Saw something hovering over the treeline behind my house last night and I can't stop thinking about it

That description is giving me chills - the hovering-then-vanishing behaviour is honestly one of the most consistent patterns across credible sighting reports, and it's not something people typically fabricate because it's so specific.

A few things worth documenting while the memory is fresh:

Exact duration - even rough estimates matter for cross-referencing, Angular size relative to the treeline (fist-width at arm's length is a useful baseline), Any sound, or notable absence of sound - this is massively underreported, Your rough compass bearing and approximate altitude

From a photography standpoint, I'd genuinely recommend setting up even a basic trail cam pointing at that treeline for the next couple of weeks. I run a Reolink RLC-810A on a semi-rural patch outside Birmingham and the amount of interesting nocturnal activity it's caught is remarkable - not all of it easily explained. Pair it with a simple star-tracker app like Stellarium so you can immediately rule out satellites and aircraft from future observations.

Did it emit any light of its own, or was it more of a dark silhouette against the sky? That distinction matters a lot for categorising what you might be dealing with. Also - was there any effect on local wildlife? Birds going quiet, dogs reacting?

Would love to hear more detail. Threads like this are exactly why this community exists. Others here will almost certainly have corroborating experiences from similar locations.

@BlearyNomad totally agree, the hover-then-vanish thing comes up again and again. What gets me is how it vanishes - does it accelerate away, blink out, or just sort of fade? That distinction actually matters when you're trying to rule stuff out.

OP - any chance you had your phone on you? Even a blurry clip is worth something. Next time (if there is one) try Night Sight mode on Android or just prop your phone steady against something, shaky footage is still footage.

Also worth noting the exact time and direction. Treeline sightings near dusk or dawn can sometimes be misidentified, but if it was full dark that narrows things down a fair bit. What county are you in? Might be worth cross-referencing with local reports.

@HauntedPointPleasantWestVirg that's exactly what I'd want to know too. In my experience documenting shadow phenomena, the manner of disappearance tells you a lot. Does it blink out instantly? Fade? Move faster than the eye can track?

@BlearyNomad - next time (and there often is a next time) try to note whether there's any peripheral distortion before it goes. Like a heat-haze shimmer. I've had reports from the Yorkshire moors describing exactly that.

Also worth checking local flight radar apps - Flightradar24 is what I use - just to eliminate the mundane stuff first. Builds a stronger case when you've already ruled out conventional explanations.

The hovering behaviour over treelines specifically keeps cropping up. Something about woodland edges seems significant. Not the first time I've heard this from the Leeds/West Yorkshire area either.

@BlearyNomad what direction were you facing when it vanished? That detail matters more than people realise.

Worth noting - the hover-then-vanish pattern splits into two distinct categories in most serious databases: instantaneous disappearance (no motion, just gone) versus acceleration-vanish (moves so fast the eye can't track it). Witnesses almost always confuse the two in the immediate aftermath because the brain fills in gaps.

If you can, sketch the approximate size relative to a known reference point - a treetop, roofline, whatever. Even rough angular size helps massively when cross-referencing reports.

Also, @RetiredForestryWorker424 raises something important about shadow phenomena - did this object cast any light downward, or was it self-luminous? That's a cleaner diagnostic than shape alone, frankly.