2012-03-23 - Lebanon, NJ - Unknown

Very bright, pulsing/flickering object, flying in the Northern sky over NJ

This sighting happened at about 2:10 to 2:15am, 3/23/2012... I was getting ready to go to bed, and as I am an amateur astronomer part of my nightly ritual before I go to bed I look outside my bedroom window and give the skies a visual scan... I do this to see how the sky looks (if it's clear, what the stars look like, etc..) My bedroom window looks out towards the Northern sky. Not much of anything too exciting in that part of the sky, but as I looked out at the clear night sky I noticed something that resembled a bright "star" flickering/pulsing with many colors towards the North. It was very bright and it was flickering/pulsing like crazy and changing colors... almost like when you look at a star through a telescope on a night where there is a lot of turbulence in the atmosphere.

I immediately knew that this was NOT a star, as there are no stars that shine this brightly in this part of the Northern sky and it wasn't Jupiter or Venus which are at roughly in the West to NorthWestern part of the sky. It was at about 45 to 50 degrees in elevation in relation to the horizon, and pretty far away. It's hard to say how far, as it was dark, but if I had to guess I would say it was at least 4 or 5 miles away. It was about as bright, or maybe slightly brighter, as Jupiter when it's high up in the sky at night, and gain it was flickering/pulsing in many brilliant colors (Red, Blue, Green, White, etc).

I stood there at the window watching this strange "star" for a few seconds when all of a sudden it started moving to the right (towards the East) very quickly and stopped... and then went back towards the West and stopped. As soon as I saw this I gasped loudly which startled my wife who was in a sound sleep and woke her up. It's movement reminded me of a spinning top... in how it spins in place but all of a sudden will change directions... it's an abrupt but fluid movement. At first I told myself may it was my imagination and it was like an optical illusion where I thought I was motionless while watching this "star" but my own slight movements made me think I was seeing movement... but then all of a sudden it went straight up a bit, like it gained altitude and quickly went back down. At this point I was kind of freaked out! So I asked my wife to come and look at this and tell me if I was just me imagining things... She came to the window and it was motionless for a few ! seconds agin and as she watched it, BOOM! It started to move quickly from East to West and then back from West to East again! She gasped as well as she didn't expect it to move like this.

I continued to watch this object as it seems be slowly flying away from us towards the North as it continues to make the abrupt but fluid (I know this is a strange way to describe, but it's the only way I can explain it) movements. It was definitely NOT and airplane or a helicopter, or any sort of conventional aircraft... I am very familiar with aircraft and this object did not have standard navigational lighting like an aircraft would have. And the abrupt/fluid movements it made cannot possibly be made by a conventional aircraft as we know it. After watching it for about 5 minutes it got further away and lost it over the roofs of the houses behind my house and couldn't see it any longer.

I do not know what this object was, but I can tell you with certainty (due to my many years of experience with the night sky/amateur astronomy and my knowledge of aircraft) that this was something extraordinary. It wasn't a planet or star, it wasn't a satellite, and most definitely was not a conventional aircraft. I have no idea what it could have been. I would really be interested to find out if you received any other reports from New Jersey that corroborate my sighting.

Thanks!