It seems most likely that the controversial GOES-8 photograph that I put on the website last week, and that was the object of a half-hour discussion on Dreamland on January 24, is a picture of the moon. This is not entirely certain, but the image appears like other images that the satellite has taken of the moon, with the difference that there is some sort of interference pattern around the questioned image.
However, a GOES-10 photo has now been found that shows an object that is most definitely NOT the moon. But its appearance is ambiguous. It could be some sort of an artifact of signal interference, although this does not seem very likely. The artifact appears in the lower right quadrant of the photo.
Thanks to all the listeners who helped answer this question, especially Jim Deardorff, Ray Peltser, Jim Kincannon, Nick Balaskas and Jim Coakley. A lot of good astronomy, both amateur and professional, went into the answer to the question of the GOES-8 photo. So what gives with the GOES-10 photo? Will we have an answer within a week? GOES engineers and technicians are especially invited to comment, because if this is going to be resolved as a non-UFO, that resolution must come from within the community that is most familiar with the operation of these instruments.
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