NASA Seeks Help Identifying UFO Over Haleakala and Mauna Kea

The astronomy obsessed Hawaii is buzzing over a UFO over Mauna Kea and Haleakala on December 17, 2004. A moving image of the UFO (380K) was published as NASA’s photo of the day today (Feb. 8). Officials ruled out known satellites or aircraft. Current candidates include a known satellite that was somehow missed by heavens-above, a recently launched rocket, and a passing space rock. NASA has set up a ***VERY BUSY*** discussion thread to discuss it. One poster wrote: “What is truly bizarre is that this object is visible for a good 55 minutes at Haleakala and close to 30 minutes at Mauna Kea. Usually, satellites take a few dozen seconds or, at the most, a couple of minutes to cross the entire sky. “If this object is a satellite, it is either very slow moving or at a very high altitude. I checked all the possibilities at Heavens-Above and no satellite passes seem to fit this observation. It is also impossible to be a meteorite.” For what it is worth the 16-foot asteroid that passed in December flew between earth’s manmade satellites and the surface and was the second closest recorded approach in history. It appeared with virtually no warning. At the risk of giving a spoiler, the conensus on the board was that it was a satellite.