tonight 9pm eastern an object streaked E. to W. high atmosphere w/ a huge con trail over Adirondacks. Ideas?

Question

Spotters reported no sound, and no familiar aircraft characteristics, dull metallic visuals. The con trail persists even now and is unaffected by wind appearing to be very high in the atmosphere. Could this be deorbitting space junk?`

Answer 1

9 PM tonight over the Adirondacks would be pretty dark, so you likely would not see an aircraft, even if you could see its contrail. Meteor trails usually are not very persistent, so I doubt that would be what they saw. At the same time, you said streaked, and that could be an indication of a meteor. Normally you don't hear a meteor, and the trail might last some time, but not like an aircraft contrail.

Space junk, from a satellite reentering, is unlikely, as most of these orbit in a west to east direction generally, Polar satellites, of course, would be north-south or south-north, but east-west is almost unheard of. (It takes a lot more energy to get to orbit in an east to west direction, because the other way, the rocket is already moving close to 1000 miles an hour.

I vote for meteor, based on the scanty information you gave.

Answer 2

i seen something simalar in 1992 above the city of Medford ,OR. me and 2 of my friends saw it and it scared the crap out of us...looked orange like a firery coal and left a a long black con trail that remained long after the object was gone , we scanned the news channels for anything and we concluded that it was a meteor or the space shuttle Atlantis landing in California.