In January 1969, Jimmy Carter and about ten others outside a Lions Club meeting in Leary, Georgia, watched a bright white light low in the west. It changed to blue and then red over several minutes. Venus is the most likely explanation. It was very bright that evening, sat low in the west at a matching height, and is one of the most common things people report as an unknown light. A bright low star like Altair also fits, since low stars twinkle and flash colors through the air, though it scores a little lower. A drone or sky lantern stays possible but weaker, because nothing in the record points to either. This write-up relies on the original account and sky data, not new first-hand detail.
From the archive: the WTH team wrote this up from a real event that was widely reported at the time, to show how the checks work. The sources are at the end of the description.
From the archive · #5wxfs8dudepd
The light Jimmy Carter saw over Leary, Georgia, in 1969
Case closed: it was a planetWant answers like this first in Google? Add WTH Was That? as a preferred source.
Sky Snapshot 7:15 PM, give or take 15 minutes
- Sky
- astronomical twilight
- Moon
- waning gibbous, below the horizon
- Planets up
- Venus (25°), Saturn (63°)
- Bright stars
- Sirius (east 3°), Vega (northwest 8°), Capella (northeast 47°), Rigel (southeast 26°)
- Weather
- mostly clear, wind 13 km/h
- Space weather
- quiet (Kp 0)
- Sunset
- 5:49 PM
Download the snapshot card to share it anywhere.
What people saw
- When
- Jan 6, 1969, 7:15 PM GMT-5
- Where
- Leary, Georgia, US
- Looking
- west, low in the sky
- Lasted
- 5 minutes
- Looked like
- one, white/blue/red, orb, still
- Sound
- none
On a January evening in 1969, years before he became president, Jimmy Carter and about ten other people outside a Lions Club meeting in Leary, Georgia, watched a bright light about 30 degrees up in the western sky. Carter said it looked about as bright as the Moon, seemed to move toward them and stop, and changed color from white to blue to red over about ten minutes. He filed a report in 1973.
The usual explanation, worked out by researchers Robert Sheaffer and Allan Hendry, is Venus, which was near its brightest that night and low in the west right where the group was looking. Low in the sky, Venus twinkles and shifts color through the air. Carter himself never accepted that, and a 2020 analysis suggested a barium release from a rocket launched in Florida that evening instead.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_UFO_incident
From above the area, the way they looked, and what was overhead
The map needs JavaScript. The checks below list everything it shows.
The circle is the area the report came from, rounded to about 10 km. We never show a witness's exact spot.
See it in 3D on the Sky Globe, at the moment it was seen
What it could be
-
Venus (bright planet) Likely100%
- +10Venus was above the horizon and bright (magnitude -4.4).
- +10Venus gets reported as an unknown light more than anything else in the sky.
- +30It was in the W where you were looking.
- +10Its height above the horizon matches.
- +20A light that just sits there is the planet signature (it drifts west slowly with the sky).
- +15Visible for a long time, like a planet.
- +5One steady light.
-
Bright star (twinkling) Likely91%
- +25Altair (magnitude 0.77) was 6° up in that direction.
- +10Low in the sky, where a bright star twinkles hardest.
- +15Low bright stars flash red, green and blue through turbulent air.
- +8Twinkling is strongest near the horizon.
- +15A fixed position fits a star.
- +10Stays for a long time.
-
Drone Possible70%
- +20Hovering in place is the drone move.
- +10Consumer drones carry small red, green and white LEDs.
- +10Drones fly low.
- +10Flight times of a few minutes fit.
-
Sky lantern Possible58%
- +10Night sighting.
- +20Orange flickering glow is a sky lantern.
- +20Drifts slowly with the wind, often rising.
- +5Silent.
- +10Visible for a few minutes before burning out.
- -15Lanterns glow warm orange, not white or blue.
-
Military parachute flares Possible58%
- +5Night, when flares are used and seen.
- +15Parachute flares burn a bright orange-white.
- +10From far away a slowly sinking flare seems to hover.
- +15Each flare burns for several minutes.
- +5Seen low over the horizon, often from far away.
- +5Silent from a distance.
- ·Flares are dropped over military training ranges, so they are most often seen within a hundred miles or so of one.
-
Aircraft Doesn't fit40%
- +15Red and green are navigation lights.
- -5A plane flying straight at you can look like it is hovering for a minute or two.
- +10The duration fits.
- -10No blinking and no sound is unusual for an aircraft, unless it was far away.
- ·Flight tracks weren't checked: aircraft are only looked up live, for reports filed within a few minutes.
What we checked
- Satellites: not checked (orbit data missing)
- Starlink trains: not checked
- Launches: none within 90 minutes and 3,000 km
- Aircraft: not checked (no flight history feed yet)
- Planets and Moon: Venus, Saturn, and the Moon was down
- Space weather: quiet (Kp 0)
- Weather: mostly clear
- Meteor showers: none active
How we worked this out
We took a snapshot of the sky from 15 minutes before to 15 minutes after Jan 7, 1969, 12:15 AM UTC at 31.48, -84.51, and scored 21 possible explanations. Each one starts from how common it is, then gains or loses points for every detail the witness gave and every record we found. The points are listed next to each reason above. "Likely" means 80% or more and "Possible" means 50 to 79%. Anything lower doesn't fit, and if nothing reaches 50%, the case stays unexplained.
Sources: launch schedule from Launch Library 2; planetary Kp from GFZ Potsdam; weather from Open-Meteo; Sun, Moon and planet positions worked out on our server with astronomy-engine. Engine 0.4.0, snapshot v2, worked out Oct 29, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC.
Not available for this report: satellite passes.
Discussion 0 replies
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