinner? That concept was explored by the late great Rod Serling in one of his Twilight Zone episodes.

What appeared to be an opportunity for a gay holiday on a distant planet, turned out to be a grocery run for the odd-looking visitors from space.

Nearly  6,000 strange sightings were reported in the skies of the U.S. and Canada during 2019, according to the National UFO Reporting Center, an increase of almost 2,500 such sightings during 2018.

The Reporting Center simply counts sightings, without further information. No follow up is done. These sightings could be anything from a planet to a red-and-green lighted drone shooting video of your neighborhood.

"Many people are not aware of astronomical goings on in space," according to a spokesperson for the UFO reporting center. "For instance, Jupiter and Venus have been more visible in the night sky."

Space X -- an Elon Musk enterprise -- launched 180 new satellites last year. Satellites currently crisscross the heavens, appearing like bright moving stars at night. The sky is becoming as congested as the Los Angeles freeway interchanges.

The UFO that was sighted over Hawaii was, according to Professor Richard Wainscoat of the University of Hawaii, most likely the re-entry of a spent rocket booster that launched a Venezuelan satellite, Venesat-1.  Venezuela? Who knew?

Wainscoat surmised that the spent rocket has been circling Earth since its launch in 2008, 12 years ago! That's not the satellite itself, but the launcher. Outer space may very well be more crowded than our freeway systems!

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, which maintains a database of active satellites in orbit, as of April 1, 2020, there were a total of 2,666 satellites in space, of which 1,918 were in low-Earth orbit. The United States has 1,308 satellites in orbit, followed by China at 356, Multinational 177 and Russia 167. More than half of the satellites in space are for commercial purposes.

Wainscoat says that debris of used rockets, like the one that launched Venesat-1, come back to Earth. The so-called Spacecraft Cemetery, where many of these craft ultimately de-orbit, is located in the Southern Pacific Ocean at Point Nemo, the oceanic point of inaccessibility, farthest from any land.

In the big picture, the Hawaiian islands are practically neighbors of the Spacecraft Cemetery.

These scientific facts are not necessarily fun or mysterious. They spoil the creative musings of the imagination. We would rather believe in something grand and mystical, or dark and sinister. The raft of conspiracy theories today points this out. 

Many of these theories involve UFOs, including perhaps the most curious conspiracy that man did not land on the moon: that first landing of Apollo 11 with Neil Armstrong and Bud Aldrin on July 20, 1969, was merely a simulation filmed in the desert.

We can make a conspiracy out of anything.

Happy Halloween!