Expert: Philip Stahl - 11/18/2008

Question
Hello Philip, this has bugged me for ages. I'm a professional sailor and have spent many evenings in the middle of oceans away from any light pollution. One such evening while roughly in the center of the Atlantic I was trying to learn my constellations for a celestial navigation exam when my eye was drawn to a particular star almost directly above. The reason it caught my eye was that the star was increasing in size and brightness over the course of maybe a second or two. Just as suddenly it pulsed into an expanding ring (like a Star Trek explosion) which radiated and dissapated very rapidly (perhaps a second). At the time I was pretty sure the bright star wasn't in the place that I'd first noticed it. If I were to guess I'd say the whole thing took about three seconds. What do you reckon? Am I nuts? I look forward to your reply. Regards, Christian.

Answer
Hello,

Given the absence of much more (specific) data it is virtually impossible to even speculate as to what you witnessed. For example, one would need to know:

1- Time (UT) of the sighting

2- Date, year

3- Identification of any nearby stars and brightness relative to the object or anomaly.

4- Relative motion in degrees per second (or per minute).

5- Direction of relative motion.

6- Change in brightness (using apparent magnitude scale) and duration of change.

In the absence of more particulars, all one can say with certainty is that it was a possibly anomalous, transient optical phenomenon of the atmosphere.

Which, admittedly, isn't saying a whole lot!