What the 'ell was that?

Something at great height (50,000 ft + ?) has just screamed over the house. Sounded like a Lightning on steroids - from horizon to horizon it was audible for about three seconds at most. Have never heard anything approaching this speed EVER - pretty spooky! ----Rik

A UFO?

Blackbird spy plane. They are still flying.

According to a number of sources it was retired in the late 1990s.

We had a lecture last year at the gliding club by an ex-SR71 pilot. He stated that the aircraft was retired in 1990, briefly brought back in limited numbers and then retired again in the late 1990s. Of the 32 aircraft built 12 were lost in accidents and the other 20 are accounted for in museums.

Andrew

The Aurora Project?

Alternatively we could be highly fashionable and blame the Russians.

What else could it be then?

Just watched the news, nothing reported on there, guess that means it was either the Military or a UFO!

A few days too early for high speed Reindeer.

Ufo's are normally reported to be totally silent (even at close proximity), so my guess would be military plane. Which military would be anyone's guess.

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 18/12/2016 23:49:53

Surely if it were that fast you'd have heard a sonic boom? Something doesn't sound right if it managed to go from horizon to horizon at 50k feet (10 miles) like that. Sure it wasn't a firework or the neighbours or a bad bottle of wine?

Murray

Out in the mid Atlantic Concorde would pass over you at 60,000 feet and the double boom went right through you, it sounded like a crankcase explosion in an engine room generator, it was pure raw power

There's no escaping that sonic boom if the object is in the atmosphere and it's going fast enough

We never heard Concordes engines though

When I was on a small ship anchored in Bahrain, I could watch the Concorde flight take off from Manama on the ship's radar. Wait for the engines roar and then see only three or four blips across the screen as the plane went off down the runway and into low altitude. Once above about 50 - 100 feet, it was lost. At about 1/2 mile, the roar was deafening.

Those the days before Concorde was allowed into the U.S.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

About once a year the RAF choose my valley for practice... and two planes scream through at 400feet taking that sort of 3 secs to pass. Once and once only I happened to be outside to see them skim the low ridge at the end. The acoustics are such that one is surrounded by the sound and you could easily think it's overhead instead of 150yds away and 400 feet up.

The sides of my valley go almost to 1000 feet (average 600) and about 1/2 mile apart.

The frist time it happened I almost laid an egg and soured my milk.

Possibly a pair of aircraft lit up their afterburners for a few seconds and spaced in a way that you heard it as one aircraft travelling from horizon to horizon.

Martin

Space rock?

It might be a good idea to check up on others in the neighbourhood and ask if they heard anything unusual, if it bothers you that much that is. The chances are other people around might have got a better look at it.

I once heard an F16 and a Eurofighter typhoon in flight, they were miles away but it sounded like they were right ontop of me. You definitely hear these jet beasts moving. I think they were practising manoeuvres or possibly responding to a control tower call.

Possibly the loudest I've heard was a chinook twin rotor helicopter, it was probably about 120 feet above me and boy they make a racket!  Even at a distance there's just a gentle rumble in your stomach that graduates to a roar as it gets nearer. In the areas around Hampshire there seems to be a lot of helicopter training.

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 19/12/2016 14:51:31

I recall a TV news story from decades ago.

The Concorde guys went supersonic too quickly and this chaps house on the Isle of Wight had a great big crack running from the roof gutter down to his front door

Back in the day the loudest ever was said to be the f111, but then having been to a Airshow and been underneath an EE Lightening going vertical all I wanted to do was jam my elbows into my stomach whilst still blocking my ears.