NUFORC Sighting 18697

Occurred: 2001-07-27 02:55 Local
Reported: 2001-07-29 00:00 Pacific
Duration: approximately one hour
No of observers: 2

Location: New York City, NY, USA

Shape: Oval
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Emitted other objects, Emitted beams, Changed Color, Aircraft nearby

On July 27,2001 I saw lights that outlined a large oval from which three other bright white lights detached and flew away. from

I was locking the doors and putting out the lights on my roof terrace which overlooks New Jersey and the Hudson River. It was a beautiful night with small clouds and patches of sky in between. There was an oval of diffused white light which appeared to be coming from behind the clouds. Only th outline or the rim of the object was illuminated. It seemed as if it were over New Jersey, but I could not see any beams of light coming up from the ground. I moved away from the door and windows to turn out the terrace lights--literally an instant--and when I looked again it was gone. I watched the sky for a couple of minutes and all of a sudden I could see it again. It appeared as if it switched the lights on and off and had been there all the time. It had just not been illuminated which is why I could not see it.When the lights came on again, they started off a soft lavender color and then went to pink and possibly green. Again very diffused soft colors. Photographs I have seen of the aurora borealis came to mind. But this light was stationery. No movement The first time this light turned off was 3:04 in the morning. I believe it turned off once or twice again. I believe that one time it turned off when a helicopter went down the Hudson River. After the helicopter was out of sight three balls of light (one at each end of the oval and one in the middle) flew away from the central light and instantly disappeared. They flew faster then any plane I have ever seen. I believe this happened at least three times. The closest visual analogy I could make is the huge craft that the scientists played the music for in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." As a matter of fact this object looked exactly the same. My friend was sleeping soundly during this so I called WCBS and ABC (whose studios overlook the same part of New Jersey as I do ). I wanted to see if anyone else had phoned in after seeing this. The people at both numbers were polite but obviously didn't believe me. At 3AM I'm sure that many of th! eir call s are from people who are far from sober. My friend heard me on the phone and woke up. I excitedly told him what had happened, but since there was nothing in the sky now he had difficulty understanding what I was talking about. However, as we were watching the sky, I saw a faint light, then two. Once I brought them to his attention, he could see them, but since he hadn't seen the entire object as I had, they didn't mean much to him. As I noticed a third light appearing, they suddenly flew off whoosh into the skies behind us. That he saw. He couldn't figure out any logical explanation either nor could I. I am aware that people in Virginia and some of the other southeastern states had seen something which was described as a fireball in the week prior to my experience. What I saw was nothing like a fireball. It was almost as if someone were projecting a slide from "Close Encounters" onto the clouds. I am retired, although I am only 55 years old. I was the president of a company which manufactured women's clothing. The most unusual thing I have ever seen in the sky was what I believe was a fireball over the Pacific off Tahiti. The reason it was described as a fireball was that it looked like a bright meteor travelling horizontally. What I saw over New Jersey was not a natural phenomena. It was perfectly shaped and would appear and disappear as if someone were flipping a switch. I am terribly interested in knowing if anyone else saw this that night. There are millions of people in New York. Granted few are looking at the sky at 3AM, but someone had to see this. It was huge. I would also like to know about other sightings of objects similar to this. In the space for number of craft seen, I answered four. I decided on this figure because I saw one huge craft and no more than three others at any one time. However because three craft flew off at least three times, I have no way of knowing if they were different craft each time.

Posted 2001-08-05

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