NUFORC Sighting 33748

Occurred: 1998-01-15 01:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2003-12-11 20:42 Pacific
Duration: 10 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: New York City (Manhattan), NY, USA

Shape: Formation
Characteristics: Lights on object, Emitted other objects

One light emits multiple identical lights above Manhattan

I saw a light crossing the night sky that split into two, then three, then four, and maybe more, separate lights. All of the lights continued moving in the same direction as the original light; none appeared to fall, which I assume they would have had they been flares dropped from the original light (well, airplane, in that instance). Also, each of the lights--the original, as well as those that came "out" of it--were identical in apparent size--they were point sources--as well as color, luminosity, etc. They were identical, so far as I could tell.

The original object was traveling much too slowly to have been a meteor or other bolide breaking up in the atmosphere--or so I would judge. I distinctly remember that I had the impression that it was not a natural object of that sort, but rather an object--objects--under intelligent control.

I wish I had written down precisely what happened right after I saw it, because the details are now a little fuzzy. For instance, I cannot recall now if all of the subsequent lights "merged out" of the original light, or if each new light then split into another one; it may well have been the latter. In any case I remember being very perplexed by it. It was certainly out of the ordinary. I am an amateur astronomer, and this was something I had never seen before. I don't know what it was--I'm not prepared to say it was an alien spacecraft or anthing of the sort--but it was definitely something I could not identify.

I am a skeptic, but I'll admit I'm interested in the topic of UFOs. One point that may interest some: one often hears from (other) skeptics and debunkers that astronomers--i.e., people accustomed to observing the night sky and familiar with its various phenomena, from eclipses to apparitions of the planets to meteors, etc.--never report seeing unusual objects in the sky. Well, I just did.



NUFORC Note:

Date is approximate. PD


Posted 2003-12-19

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