2014-09-13 - Duanesburg, NY - Sphere

It was late at night in Duanesburg, a rural town outside of Schenectady, New York. The sky is usually clear and it was this night, too. We were crossing the Interstate 88 overpass near route 20 when we saw an unusually bright white light with a red tinge in the western sky. It captured our attention as we crossed the overpass and began to turn on our home street. The object was spherical, bright, and deep red. My wife was sure it occupied the Northwestern part of the sky just 60 seconds ago, although now it wasn't moving fast. It was the biggest object visible in the sky, so much so that we pulled over to look at it some more.

Bizarrely, staring at the object gave both of us the perception of VERY large, red lightning streaks emanating from it. I vocalized this red streaks experience and my wife said the same was happening to her; the streaks appeared more orange to her. At this point we pull out and iphone 5 to capture the brilliance of it on camera. Naturally, the video just shows a bright white sphere against a black background. The camera could not see what we saw.

We must have watched the sphere for a few minutes. We had the inclination to drive another .5 miles to go home and get a better camera. We started the car and the object lost its red brilliance. Within 5 seconds of losing the red streaks characteristics, it disappeared by closing in on itself.

While driving and lamenting this fact, a much faster moving and closer red and white object was visible in the Southwestern sky. The first object was far away. This second one was so close and so low that it appeared to descend quickly just over some trees not that far away. The road did not exactly allow us to investigate exactly where we thought this thing was aiming to land. The second red object lacked the red streaks characteristic of the first one.