While many nights have seen a few dim lights move across the sky in   
   recent weeks -- with some non-trivial fraction of them apparently in   
   retrograde earth orbit -- we haven't seen bright objects seemingly for   
   ages. Perhaps since the little aircraft started chasing things in the   
   sky after the Big Melbourne Covid Lock-down ended earlier in the year.   
      
   Tonight was a return to The Good Old Times with 4 bright lights, a   
   very bright meteor, and maybe a dozen dim lights crossing the sky over   
   a couple hrs. There were also a couple cases of interaction between   
   "patrol aircraft" and orbs, and even a case of 2 dim lights getting   
   close to each other and one seemingly swerving to avoid a close   
   encounter of the hard kind.   
      
   I've developed a habit -- perhaps similar to some other readers of the   
   group ;) -- of going outside on nights that are not teaming with rain   
   or blowing an Antarctic hurricane in my face -- and watching the sky   
   for at least 1 hr, and tonight maybe 3 hrs, to see what's going on.   
      
   I'm increasingly amazed that some people that report seeing odd things   
   in the sky just see the one thing. Or the one formation. Don't they   
   sit down and watch what happens next?  Am I the only other hillbilly   
   that has taken inspiration from Close Encounters to sit and just watch   
   the entertainment for as long as I can stand it? Maybe. It seems   
   no-one in AUS is much interested in these things with UFO reports   
   seemingly at near all time lows and some state organisations abandoned   
   decades back.   
      
   Anyway. Things get so complicated, and I don't take notes or a tape   
   recorder with me, I tend to get the details a bit confused. But the   
   following is the best to my recollection.  The more "spectacular"   
   parts are maybe better recollected.   
      
   Things started off slow. Sometimes near dusk you might see a dim light   
   or 2 go over. Mostly these act like sats.  But I am starting to   
   develop a checklist of things sats don't do and many things I might   
   have one time said "that's probably a satellite" I now can say "that   
   is too fast even for an LEO sat" or "that sat is moving in a   
   retrograde orbit; we supposedly don't launch those". Etc.   
      
   After maybe 10 mins of nothing a light appeared in the middle of Orion   
   and seemed headed W. I.e. retrograde.  After moving maybe 5 deg it   
   faded out.  A min or 2 passed. Then another even brighter light   
   appeared to the N and moved toward Rigel in Orion.  It also faded out   
   shortly after it reached that area.  Within a min or 2 of that there   
   was a BRILLIANT and strangely very slow-moving yellow meteor seemingly   
   moving horizontally toward the NE. That disappeared after 3-4-5 sec.   
      
   A few more mins passed. Then a very dim light came from the E over the   
   N part of the sky and disappeared off to the W.  It seemed to be the   
   same brightness from left to right.  About the mag of a Belt star.   
      
   And then came the first piece of real entertainment of the evening. A   
   very very bright fuzzy yellow orb appeared in the NW close to where   
   the dim light had started, and proceeded to "glide" across the sky. I   
   had a set of "super eye glasses" made up when my vision first started   
   fading. It makes stars look like points.  But the orb still looked   
   fuzzy and maybe 5-10' in diam -- i.e. a quarter of the full moon.   
   At first it seemed to be heading E. But it became clear it was slowly   
   curving toward the SE. A curve in that direction is not "legal" for a sat.   
      
   And local authorities must have agreed something odd had arrived. A   
   big dual prop aircraft appeared from the S, headed N, directly on an   
   intersect course with the gliding yellow orb.  The orb continued to   
   slowly curve S. The plane continued to haul ass N. I sat down to watch   
   what would happen next.   
      
   It seemed the game of chicken was won by the orb.  It just kept coming   
   and the plane decided to drop and do a 180 and head S again. The orb   
   continued and ended up fading by 1 mag stop as it disappeared low in SE.   
      
   Over the next few mins there was a series of very dim lights moving   
   slowly W to E (left to right for me) about 45 deg above the N   
   horiz. Some were high in N sky. Some were low. One after another.   
      
   It was almost like the first dim light had been an advance probe for   
   the fuzzy yellow orb, and these other lights were trailing drones.   
      
   In the next few mins a couple dim lights headed one after another over   
   in my direction from the N, seemingly hovering overhead before   
   deciding to move off to the SW.   
      
   In the last mins of the session 2 dim lights seemed to interact   
   to the N. One had been headed S toward me.  The other had been going W   
   to E. They seemed headed for a collision and the S-going light seemed   
   to drop a little curve and swerve around the point where the 2 seemed   
   to be heading for a tangle.   
      
   Amazing stuff!   
      
   I went inside for some more coffee and came back out a couple more   
   times before midnight. Each time more dim lights were passing by in   
   one or other direction. A small% was going in the wrong   
   direction. Some were going too fast even for an LEO sat. They all had   
   an even brightness even moving around at 11pm with no apparent moon available.   
      
   It was all highly entertaining.   
      
   But then a spooky thing happened. All the bright lights are great. For   
   some reason they do not appear threatening at all to me and the   
   brighter they are the more pleasant goose-bumps I seem to have as they   
   move across the sky.   
      
   But as I was looking N from a chair under my favorite tree in that   
   part of the property I got an impression of a dim, fast-moving object   
   off to my left. Just caught it out of the corner of my left   
   eye. Wasn't sure I had actually seen anything. My eyes are currently   
   pretty bad and I'm effectively totally blind in daylight. I tend to   
   see various blobs and things at the best of times. A lot of junk   
   floating in the eyeballs and ruptured retinas tend to do that.  I even   
   see bright flashes when I move my eyes from one side to the   
   other. That's also part of the retina degeneration.  So I can't always   
   be totally sure of what I saw out of the corner of my eye.   
      
   I got up right away and turned around to see what might have zipped   
   past. Nothing visible in the sky to the S or SW. So maybe it was a   
   phantom. I see them a lot with my dodgy eyes.   
      
   But then a very high-alt aircraft came from the E, haulin ass, and   
   seemingly set on an intersect track with something with something in   
   the SE. The plane had the usual strange array of flashing LED's on the   
   bottom. It zipped off to the SE.   
      
   Within a min that big noisy 2-prop aircraft seen earlier in the   
   evening "running away", with another distinct set of yellow flashing   
   LED's on its underside, appeared low in the E also hauling ass, headed   
   off to an intercept that seemed to be the same place the first   
   aircraft was aiming for.   
      
   So it seems I hadn't seen nothing. Something had zipped past off to my   
   left. It had looked like a long, narrow dimly-lit white cone.   
      
   Of course it could have been anything.  Probably the cover story will   
   be it was a Chinese rocket.   
      
   --   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)