City woman sees strange light in sky
A city woman is hoping to find other witnesses to a strange point of light she saw first hovering, then falling through the sky Thursday evening.
Evelyn Elam, 55, a library technical assistant at Choice Magazine in Middletown, said she saw it around 4:45 p.m. Thursday as she was driving on Liberty Street on her way home from work.
“At first it looked like a jet,” she said of the point of light. “But there was no tail of smoke.” She said it appeared motionless for a while, then slowly started to descend. She rolled down the window of her car to discuss the sighting with a pedestrian, she said, to confirm what she was seeing.
Later, as she drove west on Washington Street, she saw it even more clearly and said it looked like it was going to crash into the earth.
“It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.
Roy Kilgard, an astronomer and research professor for Wesleyan University’s Astronomy Department, said the alleged sighting may have been of a meteor. He said a handful of meteors fall through the atmosphere every hour on any given night, and that even a small meteor can make an impressive display.
“If it is the size of a grape, it can produce a pretty spectacular fireball as it falls through the sky,” he said.
This year’s Geminid Meteor Shower resulted in a few particularly bright Geminids spotted in the Mojave Desert and Slovakia, Kilgard said, but the peak was a few days ago and was unlikely to be the source of what Elam said she saw.
Source: City woman sees strange light in sky
Evelyn Elam, 55, a library technical assistant at Choice Magazine in Middletown, said she saw it around 4:45 p.m. Thursday as she was driving on Liberty Street on her way home from work.
“At first it looked like a jet,” she said of the point of light. “But there was no tail of smoke.” She said it appeared motionless for a while, then slowly started to descend. She rolled down the window of her car to discuss the sighting with a pedestrian, she said, to confirm what she was seeing.
Later, as she drove west on Washington Street, she saw it even more clearly and said it looked like it was going to crash into the earth.
“It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.
Roy Kilgard, an astronomer and research professor for Wesleyan University’s Astronomy Department, said the alleged sighting may have been of a meteor. He said a handful of meteors fall through the atmosphere every hour on any given night, and that even a small meteor can make an impressive display.
“If it is the size of a grape, it can produce a pretty spectacular fireball as it falls through the sky,” he said.
This year’s Geminid Meteor Shower resulted in a few particularly bright Geminids spotted in the Mojave Desert and Slovakia, Kilgard said, but the peak was a few days ago and was unlikely to be the source of what Elam said she saw.
Source: City woman sees strange light in sky
