1952 UFO disk outside Binghamton, NY Girls' Club stops for a look at teenage females

This happened when I was 11 years old but I will never forget it.  It was a life changing experience and I entered The University of Michigan as an astronomy major in 1958 as a direct result of fascination based on this event. It occurred at 9 pm as I was leaving the Binghamton Girls Club, at that time located at the intersection of Frederick and Liberty streets in Binghamton, NY.  We were all dismissed at 9pm so the front yard was full of girls age 9-16, about 45-60 in number, heading for home.  The date was approximate- but the moon was a crescent descending in the west. The object appeared in the southeast sky, looking like a shark's fin, or like a crescent moon cut in half by a cloud, but the sky was black, clear and cloudless.  I was fascinated by the night sky and the beautiful stars even then, so I was constantly looking up at them.  I may have been the first to notice this thing.  As I looked at it, it was self illuminated- sort of a harvest moon orange color- no lights visable.  It did the most incredible thing. As it drew closer and enlarged in size it flipped or sort of rolled over, I saw this whole thing very clearly, when it sort of turned over or revolved horizontally it appeared as a disk and approached us very quickly and stopped in the sky about 45 degrees up from the south horizon.  There was no sound at all, but the machine appeared solid, and had a series of windows (?) or port holes (?) around the middle.  I had the distinct feeling that we were being observed or scanned or something.  It was a very oppressive feeling I had never experienced before.  When someone yelled "it's a flying saucer" it started a stampede back into the Girl's Club door, if you can imagine a large number of teen-age girls all trying to get back into a small door all at once.  We yelled at the 2 women directors that a flying saucer was outside, they reluctantly and (too) slowly went outside.  By this time the machine had moved to the southeast and was much smaller in size, it quickly moved away in an apparent straight line becoming quickly smaller to an orange "point" and disappeared as it speeded away.  " It's the moon " said our director, but I said "no" and showed her the crescent moon setting in the west.  I checked the local paper next day but couldn't find report, but being very young maybe I didn't follow up on any reports.   The thing looked most like an orange football or blimp shape with those portholes around the middle, but I know it was no blimp as they make a noise and cannot approach or speed away like this thing did.
Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate.  PD