NUFORC Sighting 39045

Occurred: 2004-08-31 21:00 Local
Reported: 2004-09-01 13:21 Pacific
Duration: 15 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Endwell, NY, USA

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Emitted other objects, Aircraft nearby

Linked parabolic shapes with blinking light

On Tuesday August 31 from approximately 9pm eastern time to 9:15pm my wife and I observed from our front porch in central-upstate New York (approximately 42N, 76W) a flying object EXACTLY identical in appearance to the one in the second sketch on your web site (the sketch that's accessible by clicking on the "Click here for a more detailed graphic" link off of today's FLASH report on your home page).

It was a perfectly clear, entirely cloudless and starry night, more than one hour past sunset and just a quarter-hour after moonrise. I first noticed the object relatively low and distant in the sky as I looked to the west-southwest. It appeared well above the treeline as a white, somewhat fuzzy, oval-shaped splotch in the sky, about the size of an aspirin at arm's length. After staring at it for a full minute, it also seemed to be moving extremely slowly toward me. As a lifelong stargazer and skywatcher, it caught my attention due to its relatively large size, its relative brightness in the night sky, and the fact that, for me, if didn't fit any category of previously observed aerial phenomena.

I yelled to my wife and grabbed two optics -- an 8x20 monocular and 16x50 binoculars. By this time we were certain that the object was slowly moving toward us. As I viewed it for at least 15 minutes through the 16x binoculars, it never changed its shape from the one shown in the sketch I previously referenced -- its appearance was that of two large, equal-sized parabolic shapes that were back to back but slightly separated and linked through their middles by a somewhat cigar-shaped element that was slightly pointier at the left (south-facing) end. These shapes appeared to be gaseous, almost cloudlike in nature, but they were sufficiently defined and unchanging.

As I looked through the 16x binoculars, I also saw an occasionally-blinking white light at the left tip of the cigar-shaped central element. It blinked at an irregular rate, and my wife could not see this aspect of it through the 8x monocular. At one point midway through our roughly 15-minute observation period, I also saw (through the binoculars) a yellow-red dot that moved quickly toward the south; it originated from the same tip where the white light was periodically blinking. I could only track the low-intensity yellow-red light briefly through the binoculars' field of view before it vanished; I could not see this light with my naked eye.

The dual-parabolic-shaped object's line of travel took it directly over my house at a high altitude. As it slowly approached the point directly overhead, the object also had begun to lose its shape, size, and intensity of luminosity. When it was directly overhead, the object ceased to exist, although I continued to observe this overhead location for another 30 minutes and could still (but barely) make out a faint amorphous form in its place. At this point, and all throughout the observing period, there were still no clouds in the sky, and we heard no sounds from the object. There were occasional commercial aircraft traversing the sky at various altitudes, but none had any interaction or effect on this object, which was at an unknown but seemingly high altitude. I did not see any reports in this morning's (Wednesday) local daily newspaper. I don't know if it was mentioned on any local radio or TV stations.

I am a marketing / public relations profesional and my wife is a finance professional.



NUFORC Note:

Missile launch from Cape Canaveral. PD


Posted 2004-09-09

© 2023 National UFO Reporting Center. All rights reserved. Use or reproduction within any application without written consent is prohibited.