NUFORC Sighting 77272

Occurred: 2010-08-13 22:25 Local
Reported: 2010-08-17 10:09 Pacific
Duration: 20 seconds?
No of observers: 1

Location: Metuchen, NJ, USA

Shape: Other

3 swift moving dark eye-shaped attached segments of shimmering grey/silver fly abreast smoothly change to single file nnw to w

on the evening of august 13, 2010, i was outside observing the sky for the perseid meteor shower. i watched as the moon, venus, mars and saturn set in the west. i observed satellites, commercial and private aircraft, as well as a few meteors. at the time of this sighting, jupiter was just below the tree line in the east. i have been studying astronomy and the night sky for 20 years. i know the difference between many of the things people think are ufos, and an actuall unexplainable object in the sky.

what i saw friday the 13th, at about 10:25 pm was not explainable. i saw the whole incident through binoculars, with a momentary naked eye glance to verify.

the object was in three segments or parts, but they all moved as if they were attached to each other. they were a smokey grey/silver. the edges were undefined. each segment was shaped like an human eye--a tapered oval. it was not lit but seemed to be either softly reflecting light or softly glowing from the center of each segment. the center of each segment was lighter or brighter than the darker, undefined outer edges.

when i first saw it, the parts were traveling abreast in a westerly direction, and then they manuvered to single file one after the other. they did not turn in any other direction, they just went smoothly from traveling abreast to traveling single file. the largest segment was closest to me, and stayed in front. the smallest segment was the center one. the last and farthest segment was sized almost as large as the first. while changing formation, it did not change traveling direction. it flew from northeast close to east of where the north star is, and went west just over the handle of the big dipper, on towards arcturus, where i lost it behind some trees. after losing sight of it, i looked at the time, it was 10:26 pm.

comparison--if you have ever seen the andromeda galaxy on a dark clear night--in binoculars, this is what each segment looked like--except darker undefined edges and of course it was moving. each segment was roughtly the same size as the andromeda galaxy. the formation took up the space that the plaeides constellation takes up in a binocular view. although my binoculars are not high quality, they afford me a nice view of the night sky, i can make out the beehive cluster with them, but not something like the rings of saturn or the moons of jupiter. the binoculars are 12x50, probably better for birding, but they do the job on a nice clear night.

the weather was very clear, no clouds, about 72 degree f. the sky was dark enough in my backyard to see the andromeda galaxy this night (i saw it later that evening).

the stars were so clear that it was easy to see anything moving against the starfield, which is why i saw this object.

i was facing due north, i has been following 2 satellites which paths had seemed to come quite close together in the northeast. after they separated, the one i ended up following had faded in the north. this was when i picked up this object moving swiftly through the sky. it was about 35 degrees off my zenith, traveling west. it took maybe 10-15 seconds at the most (?) for it to be gone from my view.

with north as 12 oclock, it traveled from 1 oclock towards my left (west) past 12, 11, 10 oclock, to about 9 oclock. it appeared to be in space with the satellites, not close to where conventional aircraft fly. the speed of travel was much faster than an airliner at 20,000 feet at 5 miles away, faster than any satellite i have seen cross the sky, but slower than a shooting star crossing my field of view. as i watched, it went behind some treetops momentarily--and i still had no trouble following it. there was no trail of smoke or exhaust. all three segments seemed to shimmer or vibrate gently. the shimmering was more perceptable at the edges of each segment.

i have seen geese fly in the moonlight, and this was almost the same, but there were no wings flapping, no honking, no bird shape (no long neck, nothing moving on any segment) and the objects maintained a constant distance from one another like they were firmly attached even when changing formation. there was no attaching structure that i could see, i do not remember seeing stars 'through' or 'between' the segments, althogh if i had, i would have noticed.

at this point the crescent moon had set, i suspect that this object was high enough to gather ambient light enough from the same source as our satellites (the sun), and reflect it back. it could have been picking up the glow of the moon below the horizon, or ambient city light glow. the sight of it also gave me the impression that somehow it was absorbing most of the light, like it was cloaked. my only other thought on what this was like would be an airplane flying with no lights at all. it still does not explain the shape of the object, or the apparent formation change during flight.

there was no sound, no smell, no vibrations, no strange feelings during this sighting. i live approximately 6 minutes by commercial air travel from newark airport (25 miles or so by car) and wonder if anything showed on radar (if this thing was low enough). becouse i am an experienced sky observer, i believe that this is indeed a ufo, unless there are man made crafts that can appear as i have described. when i first saw this object, i remembered to be as observant as possible and kept in mind real life comparisons for a good description. i have searched the internet for descriptions or videos that are similar. when i find something i will be in touch. i am only sorry i did not have my hd camcorder ready, although i am not sure this would have shown up in video without more hi-tech equipment. i get annoyed at some of the ufo reports that lack in detail, or have poor descriptions. and i want to be as detailed as possible.

to demonstrated my observational skills and knowlege: previously, i have seen many things that seemed unexplainable in the night sky. i came to no conclusions until i thought through what i had seen. there was a reasonble explanation, no matter how fantastic it seemed at the time. two of these previous sightings are as follows: one object i had seen was a very bright round falling object in the southeastern sky in mid october. a peice of it had also fallen away below it like molten silver, i watched it fade after about 5 minutes. it made no noise although it looked like it would hiss like a fire if you could hear it. it was either a shooting star coming directly at me that broke up into two peices, or a rocket booster falling away after lauch. this occured around 3 am and i was too tired to look it up, but i am sure that is what it was.

the other object was a very distant, large bright green flair in a cold winter northeastern sky, a green so brilliant, like the the color green a diamond reflects in the sunlight. this flair left a trail and it traveled in horizontal fashion, taking much longer than fireworks to fade. there was no sound. this was probably a military flare from a marine vessel (i live close to the waters west of new york city and staten island--close enough to observe a flare from the water there if it was shot high enough).

the exact dates of these occurences have long been forgotten, because i knew they were easily explained. at the time, they were surprising and amazing to see.

i am an expereinced amateur sky watcher. i would like to point out that i know the difference between the most obscure explanaions for identifiable objects, and an unidentified flying object. i have seen almost every kind of non-ufo expample in the day and night sky -- so i do know the difference. i hope there is some logical explanation for this. i have never seen anything like this before.

ok for preliminary email contact by nuforc investigator.

thanks.

Posted 2010-08-24