Mysterious light in sky over Finger Lakes baffles New Yorkers

UF-No.

Upstate New York residents were perplexed by a glowing ethereal light that appeared in the sky on Tuesday night, according to reports.

The light — a bright white with a pill-shaped center surrounded by a misty aura — left witnesses awestruck and questioning whether they were witnessing a manmade, natural, or 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,” one Facebook user posted alongside an image Tuesday night, adding, “Finger Lakes Region of NY State (Cayuga and Seneca Lakes location)”

Another wrote: “soooo what UFO did i see tonight?? did anyone else see this outside around 9:30pm? It was INSANE.”

And a third Facebook user commented, “Who seen this?!?! UFO in Saxonburg?”

In fact, the light was the tail and plume of a Vulcan Centaur rocket launched from Cape Canaveral by the United Launch Alliance, according to Space.com.

Vulcan took off with four side-mounted solid rocket boosters and successfully sent its 3 million-pound payload into geosynchronous orbit, the outlet reported.

The launch sent an experimental navigation satellite on behalf of the US Space Force to orbit Earth, according to ULA.

“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,” the company said in a release.

Tuesday’s launch was one of the longest treks the company has ever executed, taking over seven hours to execute.