2003-11-08 - New York, NY - Disk

Dark, silent cylinder/worm shape over NYC the night of the eclipse

I'm a sailor, and a skeptic, so this is the first thing of this type I've seen, but I can't explain it.

I was on the roof of my apartment building in Little Italy the night of the eclipse, just ten minutes past the maximum eclipse, and watching through my binoculars. I had propped my elbows on a rooftop ventilator to hold the binocs steady--when I suddenly saw, coming into the left of my field of view and holding an absolutely straight lateral line, a very dark object, cylinder-shaped (really it was more like a segmented caterpillar, with "bumps"). It was tilted at an angle of about 30 degrees to the horizon, and held that attitude. What the heck is that??? I wondered, and followed it with my binoculars, thinking that I'd see it better when it crossed in front of the moon.

But it did not cross in front of the moon--it disappeared then reappeared on the other side! which was really mind-blowing, and rules out aircraft, flights of geese, loose helium balloons, and any other hypothesis I can think of. Also, it stayed at exactly the same 30-degree angle, Very dark against the night sky, no nav lights or any other kind of lights. Utterly silent. It wasn't something on the lens of the binoculars, either, because it moved independently. I took the binocs down to try to see with my naked eye, but couldn't see it, then couldn't find it again.

I don't even believe in these things, so the joke's on me.