1970-09-22 - New York, NY - Sphere

While I realize this is reaching a bit far back, I believe this is an important sighting, and should be reported.

It was around 11:00 PM on a fall night in 1970. I lived in an apartment house in New York City's Lower East Side. A number of friends in the building had dropped in, and it seemed that a casual party was taking place. It was a tiny apartment, and quickly filled up with cigarette smoke. I suggested that we all go up to the roof to chat, where there was more oxygen available. We all grabbed our drinks and smokes and paraded up three flights to the roof. Everyone was talking at once, having a good time. I noticed that the sky had a very dark, high overcast, and there were no stars visible at all. In a few minutes, I saw that the moon had risen, and was near the horizon behind a little storm cloud with lightning going on in it, which was odd since no other clouds were visible.

I remember nothing else until I became aware of the fact that all of the people I was with were silent, staring blankly at the rooftop, and I was the only one who seemed conscious. Then, all at once everyone began talking as if there had been no break in the conversation at all. I saw that the moon was much higher, and on the opposite side of the sky, but that it still had the little storm around it, with lightning. Suddenly everyone had to get to bed, even though we'd only been there for a few minutes. It was two AM when I got back to my apartment.

The next day I recalled the odd appearance of the moon, so I checked a calendar with the Moon's phases, and it had been a New Moon, with no visible Moon at all. Needless to say, the event left my eyebrows raised for quite some time.

Thanks again for your work at keeping this magnificent repository available for the sharing of all our strange sightings. Reading about others' experiences makes the strangeness seem a bit less frightening.