NUFORC Sighting 58561

Occurred: 2007-08-14 21:50 Local
Reported: 2007-09-04 08:51 Pacific
Duration: 2 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Lewisburg, PA, USA

Shape: Other

Bright star disappears before my eyes and within two mintues large crescent shaped, dimly lit amber object flys silently overhead.

On the night of Tuesday, August 14 I went out back as I normally do. We live in a small town and our backyard is very dark. I enjoy going out to the hammock and just relaxing for a while before going to bed. But on this night I looked up and saw a sky full of stars so I grabbed a patio chair and decided to recline in it and just stargaze for a while. The hammock is under trees and I’m unable to see the stars from there.

One very bright start caught my attention and I had been focused on it for a while when my partner came out to join me a few minutes before 10:00 p.m. EST. He reclined in another chair and we talked about how clear the sky was.

We saw a couple of shooting stars and made remarks about them but I kept going back to this very bright star. As I lay back focused on this one particular star it just vanished right before my eyes. I didn’t say anything at first thinking a cloud may have covered it but then I noticed a very faint light, possibly a satellite, moving across the sky from south to north. As I continued watching this faint light it intersected exactly where I had seen the star. At this point I commented to my partner that the star I’d pointed out earlier had just vanished.

As I continued to look in that area of the sky I noticed another faint light moving, this time from north to south and again it intersected the point where the star had been located and continued to move across the sky till it was out of sight. My partner noticed this moving object and we wondered if it was a satellite. There were no strobe lights, nothing bright about it. It resembled a very faint star moving pretty fast across the sky.

Within 2 minutes of the star vanishing before my eyes and seeing the two faint objects moving across the sky we both saw a crescent shaped object moving from northwest to southeast at a very high rate of speed. We both pointed at the same time and said, "Do you see that?" It seemed to be an amber color, very dimly lit and no running lights or strobes, it just seemed to glow. My partner wondered if the light was reflection of the towns light on the underside but as I mentioned earlier, this is a small town and it’s pretty dark. I couldn’t estimate the altitude although my partner said it appeared to him about the height of an incoming passenger plane. It was so fast as it flew above and completely silent. I was still curious about the disappearing star and the other two objects that when I saw this object it was a complete surprise. From our view point it we were able to clearly see it for about 5 seconds before it was beyond our viewing range.

I kept putting off this report but the sighting is something I think about everyday. It’s still very clear in my mind. I still go out almost every night before bedtime and I spend my time looking to the sky.

Posted 2007-10-08