Name: Sam
City: Oxford
Date: 19/9/08 10:30 pm
Location: Almost due West from our description; slightly higher than a cruising aeroplane and approximately the same size.
Message: My Dad and myself were in our garden and were gazing at the sky having just seen a shooting star. My Dad pointed out what he thought was a satellite moving from north to south about halway in between the horizon and the point directly above us.

We were shocked to see this object (which emitted a light brighter than that of any stars in the region), stop in it's tracks and then move left and up in a zig-zag pattern. It then stopped and hung in the sky several points south of due west. It occasionally emitted a thin trail of light, presumably to follow the orbit of the earth because, for more than half an hour it did not appear to move at all. We checked back after ten minutes and it was still present. I have continued to check often and now, after another half hour, it seems to have disappeared.

We agreed at the time that it was too fast and too agile to be plane, satellite or weather ballon and far too high to be a helicopter. I would estimate it to have been somewhere in th e upper atmosphere. I have never seen an aircraft move so quickly and then stop completely stationary.

This is the strangest thing I have ever seen in the sky.