2013-06-03 - Ithaca, NY - Light

Star-like bright-white UFO over Ithaca, NY in June 2013.

I and two friends were camping at a location a few miles east northeast of Ithaca, NY. We were walking across a small meadow to our camping area when we paused to look up at the stars as it was a clear night and had been cloudy and rainy of late. We were discussing the relative visibility and general appearance of satellites versus planes – similarities and differences, when my friend pointed and said something to the effect of, “now WHAT is that?” We all then watched a very bright light moving at a relatively slow speed, a speed which would not have seemed unreasonable for conventional aircraft. And we were in fact near a small airport. Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport was due northwest of our location about two miles. However, several things about this light did not reconcile with what any of us could consider conventional. As I said, we were near an airport and every night would see planes coming and going – most often travelling from east to west or west to east relative to our position. In fact there was at least one visible in another part of the sky at the time which gave us something to compare the object to. The strange light appeared above the trees due south of our position and it travelled in an arc that was mostly north and a little bit east when it eventually fell out of view against the treeline.

The first odd thing about it was the light. Rather than any blinking light or combination of red, green, yellowish, etc. it was bright white light. I would say it was about as bright as Jupiter when Jupiter is super bright. Maybe a little more intense than that. In other words, the object was brighter than any star in the sky but not enormous and blinding. It did not blink or quaver, but rather was continuously bright as it travelled. There were no other color lights as there often are on aircraft. Just one bright light, far brighter than any other aircraft.

Sound: the brightness of the light would have only seemed reasonable if the object were fairly close to us yet we heard no sound at all.

Flight path: as I said, the path was roughly south to north from an area that would have taken it over Fall Creek, Lower Creek Rd, and then northward disappearing from our vantage point as it headed toward Etna Rd. The speed, as I said, was not unusual, but the deviations from a straight line were peculiar. It followed the general path I just described but at times would “squiggle” for lack of a better word, in a way that would be wildly impossible for any conventional aircraft. I don’t know how to estimate the scale of these sudden, rapid movements. They were not large or all over the sky, but rather just as if the object were like a needle on a record or seismograph and it was bumped…it would squiggle off the path and then back on again. Another way to describe it would be to say that the object was capable of “jumping” from side to side and back again…not like floating and moving but just an occasional and erratic jump through space from one location to another (whether t! he space was covered represented 30 feet or 30 yards, I don’t know as I don’t know how far away the object was or how big) instantaneously. Each time it happened, one of the three of us would say to the others, “did you all just see that? Are we really seeing this?” So we were confirmed in knowing that we were not “imagining” what clearly was out of the ordinary. One of the witnesses was a Veteran who has spent time around all manner of aircraft, and he was quite sure he knew of nothing which could perform the “stunts” that we were seeing.

The path of travel that we could observe (which was limited due to the treeline surrounding the small meadow) probably took about 3 to 5 minutes. As it disappeared behind the trees we all debriefed and were pretty agreed that we had no logical explanation (despite the nearby small airport) for what we had seen. A few nights later (maybe 3 or 5 nights later?) two of the three of us were again in a slightly different spot at the campground, and we saw the same phenomena again. However the available viewable sky from our vantage point was very small so we could only track it for about 30 seconds, though it was very similar and travelling a similar north/northeastern trajectory.

Regarding animals: I am not suggesting a correlation, but for what its worth I heard coyotes howling and "carrying on" that night (it was the first and only time in my four weeks that heard them) probably 20 minutes or so after the sighting.

I would note that two of the three of us were camped in that location for four weeks, as we were part of a wilderness skills program. So we were quite familiar and acclimated to the local sights and sounds, including the typical airport traffic and patterns.