1995-11-17 - Moriches, NY - Other

NY Radar Air Traffic Controllers see UFO over Long Island.

I witnessed a missle-shaped object without any wings, tailfins or any other external control surfaces flying at a slow speed in straight and level flight eastbound over Long Island at approx 2000 ft. We were driving westbound to exit the beach after fishing that night.

My companion yelled for me to stop and pointed out the object. The exhaust was 3 colors. red, then surrounded by blue, surrounded by white. Appeared to be jet-propulsion. This made the slow speed impossible.no faster than 80-90 knots.(est)

After about one min. the object turned and accelerated until it dissappeared. No bank angle or rate of turn was apparent.Just an instant directional change. The angle of turn appeared about 140 degress. since the object was headed due east over long island, the approx angle of travel and turn was discernable by well known landmarks.

My companion and myself were at that time, radar air traffic controllers at the NY approach control (15 years)in westbury, NY, and both with former US Navy ATC experiance(4 years). Speed and altitude judgements and relative velocity and turn angles at night were and are part of our daily work in ATC both in Tower and Radar work.

Since the Lufthansa405 departure from JFK would reach the spot they reported the sighting in roughly 15-18 mins,(east of HTO VOR)assuming an ontime departure, which would be common on a typical sat night in NY (low traffic volume) and Lufthansa 405 is a Merit or WAVY departure (SID out of NY to Europe) the timeline makes perfect sense.

I report this now after all these years because I only recently stumble upon the LH405 PIREP (pilot report) and wanted to confirm his sighting and the BAW266 report.

I hope this has been helpful.


((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. We believe that the correct date was November 17, 1995, and we have amended the date above. PD))