Dozens Report Strange Lights Over Mass. wrote:Dozens Report Strange Lights Over Mass.
NASA Launch Precedes UFO Sightings Across East Coast

POSTED: Saturday, September 19, 2009
UPDATED: 11:16 pm EDT September 19, 2009
BOSTON -- Cameras and radar systems along the East Coast were trained on a NASA rocket that soared into the atmosphere on Saturday night, but researchers weren’t the only ones who got an eyeful during the experiment.

Dozens of people along the coast reported seeing strange, cone-shaped lights in the sky in the minutes following the 7:46 p.m. rocket launch, which was conducted at a NASA facility in Virginia.

Several people in Massachusetts also contacted WCVB-TV on Saturday to report seeing the unidentified lights, including callers from Burlington, Bellingham, Belmont and Weston.

NASA launched the Black Brant XII suborbital rocket as part of an experiment to gather data on the highest clouds in the earth’s atmosphere. The rocket was designed to create an artificial cloud at about 173 miles above the earth’s surface – a site that researcher Keith Koehler said probably accounts for the strange sightings along the coast.

Koehler said researchers usually notify police and send out reverse 911 calls when they think a rocket launch will produce any unusual effects, but didn’t anticipate any problems with Saturday’s project. Koehler said he was fielding calls from around Virginia about the launch in the evening.

Data collected during the experiment will provide insight into the formation, evolution, and properties of noctilucent clouds, which are typically observed naturally at high latitudes, according to a statement released earlier by NASA. In addition to the understanding of noctilucent clouds, scientists will use the experiment to predict the distribution of dust particles from rocket motors.