NUFORC Sighting 29679

Occurred: 2003-07-09 20:30 Local
Reported: 2003-07-11 15:52 Pacific
Duration: 2 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Endicott, NY, USA

Shape: Triangle
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object, Left a trail, Aircraft nearby

A craft re-enters the atmosphere

The craft appeared to be re-entering the atmosphere at an angle. It was traveling from East to West and almost appeared straight over head. It was very high up in the atmosphere. It was teardrop shape with the fat part flying first. The thing was white in color. No wings, tail, or markings. It had a line of smoke behind it like the Columbia did when it was burning up. It definately was not a contrail. As it flew west, it was seen behind extremely high level fair weather clouds. It was clearly coming in towards the Earth at an angle. Even my young child who watches aircraft every day even asked me what that strange thing was. It came in to the atmosphere quite quickly, but definately not as fast as a meteor. It took minutes to cross the sky, but was faster than any jet I've seen. Also, 10 minutes before I saw this, a fighter plane at higher altitudes flew east to west, but not the same exact trajectory. It had its afterburners on. This object was still faster than that.That's the first time I've heard of a craft re-entering on a east to west path.

NUFORC Note:

Witness elects to remain anonymous. We suspect that the first possibility to be ruled out would be a short contrail behind a jet aircraft, although the witness is self-described as an experienced observer of aircraft. The object could not have been a meteor or space debris. Both of those categories of objects move too rapidly across the sky to be visible for 2 minutes. PD

Posted 2003-07-16