Windsurfing Regatta?
Posted on 09/19/2009 7:36:05 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand
OK, so we're sitting out by the East River, just taking in the beautiful evening atmosphere, looking east, and we see what appears to be a police-chopper type spotlight a bit to the south and east. But it was really big, aiming down, and the cone of light appeared to grow, reaching downward and outward [I was saying to my friend (the actress) "the aliens are coming to get us." I was, of course, kidding].
It looked like the source of the light was obscured behing a cloud, only there were no clouds. It almost looked like a rocket taking off...then it was just a bright dot, and then it was gone without a trace, and there was no craft of any kind around that could have been the source.
Space shuttle? Space debris? Simultaneous hallucinations? Mass delusions?
Windsurfing Regatta?
I’m tempted to say that it’s just Jupiter, but I’m not sure that you can see anything dimmer than magnitude -3 or so in NYC...
In this day and age, if you don’t have it on video, you have no credibility. Just about everyone has a cellphone, and most can make videos (or at least take photos).
the space shuttle did release a large amount of waste water that looked quite similar and it heated in the atmosphere
There was a rocket launch tonight from Wallops Island, VA. A sounding rocket, I think. Buddy of mine works for NASA up there.
The mods did zot a troll tonight.
If it resembles a really bright white ‘star’, it’s the planet Jupiter. Jupiter is exactly in that part of the sky about this time of the night.
I do amateur astronomy from Manhattan, btw. Jupiter has been amazingly bright for a few months now. It, like Venus, when it is out at night or in the early morning, is often mistaken for an approaching plane’s headlights or a hovering helicopter.
The ‘ray’ of light you saw coming from it was probably something caused by your own eyes, like when you squint at a bright light and a long thin column of light appears.
That would explain the other brightish, stationery light a bit north of the one described, from our perspective, and much further east.
But this other thing was closer to the river, and south (again, from our perspective) of what I think was Jupiter.
And I'm telling you, the spotlight effect was huge.
Then it was probably some sort of aircraft, possibly a police helicopter with a spotlight.
It may have been from a spotlight on the ground somewhere.
My brother said he saw the same thing in the eastern sky (we are out near Clinton, NJ). He had just walked out of the garage and I was in the process of turning the lights off and closing up the doors and he said something, which I couldn’t hear. When I asked what he said, he was silent... so I didn’t see anything. He said it looked like a rocket or something. I forget what time this was... it was late twilight.
When I did look that way, it appeared that there was a faint clound in the area he was pointing at... that’s about all I saw.
I would like an update on this with a link.
Interesting. If I hear about any other reports of this, I'll post back here and/or ping you both.
Though man-made light, at night is very bright
There’s no whitewash victim
As the neons dim to the coat of white
Real Imperial Aerosol Kid
Wipes his gun, he’s forgetton what he did
And the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Not me, though, since I guess my brother was standing there staring at it, drooling, and didn't YELL... "COME HERE, look at this, NOW!!!"... figures.
He did that to me when the stupid guy in the gyrocopter flew over the farm this afternoon... the guy that ALWAYS flies over when the weather is nice... but a UFO or rocket launch or whatever... silence. JERK.
An explanation from NASA, from the link you provided...
Night Time Artificial Cloud Study Using NASA Sounding Rocket
A rocket experiment that may shed light on the highest clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere was conducted from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on September 19, 2009. The experiment was launched on a NASA Black Brant XII Sounding Rocket.
Black Brant Sounding Rocket The Charged Aerosol Release Experiment (CARE) was conducted by the Naval Research Laboratory and the Department of Defense Space Test Program using a NASA four-stage Black Brant XII suborbital sounding rocket. Using ground based instruments and the STP/NRL STPSat-1 spacecraft, scientists will study an artificial noctilucent cloud formed by the exhaust particles of the rocket’s fourth stage at about 173 miles altitude.
Ground based cameras and radars were based at various observation stations along the Atlantic coast and in Bermuda. Because of the optical observations, the launch required clear skies not only at Wallops but also at the multiple observation stations.
The Spatial Heterodyne IMager for MEsospheric Radicals instrument on the STPSat-1 spacecraft will track the CARE dust cloud for days or even months. The SHIMMER instrument has previously viewed natural noctilucent clouds for the past two years. The CARE is the first space viewing of an artificial noctilucent cloud.
Data collected during the experiment will provide insight into the formation, evolution, and properties of noctilucent clouds, which are typically observed naturally at high latitudes. In addition to the understanding of noctilucent clouds, scientists will use the experiment to validate and develop simulation models that predict the distribution of dust particles from rocket motors in the upper atmosphere.
Natural noctilucent clouds, also known as polar mesospheric clouds, are found in the upper atmosphere as spectacular displays that are most easily seen just after sunset. The clouds are the highest clouds in Earth’s atmosphere, located in the mesosphere around 50 miles altitude.
They are normally too faint to be seen with the naked eye and are visible only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the Earth’s surface is in darkness.
A team from government agencies and universities, led by the Naval Research Laboratory, is conducting the experiment. In addition to the Naval Research Laboratory, participants include the DoD STP, NASA, University of Michigan, Air Force Research Laboratory, Clemson University, Stanford University, University of Colorado, Penn State University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Haystack Observatory.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/CARE.html
From one of the reports, the sighting of the apparent rocket launch occurred at around 7:45PM EDT.
And to think I was out tonight in Manhattan observing a 7:31 to 7:32 PM pass of the International Space Station! However, the ISS pass was low in the northern part of the sky and after it was over we were too busy discussing it to look up at the sky again.
Did you see a light in the sky?
Sunday, September 20, 2009 | 1:15 AM EDT
September 19, 2009 (WPVI) — Action News has been contacted by many of you about a light in the sky. Did you see it?
Sunday morning update:
Here is the information from the Associated Press:
NASA says it successfully launched a rocket in Virginia as part of an experiment, and the blast may have caused dozens of people to report seeing strange lights in the sky.
Story continues below
Advertisement
The space agency said it launched the Black Brant XII on Saturday evening to gather data on the highest clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere. About the time of the launch, dozens of people in the Northeast started calling local television stations to report seeing strange lights.
The calls came from as far away as Boston, which is about 380 miles northeast of the launch site.
The rocket is designed to create an artificial cloud. NASA hopes the experiment will provide information on the formation and properties of noctilucent clouds, which occur at high altitudes.
Several Action News viewers called our station all reporting the same thing.
They saw a strange, bright, cone-shaped light in the sky at about 7:55 p.m.
According to viewers, the light lasted only about 10 seconds.
An explanation has been discovered.
NASA launched a weather research rocket from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, at about 7:46 tonight.
It is a four-stage rocket and the light seen up and down the East Coast is probably related to the burning of fuel during one of those stages about ten minutes after launch.
A user on flickr seems to have taken a picture of the light, as seen above. Is that what you saw?
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=7022998
From CNN...
September 19th, 2009
Mysterious lights at dusk prompt calls
Posted: 11:11 PM ET
(CNN) - A series of spooky lights in the clouds off the coast of the northeastern United States Saturday night sparked a flurry of phone calls to authorities and television news stations, with some startled residents worried that extra-terrestrials were landing.
CNN affiliate stations from New Jersey to Massachusetts heard from dozens of callers who reported that the lights appeared as a cone shape shining down from the sky.
But the source of the illumination turned out to be a little more down to earth — well, closer to Earth, to be exact.
The lights were the result of an experimental rocket launch by NASA from the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, a NASA spokesman told CNN.
Keith Koehler said the Black Brant XII Sounding Rocket was launched to study the Earth’s highest clouds. The light came from an artificial noctilucent cloud formed by the exhaust particles of the rocket’s fourth stage about 173 miles high.
Natural noctilucent clouds — also called “polar mesospheric clouds” — are “found in the upper atmosphere as spectacular displays that are most easily seen just after sunset,” according to a NASA statement published earlier this month. “The clouds are the highest clouds in Earth’s atmosphere, located in the mesosphere around 50 miles altitude.”
Normally, noctilucent clouds are not visible to the naked eye and can only be seen when illuminated by sunlight below the horizon. The Saturday launch took place at 7:46 p.m., just as the sun was setting for the day.
Observation stations on the ground and in satellites will track the artificial noctilucent clouds created by the rocket for months, NASA said.
“Data collected during the experiment will provide insight into the formation, evolution, and properties of noctilucent clouds, which are typically observed naturally at high latitudes.
“In addition to the understanding of noctilucent clouds, scientists will use the experiment to validate and develop simulation models that predict the distribution of dust particles from rocket motors in the upper atmosphere,” the NASA statement said.
–CNN’s Greg Morrison contributed to this report.
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/19/mysterious-lights-at-dusk-prompt-calls/
No,man, there was no hotel there.
But that light in the sky looks similar ;)
Glad you solved the mystery. Thanks, I can sleep now, and not fear nightmares about little green men in black helicopters.
what do you suppose he was smoking when he wrote that?
early winners.
Sale at Big Lots?
You can see much dimmer than -3 from Manhattan from almost anywhere.
early winners.
Yep. I apologize for glossing over their responses. Since I didn't see any links with them, I didn't really read what they wrote.
It was a joke (sort of)... When I lived in Manhattan, all that I could see from my window was the building across the street...
It was really quite a site, wasn't it -- the way you describe the light appearing as though through a haze -- and as I recall the light almost seemed to pulsate through that "haze."
Very cool.
Anwyway, the aliens never did come and get us.
I was participating with friends in a Nightsky Photography workshop at Acadia National Park. There were 15 adults: 12 participants, 2 park service employees to drive van and assist, plus Tyler Nordgren,PhD astronomer and artist, teaching the workshop. After an introduction and instructions, we all set up our cameras on the edge of Eagle Lake, most of us aiming southwest hoping to capture the Milky Way as the evening progressed. (The workshop was scheduled from 6:30-9:00pm ET.)
At approximately 7:50pm ET, we all observed a bright object that appeared suddenly directly in front of us. It seemed to come down in the sky, burn brightly creating a cone of light shining towards the ground much like a streetlight and fog-like light around it. the "streetlight" did not make it the ground. After a few seconds, the object disappeared. The fog and "streetlight" slowly disappeared after about 45 seconds. It just seemed to fade from the cone shape to a smudge in the sky.
At least 3 participants' cameras captured the event. (A series of 3 photos are attached, hopefully.) Not knowing where else to share such an event, we are posting it here. A description of photography workshop can be found here:http://www.nightskyfestival.org/Festival/Home_.html
*Note* Author's first image was not attached to post, or is unavailable.
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An eerie cloud that glowed briefly in the night sky Saturday was no UFO. It was created by humans - more specifically a NASA rocket built to make clouds that shine at night.
The rocket launched as part of an experiment to artificially create so-called noctilucent - or night-shining - clouds, the highest clouds on Earth. They naturally appear around 50 miles (80 km) above Earth’s high latitudes and are also known as polar mesospheric clouds.
Saturday night’s rocket experiment lifted off at 7:46 p.m. EDT (2346 GMT) from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. It created a brief light show that was visible across the United States’ East Coast and sparked calls from curious skywatchers as far away as Boston, according to the Associated Press.
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/090920-nasa-noctilucent-cloud-rocket.html
i can’t believe this thread got as far as it did without the ufo stuff starting.
Swamp gas.
They always say it’s swamp gas.
SATURDAY NIGHT LIGHT SHOW: The phones started ringing around 7:30 pm EDT on Saturday night, Sept. 19th. All along the US Atlantic seaboard, police stations and news desks received reports of strange lights in the sky. John A. Blackwell of Exeter, New Hampshire, snapped this picture of the phenomenon:
"It was an impressive display," says Blackwell. "To the naked eye, it was visible for about a minute."
It looks like a passing comet or a giant, luminous amoeba. But this was pure rocket science. The cloud was created by a Black Brant XII sounding rocket launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The rocket released a cloud of electrically-charged aerosols near the top of Earth's atmosphere to investigate the formation of noctilucent clouds or "NLCs." Mysterious NLCs form naturally around Earth's poles during the months of northern summer. On this September evening, researchers decided to see if they could create an artificial NLC at mid-latitudes; it seems to have worked.
Ground-based cameras and radars along the Atlantic coast monitored the experiment while the STPSat-1 satellite watched from Earth orbit. Principal investigators at the Naval Research Lab hope the data will reveal much about the microphysics of noctilucent clouds and the possible role of rockets in creating them.
more images: from Neil Winston of Lusby, Maryland; from Geoff Chester of Alexandria, Virginia; from Greg Piepol near Manassas, Virginia; from Tom McIntyre of Central Park, New York;
Source: SpaceWeather.com for Monday, Sept 21, 2009:
http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=21&month=09&year=2009
Invisible Hand me and my 8 year old daughter saw it too. We were at the East River Band Shell. When we spotted the cone shape light. I made a joke to my daughter oh the police must be looking for someone, but then the light didn’t move and I’m trying to see if it’s a helicopter or plane, but I don’t see any clouds in the sky. Then the light slowly faded out between two stars. No smoke cloud or blinking light from bottom to top. looked almost like a “Truman” showesq spot light
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