NUFORC Sighting 17620

Occurred: 2001-05-12 22:00 Local
Reported: 2001-05-12 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 3 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: New York City (Staten Island), NY, USA

Shape: Formation
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aircraft nearby

Staten Island ( UFO? ) Formation on 05/12/01

Ok, now this just happened 2 hours ago here in Staten Island and it has me very worried. I was outside with my friend ((name deleted)), skygazing like I have done for years, I am an avid astronomy buff. I know all of the things that should be in the sky, why and all of that. Tonight I saw something in the sky that I cannot explain, and when I think of all the possible things it could have been, the closest thing I can envision is a formation of Air Force jets. We were skygazing all over the sky, but when I first saw the formation, it was in the south/ south east. It slowly moved from the S/SE to the North then vanished out of sight. I quickly asked my friend if he saw it as well, and he looked and said what the hell is that ((name deleted))? I said I have no idea, standing there with my eyes wide. My first reaction was that it was a seagull being lit up by the street lights and we could see the belly of it. But then i realized it was not, due to the fact that this was WAY too high to be any bird. Or was it? I quickly took the binoculars we were using to tour the city sky and focused on the formation. to my surprise, it looked the same as it did with my naked eye. These were 10X50 binocs, and I cannot explain why i did not see any more detail. Now this is where it gets tricky, because it was either a very large object, or perhaps dozens of small objects flying in formation. they were all a solid red color, but *very* faint. My friend thought they changed color to a dull orange, but I could not see that. They did not blink, it was just a steady, *very* dull red of basically dots moving across the sky VERY high up. Have you ever seen a sattelite from earth when it passes overhead? Well, it looked like that, a steady light, but not white, red, and much duller than a sattelite. I only wish I had my telescope out. I was SO mad later on for not bringing it out. When we could not see them anymore, my friend wanted to go do something else, but I said wait- listen. Do you hear anything? He said no. I heard nothing the ENTIRE time, and I know what a plane sounds like even that high up. It was dead quiet, no sounds after they passed over head, nothing. It was very errie in fact. I in my 10 years of being an amature astronomer, have never seen anything like this in the sky, and nothing I know of in space can produce this, and nothing I know of in terms of aircraft can produce this to my knowledge. And I know alot about space and the sky. The weather was crystal clear, with great seeing and no humidity. A cold front passed by about 2 hours before the event, and when I thought about it I wondered if I saw my first ' ball lightning' but the stories I have heard about ball lightning none of them say it can last this long, nor be this high. I do not know what else to say. I never expected to post to this website, I only started to come here to read the reports people post and try to think what they could have been in the 'real world' , like a certian star out that night or something. etc. I wish I could find out what it was in the sky, it confused me. It scared me frankly, cause nothing I have ever learned prepared me for this. This is the first time I saw something in the sky that I could not explain right away since I was a child, and learning in school. Well, here is the report, as quickly as I can write it. Sorry for the typos, I am so tired. :) Oh wait I just remembered, as always, there was tons of air traffic in the NYC metro area, planes going to kennedy, newark, etc. I am used to their patterns and they were flying the same patterns when this was going on to my knowledge. But I was looking at the formation the most. :)

Posted 2001-08-05