NUFORC Sighting 110134

Occurred: 2014-06-08 01:45 Local
Reported: 2014-06-11 08:33 Pacific
Duration: 5 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Lakeville, NY, USA

Shape: Cylinder

Strobe-like object streaked across the sky extremely fast; disappeared between flashes

I was out in the country last weekend in Western New York State: between Geneseo and Lakeville, on the Western shore of Conesus Lake. At approximately 1:45 a.m. on Sunday, June 8, I saw an object go streaking across the sky – extremely fast, much faster than a plane. Although the trajectory looked like a satellite – very smooth and straight from east/southeast to west – it seemed quite close to the earth and flashed at regular intervals. The flashes were equal in intensity and strobe-like. The object disappeared between flashes and I was able to track it across the sky from flash to flash. I saw 4 or 5 flashes in all before it was out of my view.

The flashes were white with another color (can't recall exactly what color). I would say the object was possibly rectangular or cylindrical. The whole episode lasted maybe 5 seconds to cross my entire field of view. Fast! I’ve briefly researched satellites and this sounds like a “tumbling” satellite, but seems that mine was going too fast for that. Or maybe it was close to Earth and that explains why it seemed to be so fast? I have seen one satellite in the past, from deep in the Grand Canyon, and that one was much tinier, fainter, steady (not flashing), and took longer to cross the sky. I am very curious as to what I saw. Perhaps it was some other sort of satellite? I don't think it was iridium as the iridium flash description I have read does not match what I saw.

About me: I am a lover of the night sky with little technical knowledge. I live in the suburb of a large city so it is not often that I am in a dark enough place to really enjoy the stars. I have witnessed two meteor fireballs in my lifetime (one in the Grand Canyon), many asteroids, and one satellite. At heart I am a scientist and just wish I knew what that was.

Thank you.

Posted 2014-06-13