On 9/18/23 I drove up to Fair Haven State Park near Oswego in order to attempt to see the Aurora activity that night. As the skies looked to be clear I took a chance on the drive, unfortunately when I arrived there were a few too many clouds forming off the lake to really see the Aurora clearly. Still I got the DSLR out to take a time lapse. After a few minutes I noticed a strange phenomenon off to the west that went high over the lake and was not something I had seen before. It was not clouds as it was well above them and began as two bands then combined into one larger band. It stayed for a bit and then the clouds became even worse so I could no longer see it. It’s visible on the left side of the images below and in the youtube video as a time lapse. In the video you can see it moving and clearly is above the clouds in the foreground.
It wasn’t until I saw the NASA APOD image from September 27th, 2023 that I realized what I had seen, and based on the timing and location of that image it’s possible it was the same night or even the same event.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230927.html
Apparently it’s called a STEVE or “Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement” and looking at the Wikipedia page the images match what I observed. Read more about the phenomenon on Wikipedia below.