Upstate New York residents were shocked to see a glowing light that appeared in the sky on Tuesday night, August 12. The light was a bright white object with a pill-shaped center surrounded by a misty aura. It left residents questioning whether it was an extraterrestrial phenomenon, the Times Union reported.
“In the Northern sky, opposite the moon… Not a meteor, planets or Starlink and Yes it was moving but silent,” a Facebook user wrote, sharing a photo of the light. “Finger Lakes Region of NY State (Cayuga and Seneca Lakes location)”.
Facebook users took to the comment section to react to the photo, with one saying, “I live about four hours from the launch site and it does not look like this, and it winks out when it reaches a certain altitude. This looks very different from what we see on the regular in Florida.” “What could it be? Weird things happening these times,” one user wrote, while another said, “OMG I SAW THIS! I was on The phone with my daughter and freaked out, IM IN KANSAS”. “Saw this in Warren OH also! It was above us for a few minutes not moving. I looked away for a few seconds and all of a sudden it was heading North and disappeared in a matter of seconds,” one said.
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“Does anyone else pay attention to the sky every night? We see UAP’s of many kinds, at many altitudes, every night. Some are stationary, some move quickly, some disappear and then reappear and some travel back and forth (sometimes in a zig-zag pattern). I can find no explanation for these things. We often see what looks like red, green and blue lights in a triangular pattern, but light at a distance can appear colored. What’s everyone’s take on these?” one user wrote. “Yes we saw this too in MA!! We thought it was an alien abduction,” another said.
What exactly was the object?
The light seen in the sky was actually the tail and plume of a Vulcan Centaur rocket launched from Cape Canaveral by the United Launch Alliance, per Space.com. Vulcan took off with four side-mounted solid rocket boosters and ended up sending its three million-pound payload into geosynchronous orbit. According to ULA, the launch sent an experimental navigation satellite to orbit each on behalf of the US Space Force.
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The company stated in a release, “The Air Force Research Laboratory’s NTS-3 satellite will test critical technologies designed to defeat the 21st century threats that contested, degraded and denied position, navigation and timing poses to our national security.”
This launch was reportedly one of the longest treks ever executed by the company. It took more than seven hours to execute.