I dont' know if this qualifies for a mass hysteria, but listen to this. In Novemebr of 2001, My brother, two cousins and I were leaving the field after a day of deer hunting. It was dark and we were standing around the trucks talking. After a while my one cousin said he could see a star moving. We stood around looking at it. It did appear to be moving, not much, but about a degree across the sky in circles or random patterns.

I couldn't see it moving at first, but as they talked and shouted: "it's moving left" or "it's circling", I thought I could see movement. Well, being astronomy minded, I took out a napkin and pen and jotted down a little star chart for later identification.

Turns out it was the star Formalhaut. It wasn't moving. And I could still swear it was moving and they all say I'm a liar.
I was wondering what conditions could actually make a star appear to move like that. Notes: no other stars appeared to move, it was low on the horizon, there were some trees in the way.

The only thing I can think of is that our eyes locked onto the trees as a coordinate system, as they moved it appeared the stars were moving. This seems unlikely, however, as the trees weren't really visible. It was very dark.
Thanks for any help,
Mongo

I'm not sure if this is the explanation for what you saw, but it's a candidate.

Most people don't realize it, but out eyes are moving all the time. These micro-tremors are fairly small, and our brains normally cancel out the effect when there's a good solid reference (like the walls and floor of a room, or a well-defined, fixed object in the field of view).

But when you're looking at an essentially black field with scattered bright points, there's not enough of a reference, so your brain can't cancel out the random motions. It's very easy to think that objects are moving when they're not.

As to why our eyes do this, I'm not sure, but as an engineer I would guess that it is beneficial to our perception of moving objects. It reminds me of an underdamped feedback system, in which you tend to get very rapid response to changes, but at the cost of some "overshoot and ringing".

In visual terms, you'd get very quick detection of motion at the cost of some uncertainty in its location. But after you run it through the "motion cancelling" filter in our brain, the visual field seems stable, except for objects that are really in motion, or in special circumstances like those you describe.

If this theory is correct, you'd expect the "moving stars" effect to be less pronounced when there was a more visible reference in the field of view... that is, if those trees were more clearly visible.

<Quote>"The only thing I can think of is that our eyes locked onto the trees as a coordinate system, as they moved it appeared the stars were moving. This seems unlikely, however, as the trees weren't really visible. It was very dark."</Quote>

Most likely the trees even though it was dark, however if there were clouds nearby this could also be the cause. A few weeks ago I thought I saw the ISS... turned out to be Jupiter with clouds moving quickly around it after a few more seconds of inspection... I think I just wanted to see ISS again and as I was half asleep, I jumped to conclusions...

The explanation I've usually heard is that the movement keeps the retina (and associated "machinery") from desensitizing - if one gives a nerve cell the same stimulus for a long time, it stops reacting. So you wouldn't be able to see anything until you moved your eyes!

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Now, my family were the ones who could obviously see the movement. When one of them said it was moving, the others would agree, and I would say "Where?".

Of course, I'm experienced with looking at the night sky and actually know what I'm looking at, though it still appeared to move occasionally even to me. But it still seems strange that my cousin just happened to notice it. Believe me, after a day of hunting, you aren't really concerned with anything but food or sleep.

I'm starting to lean toward the tree idea. Or maybe a special arrangement of black holes was in the area of the light coming from Formalhaut.

Mongo

You say it was low in the sky. A possibility is that it was undulations in the layers of air you were looking through. As you would see an object on the bottom of a swimming pool move as the surface undulates with waves so the stars can wobble as their light is refracted through the air.

SAMU

Have you ever stood in the middle of a very dark room, where the only visible light is a red l.e.d.? It's wonderful; after a few minutes, that puppy is FLYING! It looks like it's moving everywhichaway! It's just the brain trying to make sense of an image, but, wow, it's impressive (and humbling: we are, by our nature, very poor at certain kinds of observation.)

Silas

I would like to confirm I have just seen something similar.

After a meal I went outside for a smoke, I generally look up and gaze at the stars. I noticed a very faint object lit up just like a jet but didn't hear anything such as the turbine engines which suggests it was very very high. As I watched it move south it suddenly lit up very bright and then shortly after the light went off. It continued to move south and then stopped south-east of another star. It has been sitting there without any movement for the past 30 minutes. I have noticed 2 shooting stars to the east and west of this moving object.

I love astronomy, and I can identify some constellations but I can't identify every star in the sky so all I can say is its about 60-80 degress in the south-eastern portion of the sky. It is sitting south-south-east below another more faint star. It seems to be have blinking red lights on the outer edges and 2 blue lights toward the center.

If whatever this is really is a star then it should be possible to find on a star chart but if it was actually moving then it shouldn't show up on star charts.

*UPDATE*

I keep looking outside to see if its there, and it is. It even seems to be moving at the same pace with all the other stars and its pretty much straight up in the sky but still in the south-eastern portion of the sky. I can't believe what I saw is just turning out to look like another star...

It's about an hour or so later and the stars have moved and some clouds have made it difficult to observe what I was observing earlier.

Although, as the clouds were passing by I saw a very visible bright flash below the original object I was looking at.

Also, the original object I was looking at is now in a different position according to the star it was nearby. Earlier it was to the south-east of the star above, but now it is to the south-west of the star above.

This cannot be a star or else it would be moving at the same pace as all the other stars.

I was searching around on the internet too try and explain what i saw one night. I was on a cruise ship in the bahamas, on the top deck with about 10 other people. As we were laying there i noticed a slow miving star, i made an attempt to point it out when all the sudden it darted right then left then up, basically zig zagging through the sky and then seemed to warp back out into the dark. At that same moment 4 other people stood up and in amazment. I understand this theory of rapid eye movement...but to have that strange patten be seen by 5 different people at the same time blows my mind.....if anyone has any other theorys i'd like to hear em.

I hate to say it but: if you sit outside on a clear nite and look beyond the trees with your naked eye, eventually you will see what look like stars moving across the sky; "moving stars" no other explanation? too slow for "shooting stars" and too fast for satellites, but yet they weave too. Do it and if nothing the first time try again a few times, youll see them, and im a rational individual talking im not crazy, but look and youll see.

Me and 7 other people have actually witnessed this "moving star phenomenon", and i believe it has nothing to do with your brain. These stars move slow and some in patterns. One strange pattern we seen was a circle, then they straightened out into a line. It may seem crazy, but we all seen them.

Hello, I just signed up for this site. im not eve sure what it is all about but I wanted to post on this topic. I have also seen stars do some pretty crazy things. Back around 2000-2003 I used to see a lot of weird things happen with stars. there would be unusually bright stars out and then I would go inside for a few minutes, come back out and it would be gone. One night I was outside with some friends and some friends of theirs and I was looking up at the stars as I often do and I saw a star zig zag up, down, left & right at a very fast pase. then it stopped and faded out like a halogen light bulb. It looked just like a star. it was very high up in the sky on a crystal clear night. it was the exact same color as regular blue-ish star.

The phenomenon which Donnie B described is called autokinesis. It can make a star, or stars, appear to move in random jerky patterns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autokinesis

__________________
Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense- Novella Contest Issue! . OA Flickr set

If i were by myself when i experienced "AutoKinesis" i would easily accept it. But i was with at least 4 other people that saw the exact same thing at the exact same time. And we stayed out the rest of the night and did not see anything else. I guess my question is can 4 different people experience autokinesis at the same time?

From the link that eburacum45 gave
So yes, if all four people were doing the same thing, staring at a stationary light for 6 to 12 seconds, all four could see the same effect. Why not?

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

After the last shuttle launch, I heard that the shuttle would be visible overhead at a certain time. I went outside to check it out. Looking... looking... then straight overhead, head tilted way back, I thought I saw it... slowly moving farther behind me. I thought I'd turn around so I didn't fall flat on my back. Now where the heck did that go? Then suddenly, here comes the shuttle. Unmistakable. It was very bright and really moving along. It almost looked like an airplane cruising along - with no noise. I figured I hallucinated the "moving star." I think the power of suggestion comes into play in such an instance.

__________________
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

I know 3 people who saw these moving stars too on three separate occasions. I myself saw something that looked exactly like a moving star only it was the middle of the day and sunny out so I don't if its the same thing it was also the only one in the sky. Anyone ever see a moving morning star?

Venus, the Morning Star, has been observed to move due to autokinesis on occasion, so yes, definitely.

__________________
Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense- Novella Contest Issue! . OA Flickr set

thanks eburacum45 thats interesting to know however this star made a large, and quicker than a plane, rectangular trip through the sky. I and another person with me at the time were able to keep our eyes on it the entire time and trace it along with our fingers. This was in Central Park New York so we finally lost it over the tree line but the area we were at had no trees it was a large clearing.

A "rectangular trip through the sky"? You mean its path actually formed the shape of a rectangle? How big an area of the sky did this rectangle cover? Was it a sunny day and what time of day was it? Might it have been an airplane at high altitude, maybe in a holding pattern?

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009