Message posted by Steve Douglass on July 24, 2005 at 22:05:14 PST:
Had an interesting sighting of a fast mover tonight over Amarillo that caught me and a friend quite by surprise. Shortly after 10 PM (as we were coming home from a movie) I spotted a bright yellowish light in the southwestern sky moving at high speed right toward us. I first thought it was the International Space Station which I have seen on many passes over the city but as it neared the bright light suddenly switched off and was repalced by a red blinking anti-colison strobe. As it flew directly overhead we could see three red lights (including the flashing one) arranged in a triangle shape with the flashing beacon on the south facing (right) side of the craft. It was moving very fast (much faster than a passing airliner (we also spotted) and also appered to be gaining altitude. Our guesstimation was it was climbing up well over 100,000 feet but with nothing but black sky to see it against it (like high clouds) it's just an estimation compared with other commecial aircraft transittting the area. No sonic booms or jet engine noise was heard . We watched as it dissapeared in the north east in less than 5 minutes (speeding across the entire sky) fater than anything else in the air at the time. Although it seemed to move as fast as satellites and the I.S.S. across the sky, I don't think it was either because of the strobes and lights. Both my friend and I came to the conclusion that it was climbing to altitude and from the direction it had come it might have orginated in from one of the test ranges in New Mexico. I turned on my aero band scanner that I have in my car but heard no transmissions out of the ordinary either from commercial air carriers in teh area or ATC.
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