Drew Madden saw a silent burst of light shoot from west to east across the sky on Saturday night, and then, whizzing far above his head, hang a hard right up into space.
“Behind it was a huge fluorescent tail,” said Mr. Madden, an East Quogue resident who saw the flash of light at around 9:30 p.m. Saturday while he was camping with three others at Shinnecock East County Park in Southampton. “I never saw anything like it.”
Mr. Madden and many others on the East End thought the burst of white light could have been an unidentified flying object, or a bizarre atmospheric phenomenon. But it turns out the eerie luminescence was just a byproduct of testing by the federal government.
A rocket launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration created the light burst, according to Stephanie Schierholz, a NASA spokesperson. The rocket, a four-stage Black Brant XII suborbital sounding rocket, was launched in Virginia out of Wallops Flight Facility. The exhaust particles from the rocket—what people on the East End and across the Northeast saw—were meant to simulate a noctilucent cloud, Ms. Schierholz said.
Noctilucent clouds are clouds that are 50 miles above the earth’s surface that usually show up after sunset and are lit from below by sunlight, according to Ms. Schierholz.
“There were different observing stations that looked at the clouds that were created,” Ms. Schierholz said, adding that the point of the experiment was to help the U.S. scientists better understand that type of cloud.
Mr. Madden, a chef, and his group of friends were bewildered by the light in the sky Saturday night and figured they had just witnessed extraterrestrials do a supersonic drive-by of the planet.
“I immediately thought it was a UFO, then I had to confirm it,” Mr. Madden said, explaining that he went to talk with the other campers. “We all said, ‘Damn, we just saw something we can’t explain, which is a UFO, an unidentified object in the sky.’
“Who knows what it can be—it’s unexplainable,” he said.
A friend of a friend, whose name he did not know, first pointed out the ray of light to Mr. Madden as they were sitting around the campfire, he said. The friend suggested it was a shooting star. But Mr. Madden said that there was no way the light was a shooting star—it was too intense in brightness.
“If it was a flare, it would have to be 100 flares,” said Mr. Madden, adding that he and his friends had decided to camp out for four days at Shinnecock East to enjoy the Hamptons without the crowds. “It was a big, luminous light.”
Susan Herman of Southampton, who was also camping with Mr. Madden, said that she was awestruck when the light exploded in the sky. “I never saw a UFO before, but I’m believing it now,” Ms. Herman said. “There was no noise.”
She said that she first thought the light was a planet or star that blew up, but said that that explanation did not make sense because nothing fell down to the Atlantic. She added that she is not entirely convinced what she saw was a rocket, explaining that if it was launched from Earth, it would have had a trail behind it leading to land.
Keith Koehler, a spokesman for NASA who was present at the launch in Virginia, explained that what people in the Northeast actually saw was the exhaust from the fourth-stage burn from the rocket. The NASA rocket was a four-stage burn rocket, meaning that each engine burns fuel in a succession of stages.
“Instead of one big rocket motor, it’s four on top of each other,” Mr. Koehler said.
He said that the light was so bright because the rocket was already 182 miles above the Earth, and the sun was reflecting off the exhaust particles.
Saturday’s cloudless conditions helped visibility, as well, he added.
“Since it was a clear night, everyone was able to see it,” Mr. Koehler said.
Mr. Madden, however, is not buying NASA’s explanation, and said he went back to the campsite Monday night to see if the light would return.
“No, I don’t believe them,” Mr. Madden said. “Where was it going? There was no noise, no motor. It wasn’t a jet engine, it was a white light.”
yeah right, thats just what they want you to believe. the truth is out there man.
Around October 21st is the Orion meteor shower. This was pretty impressive last year. The down side is that you need to look for these things a few hours before dawn. I'll be out watching. Here's a link
http://www.amsmeteors.org/showers.html#ORI
there's a few others throughout th year. The American Meteor Society site has all the info.
I remember one Autumn night in the 1970's driving on the LIE eastbound at around exit 68 when the moon rose right in front of me, just past full, it was so big it looked like I was going to crash into it!
Even though our sky is not as ...more dark as it was 20 years ago it still affords good viewing of celestral objects.
A few years back, my wife and I dragged ourselves out of bed on one clear, chilly October morning at about 3 a.m. for the Orion meteor shower. We went down to the beach in Southampton and, along with a small group of folks, were treated to a sight we will never forget.
I strongly recommend it to anyone who hasn't done it. It's worth the loss of sleep.
This is usually a minor meteor shower that runs in cycles and for the last few years its generated a lot of bright fireballs - last year was really something - some were so bright they were casting shadows. The American Meteor Society site is a good source of info.
This December the Geminids are lined up for a good show as the moon will not interfere and usually the sky is crystal clear - if you can stand the cold!!!!
The best ever in my experience were the Leoids in November ...more 2001 - from my backyard in Westhampton, with my hand held counter - I couldn't press the thing fast enough to count the number the meteors i saw. To top it off, as the sun had alsmost risen and the sky was bright - a green fireball shot thru the sky and illuminated my backyard in a kelly green flash - in near daylight yet. Right here in WHB!
plenty of good 'scopes out there - try the Meade website for starters
Plenty of good equipment there for under $200 and even $100
Don't get caught up in magnification - look more for light gathering ability
I was taking a night swim with 2 sisters and my brother as the sky darkened to a clear night; stars were out.
Suddenly my sister said "Wow, look at that!"
And the four of us turned to gaze up at something which appeared to be hovering, stationary, approximately over the ocean (we are about 3/4 of a mile inland) and which emitted a very bright, conical light. The light was shining directly down, through mists / fog-like gasses which the craft itself ...more appeared to be generating. Then, abruptly (after maybe 5 or 10 seconds), the light went out. The mists remained visible for a few moments longer.
The source of the light appeared as a perfect, broad circle coming from the underside of an airborne hovering craft of some kind. I could not see the presumably larger object which was the source of the light, because the light itself was so bright and the sky was dark.
I find it impossible to believe these mists were 60 miles up in the air because we could see the gasses swirling in the emitted light, in a high level of detail.
If the night were not so clear, these mists might have passed for a dense, low, cloud or for a thick incoming fog (affected by a lot of wind and swirling low).
But on this evening the sky was otherwise completely clear, and a fog theory would not explain the source of the light which was illuminating these mists. I would have said the light was coming from a helicopter, but whatever emitted it made absolutely no noise. It did not move around. The light emitted was (at its source) much larger and brighter than any searchlight I have seen coming from a helicopter. But it was about as high in the sky as a large helicopter might have been. I would locate it just over the beach or a bit out over the ocean.
The picture on your site is what we saw, but apparently we were much closer to it; what we saw was a very big conical light, which did not seem very far away at all.
To imaging it from our vantage point, think of holding a bright flashlight, two feet over a table in a darkened room. This would produce the conical beam as the light emitted is closer to the table, and the light would be at its most intense near the lens of the flashlight. We were not directly under the beam, but looking at an angle some distance away from its target of illumination, and we could see its widening, triangular / conical shape, emanating from a circular disk which, depending on its distance from us, I would have estimated at not less than 50 feet in diameter -- possibly greater depending upon how high it was at that time.
I'd be curious to know if other people locally saw what we did. If you happened to be looking up for these several seconds, it would have been visible to anybody in the Village in the area south of the hospital.
For us, it hovered (silently) some distance south of the house and it was kind of marvelous -- most impressive.
To my eye, it was no further from us than Fifth Avenue is from Central Park West, and certainly no higher than the Empire State Building (maximum). Not 50 miles up in the air as NASA is saying this week.
My theory: It must be a blast to drive, and when the US govt. decides to makes it official I am sure we will hear all about it; meanwhile, your tax dollars and mine at work.
I sufficiently prefer to think of this experience as a few of our best and brightest having some fun with a wild machine (than evidence of being spied upon by other than our own) that I am grateful to have seen it, more sympathetic to those who have before me, and appreciate having had my reality-testing siblings in the pool with me.
My afterthought is to find it troubling, in a democracy, when the federal government feels compelled to spin a story like this. NASA is offering an explanation which seems to satisfy nobody who saw it but is sufficient for those who did not.