Middle of the night ( of course), flying SIN-UK five years ago, near Aralsk and admiring the numerous flares from the gas/oil fields. Suddenly one of these "flares" begins, ever so slowly, to apparently move upwards into the sky........ here I am, 25 years of Aviation, keen amateur astronomer and definite non-believer, wondering if this is my first "UFO" ........up the flare goes, gaining speed and beginning to drift to the right. Then the penny dropped, it was Russian rocket launch...we watched this thing for about 5-10 miniutes, including staging, as it hammered off past our three O'Clock and off horizontally across the NE horizon. We later reckoned we were within 150 km of the launch site but never a squeak from ATC - plenty of air to air chat though
From the web the next day found out it was a Soyuz booster launching an unmanned payload.
Goes to show there's always something out there that can take you by surprise, but in this case it wasn't LGM
Last edited by wiggy; 14th December 2004 at 13:27.