The article said that a State Police check with Albany Airport found no planes in the area. For several nights following this incident, other people reported strange lights in the night sky. WRGB, Channel 6, carried a story about the sightings, which included a video of one object. Their weatherman remarked, on air, that it looked like a star. I did not catch this report, but another member of the Albany Area Amateur Astronomers saw it and is quite sure that it was indeed a bright star.
Many people are totally unfamiliar with the night sky.
They only become conscious of it when they hear about something like this. People generally know that stars twinkle, but are often unfamiliar with the particulars. The twinkling is caused when starlight passes through moving layers of air with different densities. These layers distort the light causing variations in apparent brightness, location, and color. The effects are especially pronounced when the star is bright and low in the sky, and they may be greatly heightened in binoculars.