NASA Explains Odd Light Flash Over Philadelphia

[The Straight Story]

NASA Explains Odd Light Flash Over Philadelphia

by KYW's Pat Loeb

If you saw a bright light in the sky, on Saturday night, around 8pm, you weren't imagining things. The light was visible over a wide swath of the east coast. It was coming from 180 miles above earth.

It was a four-stage Black Brant suborbital sounding rocket creating the flash of light and shimmering dust in the skies over Philadelphia and most of the mid-Atlantic.

NASA spokesman Keith Koehler says it was part of an experiment to study noctilucent clouds -- the highest clouds in Earth's atmosphere:

“Typically they form in northern latitudes so you don't see them very often and they don't know a whole lot about them so the idea was to form this artificial cloud and then relate that to the actual clouds.”

Koehler says cameras and radar based at various locations along the east coast and in Bermuda observed the launch and instruments in space will continue to track the cloud for days or even months.

http://www.kyw1060.com/NASA-Explains-Odd-Light-Flash-Over-Philadelphia/5256575

[berni_mccoy]

1. My family and I saw it in New Hampshire. We thought two satellites must have had a collision.

It looked like a satellite separating into three pieces.

[FormerDittoHead]

2. 1) advance notice? 2) Local Thunderbirds flyover

First off, why must the news ASK? It wasn't (supposedly) something to do with national defense.

WAS IT ON THEIR WEBSITE? The news report should have said, "NASA spokesmen pointed people to their website, which informed the public about the upcoming test for weeks..."

Next, THAT WAS NOTHING compared to the pre-game flyover of the Thunder-Blue Angels whoever who, at 1pm this afternoon, we thought there was going to be a MAJOR plane crash right in our neighborhood.

We live right across the river from where the Eagles play, and I put 2 and 2 together. We're used to having jets fly over all the time thanks to Philly International, but this sounded like they diverted train tracks to the front of my house...

Hey guys, you're doing a great job, flying those jets like that and all. Now let's get out of the war business.

[Richard D]

3. Sounds like

a global warming experiment. Maybe to see if the artificial creation of high-altitude clouds can prevent some heating.

[Indenturedebtor]

5. Don't clouds trap infrared? n/t

[amerikat]

4. My sister and her husband saw it last night.

Thanks for posting. Now we know what it was that he saw.

[tridim]

6. Another article with descriptions. Sounds kind of fishy to me.

http://wfmz.com/view/?id=1269972

NASA may have the answer to the light many people reported seeing in the sky Saturday night. According to NASA's web site, a rocket experiment that may shed light on the highest clouds in the Earth's atmosphere was conducted from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, launched on a NASA Black Brant XII Sounding Rocket. WFMZ's Stephanie Esposito reports.

Viewers from all over our region called into 69 News tonight reporting a strange sight in the sky.

From Allentown and Bethlehem all the way to Berks county, everyone calling in described the same thing.

"We were just walking and talking that sort of thing and I looked up into the sky."

"There was like a big white orb almost like a tiny planet and all of a sudden this big ray came out of it. It was all white."

"All of a sudden a beam came down and it was white and blueish and all of a sudden the sky sucked it up and just closed.

>>REPORTER: Reports from Bethlehem to Berks County...

"I just keep thinking of the movie 'E.T.' "

>>REPORTER: Something unusual took place in the sky tonight.

"I would never have had time to take of picture of it. It just disappeared, the sky ate it."

>>REPORTER: So far, 69 news hasn't been able to obtain a picture... but we did get multiple witness reports.

We contacted the Lehigh Valley Airport and local communication centers and everyone said nothing was happening.

"A lot of times people hear of stuff like this and say oh it was a weather balloon or a shooting star? NO NO. It was not a shooting star and it was not a weather balloon."

>>REPORTER: One thing is for sure... tonight people are asking themselves, 'Do I believe?'

"I don't know if I believe in that sort of thing."

>>REPORTER: Some people have pointed out todays date... 9/19/09 as an odd coincidence.

Whether you believe in UFO's or not, the people who saw it agree, they've never seen anything like it before.

In Bethlehem Township, Stephanie Esposito, 69 News.

[Uroboros]

7. Happen to see it last night in NYC.......

...and those descriptions are pretty accurate. Weird looking up at just the right moment and seeing this triangular "beam" of light.

You think NASA would consider announcing this beforehand or at least have some photos of the thing to show. Space.com has the story and no photos. NASA was watching and photographing their pre-planned experiment no?

[MrScorpio]

8. Cue Scully and Mulder nt