Something in the sky appeared to be falling straight downward.

About 5:40 PM my 11-year-old son and I were driving on route 212 from Saugerties New York, to Woodstock, New York. It was twilight. Roughly halfway there, I saw something in the sky in front of me (south/southwest). It was in the distance. It was a perfectly straight column of white smoke or vapor, like a thick contrail, with darker gray at the bottom. It looked perpendicular to the ground. To both my son and me, it looked like something was falling out of the sky, straight downward. It was not falling quickly, or in an arc, like a meteorite. We were able to see it for a couple of minutes before the road made a turn, and I lost sight of it. Neither of us saw it again, although we did see the empty sky where it should’ve been. A bright star or planet appeared there.
My son, and I were both very struck by how strange it was, and how unlike anything we had seen before. As we arrived in Woodstock, we both saw two trails at angles to each other that appeared to be airplanes. They might have just been regular airplanes, but it’s not often that you see two together in the sky over Woodstock.
When I got home, I posted a description of the experience on Facebook. A friend who lives in the area mentioned that she had also seen it while driving, and that it looked the same to her.
I am a 61 year old psychotherapist, and the other adult that saw this is the director of a school.