2004-11-10 - Avon, NY - Unknown

Green laser finds object flying overhead

We were returning home from a long trip and had just passed through Avon NY. Avon is located South of Rochester NY and East of Buffalo NY. We had just entered Route 20 where it separates from Route 5. We were heading west. This is a 2 lane road through a large open field, and a route I regularly travel.

My friend wanted to show me how his new high powered green laser pen worked when pointing it at the moon. The moon was at about 11:00 and fairly low in the sky. My friend put the laser up to the windshield so we wouldn't get back splash from the laser into our eyes. He pointed it at the moon. A second or two after pointing it in that direction suddenly the laser hit an object flying by the moon but relatively close to us, maybe a couple of miles away at most. When it hit the object the light from the laser began sparkling and spashing in all directions as if it had hit a prism or similar object of glass. I thought he had hit the side of a plane and told him to shut it off as we would get into trouble. After he turned it off, there was nothing in the sky except the moon. We looked for a plane but nothing was there.

There was enough background light from Rochester and Buffalo to allow us to see an object as large as the one we had seen. Note I was still driving, perhaps 30-40 mph. We thought this was an abbarition and he again lit the laser. This time nothing happened when he shown it at the moon. By chance he moved it around and at the same elevation, but now about 1 oclock he again hit the object. He followed it for a moment, then shut it off. We realized that there was something there that did not reflect light as any airplane we knew of might. Also it was not visible to the eye except with the aid of the laser. We became a little shaken and I hit the gas and got out of there quickly. It was cold that evening and so we did not open our windows to listen for sounds. Because the object was only visable with the laser, we could not determine its size, and because the field is mostly open we had no reference point to be sure of the size or the distance from us. Still knowing the ability of the laser to light a large area a couple of miles away, we knew it had to be relatively close.