Intriguing smoke trail and "aircraft"
 

The evening before last as I was getting off my train, I overheard two chaps say "well if it's a firework then it's a hell of a one". I looked up and saw a large smoke trail in the distance, heading up at an angle between 35 and 45 degrees. Scanning to the end of it, I could see an object not unlike an aircraft travelling at what looked like reasonable speed and with a flashing light at the tip. The odd part was as I walked over the bridge I could see towards the start of the smoke trail - and it had begun vertically, for maybe 1000ft, then speared off at an angle.

This was in a semi-urban/suburban area (east of London - I was in Upminster and I was looking towards central London). By the time I'd reached my car five minutes later, it was still flying, still heading upwards at the same angle, out towards the coast.

Any idea what I might have seen? The only thing I can think of that launches like that is a missile, but we don't get a lot of those in Essex :-)

I would guess you saw an aircraft departing from London City. In Upminster you would be more or less looking along the runway, if you could see it, therefore any aircraft leaving a smoky trail would appear to be climbing vertically until it makes its first turn. In this case the turn sounds as if it was to the south, sending it towards France, or somewhere like that.

Chemtrails mate - defo - make sure you aren't being followed - they monitor these threads for signs of......arrggggghhhh.......

LoadToad: :-)

MacBoero: Thanks, yes that sounds plausible. I wish I'd had a set of binoculars on me :-( I shall keep my eyes open for any future occurrences.

Nah... it's Aurora on finals...

Someone pointed out to me once an aeroplane that was 'climbing vertically'. What we were looking at was a distant high altitude aeroplane coming directly towards us. I have always been bewildered by people who can't resolve this in their minds! Similarly, aeroplanes coming towards you, but to one side will appear to be climbing at a steep angle. How can people not 'see' this? Can you trust anybody's description of a UFO encounter if their comprehension of a situation like this is so bad?

In another life I was an investigator for a UFO group and several of the cases I dealt with were explained by person(s) seeing aircraft at great distance. Joe Public is probably little used to observing such things so they can cause concern. An example was someone walking a dog in north London early one morning before sunrise. They saw a bright light to the southeast which slowly descended and then turned sharply to their right, gained speed and vanished. It turned out to be an aircraft inbound to Heathrow from the Lydd direction which "vanished" as it turned on to final approach.

I thought there was a photo in Monday or Tuesdays London Lite, or The London Paper which purported to show an aircraft travelling vertically somewhere over east London.

If I remember I'll have a look for it over the weekend.

Similar to Heathrow Director's post, if you travel down the M66 in Gtr Manchester to Middleton Rd from the M62 junction on a bright, clear winter night it is possible to see aircraft bound for Manchester heading North before turning finals for 23R.

At that point the distance between the observer and the aircraft can be over 15 miles.

With landing lights on they can be seen at first as a small dot of light. As you travel roughly South and the aircraft travels North the aircraft light appears to stand still yet grow rapidly in size as the closing distance decreases.

At its "maximum" size the light then rapidly diminishes and vanishes.

What actually happens is the aircraft turns onto finals for 23R and the landing lights point away from the observer. As at that point the aircraft is many miles from the observer, strobes are unlikely to be seen, there is no noise and the light appears to have been a mirage. On busy nights with multiple arrivals from the South more than one aircraft can be seen at once, the lights can appear to dance and some reports of UFOs from people who have seen the phenomenon have talked of lights appearing, growing, vanishing and then repeating the cycle!

How easily human observation can be fooled!

Sounds like an empty RJ!

:D