NUFORC Sighting 68497

Occurred: 1989-09-15 23:35 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2009-02-07 08:33 Pacific
Duration: 2 minutes?
No of observers: 5

Location: Mt. Morris, NY, USA

Shape: Rectangle

Large closing bar of light in night sky '89/'90. NY

There was NO sighting of aircraft of any kind.

In 1989/90?, I was in Mt. Morris, NY with some college friends. It was late and dark. We had just finished watching some movies when we thought it would be a great idea to go visit the small cemetery down the road.

To make a long story short, we were walking in the cemetery and- I remember very well- we had to go slow because it was very dark and we couldn’t see the stones. We weren’t doing anything, just kind of walking around. We got to the back where there was a small woods with a field on the other side. We decided to turn around and go back to the house.

I clearly remember that I was looking down (stones and all) so that I wouldn’t trip when I suddenly realized that I could see all the stones with some weak shadows. The light wasn’t blazing bright- kind of like moonlight that is filtered through clouds.

I stopped and looked up (as did my friends) and there well above us (but on the horizon) in the sky was a perfectly straight, rectangular bar of light. It was big enough that you had to move your eyes from left to right to see it all. I don’t know what direction we were facing. As we stood there, mouths open, just staring, the bar of light got thinner from the top and the bottom- like you might see when a door to a lit room closes- but horizontally. It got thinner and thinner and then just disappeared.

It did not move except for the “closing” effect. We asked our astronomy professor at SUNY Geneseo about it the next day. He said it may have been Northern Lights- NO WAY!. . . straight lines on all sides, controlled closing of the light.

I am writing about it now- after many years- on a whim of looking it up on the internet and finding some other accounts that sound exactly like mine. I don’t know what it was but I will never forget it.

NUFORC Note:

Source of report indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. PD

Posted 2009-03-19