A New York optical illusion

Stationary lights in the night sky.

For some reason, its best seen from the Brooklyn Bridge or a clear vantage point anywhere in Brooklyn looking south over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

It will always be three white lights... stationary... impossibly high up... looking as if theyre attached to tethered balloons.

Only on rare occasions is the New York night sky clear enough to see the stars, so the lights really stand out.

Ive spent many a late night staring at those lights, waiting for them to move, but, they never seem to.

Looking from my bedroom window in Bayonne, directly across New York Bay from Brooklyn, I can see one of the lights.

It doesnt seem to be moving either.

New York gets a LOT of UFO sightings, Ive heard.

But this time I have time to track it.. it IS moving.. but incredibly slowly.

Even over five, ten minutes it hasnt moved by much.

Now I know what it is.

Bayonne is in the flight path for Newark Airport, the lights eventually moving faster and adding red, green and strobes to the display.

From Brooklyn, looking south over the ocean, where the view is unimpeded by the lights of The City, you can see the planes coming into land at all three airports, Newark, Kennedy and LaGuardia, but so far out gliding in slowly, they dont seem to move at all.

Amazing you can see the lights from 40 or 60 miles over the ocean, the planes coming in so frequently that you will always see a light in the same approximate position after looking away for while.

At night, due to noise restrictions, you can hardly hear 'em - just an occasional jet's whispered thunder over the water.

I try not to feel silly hoping that the explanation is somehow more magical or incredible.

But sometimes, I still stop and look at the stationary lights, managing to deny analysis and logic..... alluding to magic.
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