One of the most common explanations thrown out for UFOs is that people are seeing the planet Venus. This is probably the second most common explanation after “it’s a weather balloon.” But what happens when people are actually seeing a planet? More fuel for the fire, I suppose. Lots of stories are floating around now about how people are seeing Jupiter, which is at it’s closest point to the earth since 1963, and reporting it as a UFO. One such story tells of this happening in Washington, but there are plenty more like this on the web:
The Jupiter UFO. Clever, ain’t it?
PORT ANGELES, Wash. — Clallam County Undersheriff Ron Peregrin says his dispatchers received several early morning calls from folks worried that a shiny object in the dark sky might be a UFO.
He says staffers grabbed their binoculars and were able to reassure the Thursday morning callers that the object was just Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system.
Jupiter has been dramatically big and bright in the night sky in recent days. Last week it passed 368 million miles from Earth, its closest approach since 1963.
I’ve seen Jupiter in the night sky this weekend, and I honestly don’t know how anyone would get “UFO” from it. North Star, maybe. Venus, definitely. really big star, sure. But I’m not sure what about it made people think that this was out of the ordinary. Lots of UFO sighting are explainable, and this one just proves that point.
