2000-06-01 - Mineola, NY - Teardrop

Tear shaped object seen crossing the sky over Mineola, New York

At approximately 10:20 p.m., north of the North Star, we noticed what appeared to be a very slow moving tear-drop shaped fuzzy object that glowed very dimly and appeared to wobble back and forth as it moved from the North West to the South East. We hurriedly retrieved binoculars from the house. My brother looked first. He was apparently taken aback by what he saw, and exclaimed in a shakey voice that it was a "UFO." Nevertheless, I was sure he was looking at an airplane that was out of focus; so I took the binoculars and zeroed in on the object. I could not believe what I saw. It was not an airplane. Rather, it was a tear-shaped object with a dim, fixed light at the top, and several lights at the bottom, seemingly surrounded by a haze, that moved together in an irregular fashion in a wobbly circle. It appeared as though the object were tumbling across the sky. It then turned some 30 degrees to the right, and eventually disappeared into the haze. We looked at the sky intently for another half hour or so, but did not see the object again. I did, however, notice what I think was an iridium satelite. It was a pinpoint of light moving steadily north to south that briefly flared in brightness and then disappeared. At around midnight, I continued to look at the sky, but only saw a solitary meteor cross the Big Dipper's Handle. Although beautiful, I retired to bed curious at what I had witnessed. Today, I read several articles about an orbiting gamma ray observatory that is in the process of descending through the atmosphere, eventually crashing into a remote section of the Pacific Ocean on Sunday. I can only wonder if the object I saw was this satelite.