2003-11-09 - Rutledge, PA - Other

Eratic moving star - sphere with with crescent reflection.

Saw a light moving relativly fast in North-West direction, believing it was an airplane high up in the sky because the light was slightly flickering. But just shortly after I noticed it, it stopped moving, started moving fast in opposite direction and then back the original direction, very slow this time yet noticable. It didn't flicker as much either, it became a steady light. That definitely caught my attention. Two jetliners passed in the sky and they didn't look anything like this object. The jetliners also flew lower than this object, excluding the possibility it was a distant helicopter.

I was staring at this object for a long time, making sure I wasn't looking at a planet, star or a 'roid. It was much brighter than any object, except for the moon and those jetliners. It appeared the light was not generated though, but rather a reflection from a spherical object - maybe caused by the bright moon. The reflection was brightest in the direction of the moon and then faded away sharply around a sphere-like edge - a faint crescent similar to a 1% new moon, with a bright spot like that sometimes seen with a solar eclipse. The color at its brightest spot was an off-white/yellow. The crescent was darker, almost turning into a dark red before it completely faded away.

The crescent, albeit faint, was rather large. About half the size of an actual crescent moon, which kind of dazzled me because this object must have been rather large if it were fully exposed. That really convinced me it couldn't have been a planet or star.

I went inside because it was getting too cold for me, but when I came back outside about 1 1/2 hour later out of curiosity, it was gone. Spent a good long time staring at it though and it certainly got me amazed!