Pill of Light Over the Finger Lakes

Just after 9:30 p.m. on August 12, residents across Upstate New York glanced up from Perseid watching and saw a bright, pill-shaped glow with a misty halo sliding silently across the sky. Social feeds lit up with clips from the Finger Lakes to Western Massachusetts, some calling it a “vortex,” others wondering aloud if they had just caught a UFO making a slow, spectral pass.

Within hours, the picture sharpened. Astronomers and local outlets traced the apparition to a high-altitude rocket plume illuminated by sunlight, a classic “space jellyfish.” United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur had lifted off from Cape Canaveral earlier that evening, and its exhaust bloom lined up with the timing and geometry seen over New York and New England. The combination of dark ground, sunlit upper atmosphere, and a long duration coast stage turned an ordinary launch profile into an extraordinary sky display.

As the posts kept coming, the narrative settled from mystery to mechanics, yet the moment still mattered: a whole region sharing the same slice of night, comparing notes, and trying to name what they saw. For a few minutes, the line between unknown and explained was thin enough to see through, and curiosity did the rest.