A Little Bit of Astronomy: the vertical white light of 10 March 1996

What was reported

Around 10 March 1996 Hind took several calls about a long vertical white light seen from Johannesburg, across Botswana and into Zimbabwe. One caller likened it to a cigarette, another to a snake crawling across the heavens, moving slowly and then fading among the stars; one witness watched for about four minutes and was joined by two others. The Mercury in Natal reported that Dr John Caldwell of the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town identified it as the 20 km tether of the American-Italian tethered satellite that had broken free from the shuttle Columbia; sunlight on the finger-width cable was what people saw, and it burned up in the atmosphere a few days later.

What Hind made of it

Solved: the broken tether of the shuttle Columbia's tethered satellite system.

Explanation offered
Tethered satellite system cable from shuttle Columbia reflecting sunlight, identified by Dr John Caldwell of the SAAO via the Natal Mercury

In their words

• what people were seeing was the reflection of the sun on the tether, which was the width of a human finger!

Cross references

• The Shape Changer, Case No 120 (14-13-1)
• Venus calls, May 1996 (14-16-2)

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 14 (July 1996), spread 16