A wave of reports is coming in from the town of Euclid, Ohio, from folks there who are seeing a mysterious light hovering over Lake Erie and Cleveland. The light, they say, is very bright, lasts for a couple of hours, stays near the horizon, changes colors, and keeps coming back to the same spot night after night.

Here’s an MSNBC report about it:

Could it be an alien visitor from another world?

No, I don’t think so. In fact, I think it is another world. Venus, to be specific.

A Fort Wayne, Indiana website has an interview with one of the witnesses on video, and includes some still shots. Everything in his description, including the photographs, makes me think he and the others are seeing Venus.

Right now, Venus can be seen in the west — the direction to Lake Erie and Cleveland as seen in Euclid — shining brightly just after sunset. It is so bright it can be seen while the sky is still light (I’ve seen Venus in the middle of the day). It appears to hover. Changing atmospheric conditions can affect its color, especially when it’s low to the horizon. It can be seen night after night, in the same spot in the sky.

Sound familiar?

I’m not saying what these people are seeing is in fact Venus, but it sure fits everything I’ve heard in the news reports (sometimes the witnesses describe multiple lights, but when looking to the horizon, especially over a big city, it’s not too unlikely to see planes flying around). In the MSNBC report they talked to the FAA, the military, and others (including a UFO guy from England), but never talked to an astronomer. Hmmph. And note that in these news articles, Venus is never mentioned! That’s mighty peculiar, given how spectacular it is in the west after sunset. It’s really hard to miss. A likely explanation is that it’s not mentioned because it is, in fact, the culprit here.

I’m getting a kick out of just how positive so many people are that this is a flying saucer of some kind. I wonder how many of these folks actually are familiar with the night sky, and would recognize Venus when they see it? That’s why I think very few astronomers (pro or amateur) report UFOs: astronomers tend to know what they’re looking at in the sky.

The next time you hear a report like this, don’t jump to the conclusion that some interplanetary object is making a close encounter… because it may very well be interplanetary, but the encounter may not be terribly close.

Tip o’ the probe to Patrick Kent.

UPDATE:  The riddle remains unsolved and is now open for everyone to try it.  Comments are open.

Here it is!  Finally, the Bonus Riddle.  Real quick, a run-down of “da rules”:  You have until noon CDT Tuesday to submit your guesses.  You submit by email to Tom or Marian.  No comments will be allowed on the post until after noon tomorrow.  Only previous riddle solvers are eligible to compete.  You have three guesses, and only three.  Even if you guess it correctly on the fourth guess, it will be disqualified.  Tom has the final say on any controversial issues.  If not solved by noon CDT Tuesday the 16th, the puzzle will be open for comments and guesses from everybody.

Now, the people eligible to compete are:  Bruce, Adrianus V, Jim, Patricia, Doug, Dwight Decker, Rob, Alejandro, Stuart, Jim Hammill, Nick, Stephen, Jerry Thornton, Roger, Bill, and Curt.  We will be verifying names and “addresses” against your previous blog entries.  It’s not that we don’t trust you, because we do, but we like to be able to prove we gave away the prize to someone other than our cousins or best friends (who are, by the way, ineligible to compete in any of the riddles anyway).

So, without further ado, here are your clues:

The answer is an object.

It was not known to ancient man.

This contains many parts.

Modern studies of this object have only served to deepen its mystery.

While not as big as it appears, it may be more complex than originally thought.

The first of its “kind” found, it has become the most studied.

Has appeared in popular film.

Look at this image:

It is your final clue.

Tom and I wish everyone the best of luck.

One more thing; please put “riddle” in the subject line of your emails so they don’t get lost in the shuffle.

While there was much I liked about my Point of Inquiry interview with Andy Revkin, perhaps nothing was more striking than his direct analogy between the massively deadly 2008 Sichuan earthquake, in China, and what is likely to happen someday in Oregon. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing from him:

In Oregon…where there’s a known, extraordinary seismic risk, cities and communities are still not doing much to gird the buildings that matter most, like schools, to make them less likely to fall down and kill thousands of kids and teachers….essentially what you saw in Sichuan province, almost unavoidably will be seen in lots of places in Oregon, where there’s that extraordinary fault offshore, the Cascadia fault, that will generate an extraordinary earthquake, most likely in this century, pretty plausibly in the next few decades, if not tomorrow–that will destroy 1,200 schools. The schools are listed, they’ve been studied, we know where they are, the ones that are very likely or certain to fall down when that quake hits. If my kids were in one of those schools, I’d be pretty energized.

Revkin goes on to discuss why we tend to ignore risks like these, even though there is no possible rational justification for it….you can listen here. The section begins around minute 23:30. And don’t forget to subscribe to Point of Inquiry on iTunes!

Meanwhile, to jon a discussion that has begun about the show, zip over here…