NUFORC Sighting 52582

Occurred: 2006-09-22 12:10 Local
Reported: 2006-09-22 00:31 Pacific
Duration: two minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Brick, NJ, USA

Shape: Triangle
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aircraft nearby

Very Unusual White Lighted Triangle Zig-zaging Over Barnegat Bay around Midnight 9.22.06

On Friday morning, September 22, 2006, while walking from my car to my front door, I noticed an unusual silent non-blinking white light about the size of an average star moving smoothly at very high altitude across the western sky about 50 degrees above the horizon of Barnegat Bay. Looking up and focusing closely, I realized it was actually three steady non-strobing white lights in a narrow triangular arrangement and seemed to be a single object seen from an angle. The sky was clear and cloudless with a multitude of visible stars. Two airplanes with normal blinking lights could be seen traveling south at different normal altitudes in the distant south-west sky. The unusual white light was moving three to four times faster than a conventional aircraft and it was its unusual speed which first caught my attention. The light then suddenly accelerated moving twice as fast in an upward arc in an "S" shaped manoeuvre as it shifted direction towards the east and south, nearly directly above my head and it headed over the ocean, then it looped again, reversed direction and accelerated towards the south-west, climbing in the sky until it vanished from sight. The entire sighting probably lasted less than two minutes as it traveled from north to south, then east, then towards the south-west, although the extraordinary nature of the event made it seem much longer in duration. It was not a conventional aircraft or a meteor or bolide. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before and I pay attention to the sky. The velocity of its acceleration, its silence, and the graceful ease with which it moved combined with its bizarre trajectory across the sky brought me to immediate full attention and I felt utterly amazed. After it vanished I spent several minutes studying the visible sky above the barrier island where I live, then I went in my house and, very excited, I phoned a friend advising him to go outside and look around. I then grabbed binoculars, went back outdoors and spent several minutes scanning ! the warm , clear, windless sky. The unusual light had vanished and there were no airplanes to be seen either. My friend called back and reported that he had seen nothing unusual from his wooded area 20 miles north of me. I then drew a sketch of the strange light and its bizarre double-loop trajectory and e-mailed it to him.

For the record, I am a non-fiction writer with a college degree in journalism and I am outdoor photographer.

Posted 2006-10-30

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