Yowiehunters Forum

Hello,

So a neighbour (female) messaged us to keep a watch out for a guy who appeared to be scamming or casing places in the neighbourhood of Upper Coomera. So my partner and I went to check to see if we could see this guy. I knocked on my neighbour’s door (another neighbour) and explained the situation to make her aware and then my partner went and spoke with original neighbour across the road.

At the same time we were out on the street just before 7.30pm on Wednesday 19 Feb 2020 and it was dark, but with street lights on, it is also very stormy. There was fork lightning going across the sky which made us look up.

I looked up a few times and then noticed a flashing light that looked like an airplane light. It would flash red (one light) and then it would flash off and come back green, just the one light, off in the distance. So, yes it typically looked like a plane light. Flash on green, flash off, flash on red, flash off, the thing that made it curious was that it was not getting bigger or smaller from flying toward us or away from us. It appeared to hold its height and was stable. So I assumed sooner or later it would be still holding that height but getting further away or closer, and after watching for a few minutes, still no change. This meant to me that it was staying still.

The even more curious thing was that it was holding position at the edge of the very stormy dark clouds, where all of the lightning was. That was my concern for the plane. I was listening to my partner talk to the original neighbour and he had also noticed the light and said it doesn’t appear to be moving. So we all looked up and made comments like “yeah” looks like a plane but no movement, maybe a helicopter, and then it turned from being red light on, off, green light on, off, to flashing quicker and moving at high speed straight down in a line and disappeared when it reached the horizon line where the hills are near Wongawallan.

We were looking north west off toward Wongawallan hill.

Planes do take this route. So it’s not unusual to see planes there.

Also we see the odd military plane occasionally.

We also do have the odd helicopter whether it be police helicopter or otherwise. But we often hear it. There was no noise that we could hear from where we were. And the lightning was causing some rumbles.

But my partner loves planes. He can look at a plane in the day time and by its profile shape tell you what kind of plane it is. He is a plane spotter. So for him to find it odd, means something. He is also very sceptical. He and I both love science and he would most always put it down to ‘Occam’s Razor’ and think that the most common sense answer would be the answer and that to create any more reasoning or assumptions would take away from reality.

So again for my partner to also find it very odd is saying something. I also like to think I try to keep my logic and reasoning.

At the time of it disappearing we had nothing more to look at and it started to rain harder so we went inside. That is all I have.

The storm clouds were moving north so it might appear again near the storm clouds the lightning was still going strong. In my reasoning it appeared to be near the ‘energy’ of the storm clouds. It was fantastic lightning.

My partner says it dropped too fast to be an aircraft and too fast to be a drone. I also don’t know why a drone would be flown into or near clouds with lightning.

Also my partner says it continued to flash red and green alternatively when dropping but faster flashing. I thought it was more flashing faster but more silver or white light flashing on and off.

As far as we were both concerned it was at least 3 kilometres away (we measured it using google maps comparing when it first because it dropped behind the first hill toward Hotham Creek.

It would be interesting to see if anyone else reports any odd plane lights near the lightning clouds tomorrow.

I just got my partner to have one more look outside now at 9pm and he said he just saw a plane cross near the same path but he says it was going 20 times slower than what we saw when the “thing” went straight down. Also the lights on the plane that my partner just saw were larger in scale compared to the “thing”.

Thanks for reading.
Cheers Curious Cat.

Interesting post

Can you give a rough estimate of the size of this object? That would be the most important variable to establish since youre pretty sire of its distance being roughly 3 kilometres. Also the possible altitude it was hovering at.

Besides the lights, were you able to catch a glimpse of the objects outline or silohuette? Maybe it was lit up during some flashes of lightning?

The green and red lights. I may have misread your post but im not sure if its clear what youre describing regarding them. Was the red light and the green light separated by any distance. Ie...the red would flash once then a small distance away the green would flash? Or did it seem like the light was in one location (the same light source) and it took turns alternating between green and red. Was there any white light associated with the object flashing intermittently while it was hovering? You mentioned a flashing whitish silver light when it descended rapidly. This is indicative of an aircrafts aft navigational light becoming apparent as the aircraft pitches down to descend. (It could have been obscured by the fuselage of the aircraft while hovering as this light is usually on the tail. ). If so. Then the object was facing you while hovering.

When it dropped down suddenly below your line of sight how much distance in altitude did it appear to loose and how fast? Ie...it dropped 1,000 meters in two seconds etc. If we can get a time range and establish a rate of descent we can use basic trigonometry and work out its speed when it dropped down suddenly and that might give us some clues.

Minus the reported high speed of descent it sounds like an aircraft or drone. You said it was to the north west by Hotham Creek. I figure your vantage point was in one of the neighborhoods off of Reserve Road. And the object was hovering close to Ruffels Road. Maybe over it or in that little valley between the two hills in front of it and the creek. There are a few lodges, a lookout and a resort in that area. It could have been someone operating a drone from one of those locations.

Im thinking probably a drone. I've seen drones move quite fast. Almost unnormally fast. The real question is the size of the object if it was aircraft size and youre confident it went down behind the set of hills in front of Hotham Creek and your estimate of the size is accurate then it doesnt sound like a drone and it raises questions as to what it was.

Keep your eyes peeled and on the lookout for it. It may appear again. Video footage would be best to get if you do see it again.

My first thought was that it may have been a drone closer than you first thought. Perhaps there is someone out there who knows a bit more about typical anti-collision lights than drones are supposed to have when flying at night. From what I have read, they need to be strobing lights but usually a single colour such as red?

That storm you mention was quite small in size but there was a lot of electrical activity especially in the clouds. Here’s a link to the rain radar for it:
https://theweatherchaser.com/radar/IDR6 ... 2FBrisbane

A work colleague was observing it from the western side of the city and said it was one big cloud full of lightning and clear skies everywhere else.

Maybe have flight radar handy next time that will rule out if it's a civilian aircraft but doesn't rule out military or drone

If you can supply time and date and did you think it was descending to Brisbane or Gold Coast airport? Could track down from flight history if there was a plane in the area

The newer 787s and A350s have flashing lights under the fuselage when landing so could be one of those