American Airlines New York pursuit of brilliant light — April 8 1956

On the night of April 8, 1956, an American Airlines flight departed Albany on its regular route toward Buffalo. Captain Raymond Ryan and First Officer William Neff saw a brilliant fluorescent-white light near Schenectady that initially appeared almost stationary and approximately two or three miles away. The light then accelerated westward at a speed the pilots estimated at eight hundred to one thousand miles per hour, changed from white to orange after briefly going dark, and remained ahead of the airliner as the crew followed it. The pilots reported the encounter by radio to civilian and Air Force control towers. Observers at Albany, Watertown, and Griffiss Air Force Base also reported seeing the object or its silhouette. At Air Force request, the crew temporarily passed its Syracuse landing point and continued tracking the object toward Oswego. After the aircraft finally resumed its route, the object accelerated toward the northwest over Lake Ontario and disappeared in the direction of Toronto.