It was twinkling in an April sky-quite a bright star almost as bright as Sirius and it was fairly near to the horizon. I was aware of it for most of the evening being sat outside. After talking with friends I glanced again at the sky and noticed it had disappeared. I should note that during it being there and then disappearing I was lucky enough to see a shooting star race across the sky above our heads-it came from the general direction of the ‘star’-it made a noise too i recall as it passed overhead. Maybe I should have looked at the star then to see if it had gone. The sky seemed empty without it. Anyone experienced something similar? I’ve been in awe ever since.
Yes, good weed can do that for you.
djm
quick to judge you are
when they don’t share
Hehe nope wasn’t on weed, i wasn’t intoxicated either i was sat beneath a coincidentally changeing sky and I thought i was going slightly mad…
Sometimes when I’ve seen a meteorite I’ve heard a sort of “sizzle” if the surroundings are quiet. It does make it more real somehow. Must be a hell of a racket up there, if you can hear it on the ground.
Yep like a ‘fffffffffffffffffffffffff’ noise i think. Saw its glowing trail too which was pretty cool. I wonder why the star disappeared from the sky or was it a star…
I’ve had the same experience. I never expected to be able to hear anything, and was thunderstruck.
My first thought is that the shooting star and the disappearing thingum were probably not one and the same. Not that I exactly believe in them, but a UFO, maybe? 
Something in the distance may have obscured the star as well.
Couldn’t have been a UFO though. Why? Because while there is most certainly extra-terrestrial life, maybe even intelligent life, such life forms would have absolutely no good reason to come visit such a backwater solar system.
Ah, but we have Starbuck’s.
Meh. That just means the only visitors we’ll get will be the dregs of intergalactic society.
It just somehow needed that…
Until it is identified it remains, by definition, a UFO. 
If it was visible for most of the evening then it was not a meteor, and it is unlikely that the subsequent shooting star was directly associated with the bright “star”.
From your description it sounds more like a planet. I’m a bit rusty on what is where at this time, but Venus and Jupiter are frequently very bright in the sky, and Venus particularly is at it’s brightest low in the sky at early evening (or morning, depending when observed) - and it is bright.
Because it’s nearer the sun than we are, it always appears roughly in a similar direction to that of the rising or setting sun. I don’t think it ever gets further away than about 40 or 50 degrees from the sun as viewed from here.
Without further info, my money would be on Venus. It can be a striking sight. Checked out through a good telescope it does the phases thing like the moon does. Cool.
hah! I’ll see yer Venus and raise ya Jupiter!
Skipped right by Mars…
coming soon to a sky near you
http://astroblogger.blogspot.com/2008/11/venus-jupiter-and-moon-awesome-lineup.html
It baffles me as it was twinkling (ive heard that stars twinkle but planets dont). Its glow was very slightly golden.
I had a look on web link http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/625665/Venus
Quote " The rotation of Venus on its axis is unusual in both its direction and its speed. The Sun and most of the planets in the solar system rotate in a counterclockwise direction when viewed from above their north poles; this direction is called direct, or prograde. Venus, however, rotates in the opposite, or retrograde, direction."
It was quite near to the horizon, so if it was Venus i’m thinking is it possible it slipped out of visual range somehow given its orbit goes the other way-I really have no idea!
Is it possible it was so bright that it gave off a twinkling aura? (not aurora 
that would just confuse things more!)
could have been atmosphere interference
yer confusing spin with orbit
she’s just upside down
sun comes up in the west
we’ve been upside down before
ya probably don’t remember it, long time ago
just stop with this part
Planets do on occasion twinkle. I’ve experienced this more then once inside the city where I live. I’ve awaken in the early dark morning to find brilliant Venus twinkling just like all the other stars, it was cold, and there was a slight breeze on the ground, which means the wind speed was probaby much faster at altitude. As I understand it, the reason why stars twinkle is due to disturbances in the atmosphere, because stars are so small (they appear as small points of light through binonculars or even a small telescope) and so because they’re so small, the light rays that they send are essentially disrupted as they go through the Earth’s atmosphere and ultimately into our eye. Part of those disturbances, is temperature, loads of different temperatures in the Earth’s atmosphere… Think of a hot day, and looking down the road and seeing “mirages” or heat waves coming off the ground is what they really are, notice how they distort your vision, and really make if you will, a twinkling appearance to whatever’s behind. Same deal with the stars, but because of their small size, the light they send is more subjective to being distorted. Back to planets, planets don’t normaly twinkle because of their ever so slightly larger size. A pair of 8x40 bincoluars will reveal this. Take those same bincolars and point them at any star, and they’ll still be a fine point of light. (Some would also say stars twinkle because of their relatively further distance, but since there have been no reports from astronauts only hundreds of miles off the ground saying stars were twinkling I disagree, which is also one reason why the Hubble is so successful in taking crystal clear photos, no atmosphere to contend with, and obviously no polution too… Only Asteroids. haha) Because of that, the light rays they send aren’t as vulnerable to being distorted like their sister stars are. This is why the moon doesn’t not twinkle, it’s so big and bright it overrides any Earthly disturbance.
So planets do twinkle, just not as much, or even sometimes just not as noticeably as the stars do. If you spend enough time looking at the heavens you’ll know what I’m talking about.
As to what you saw… I would need more info or had to have been there to see it. Perhaps Area 51 is up to their bags of tricks and toys again. As for the meteor you saw, well that was a meteor… Never heard a sizzling sound off of one before, but I have seen some very bright ones while night-fishing, so bright they left a glowing trail accross the sky which lasted for a couple seconds, pretty neat actually.
and cosmic dust
Neither planets nor stars “twinkle”. That effect is caused by turbulence in the earth’s atmosphere. It’s just more readily apparent in stars since they deliver us so much less light than planets. If it was bright, white, steady, and on the western horizon in the early evening, it’s a fair bet that was Venus. Jupiter can also be very bright, Mars not so much (and it’s redder). Anyway, “shooting star” is a misnomer that confuses a lot of people.
Strewth! Kewl!!! 