Our Looking Back column this month recalls an incredible wave from 40 years ago where various parts of the country experienced an unusual amount of UFO traffic during 1973. I have personally mentioned this particular time in this space before as I had firsthand encounters with these strange objects.
John Ventre describes the many pockets across the U.S. where UFOs were out in great numbers and flying low to the ground. In Pennsylvania that year, especially in the southwestern portion of the state, hundreds of UFO reports were being received by investigator Stan Gordon as well as a large number of Bigfoot reports in the same areas.
While the ridicule factor was in high gear in that era for anyone claiming to have seen a UFO, reporting a large, tall, hairy beast in your backyard was beyond comprehension and many believed the stories were being invented. I always like to point out that especially in this time, those who studied the UFO phenomena were not speaking to those who studied Bigfoot, and those who studied Bigfoot most likely did not speak with those who studied UFOs. The two worlds just did not intersect.
But yet the reports continued to pour in about the first of January 1973 and continued to get stronger over the summer and falls months. Gordon made the decision then to accept all reports of anomalous behavior and later began to draw conclusions between the UFOs and the creatures.
Just after dark one evening I was standing along a suburban street in Greensburg, PA, with a group of friends, along Seminary Drive in the Mt. View neighborhood. Someone pointed down the street of nicely built homes and manicured lawns and shouted, “What’s that?”
Like everyone else, I looked in that direction and saw something rather unusual. In the sky barely a few feet above the telephone pole lines was an object about the width of the two-lane road, disc-shaped, perhaps just 8 or 10 feet tall, that was completely lit up on its underside, and was silently moving directly toward us.
Pennsylvania telephone poles stand 40 feet tall, so I estimate that this object was no more than 45 feet off of the ground. The disc was moving toward us at a fairly slow rate, about 10 to 15 mph. All eyes were on the object as it reached us and moved directly overhead.
I recall nearly gasping as I took in the object in the seconds before it was overhead as I tried to make sense of what it could be. The size and shape were unusual, its lighting rather odd, and then the silence officially pronounced it as a mystery. As it moved overhead, standing just beneath it on the ground 45 feet below, you can only hear what appeared to be the displacement of the air, like a light rustling of the wind.
The object was following the lay of the land with Pennsylvania’s gently rolling hills. It moved past us and followed the long hill that moved toward Route 30 below us and quickly disappeared. The moment’s following were a bit panicky – everyone was moving around and shouting and asking what it was we just saw. In a neighborhood of 300 homes and just a few blocks from home, I quickly jumped into my family sedan and drove home, rushing inside to tell my parents what I had just seen.
Moments later, we were outside again looking at the sky, wondering if the object was going to return. A Ford station wagon loaded with neighbors from the opposite end of the area pulled up in front of our home and we rushed over to talk to them. This group had just seen the same object and they were alarmed. We all quickly agreed to assemble witnesses on their property as soon as we could.
Then about 15 minutes later, I found myself standing on the neighbor’s front lawn with more than a dozen other witnesses all telling our personal story of the encounter we had just had.
None of us really understood that evening what the larger picture was. My own father, though, was a volunteer photographer for Stan Gordon and my parents attended meetings on the UFO phenomena with him. I had a bit more information that night than the average person, but even Gordon was most likely in the dark as to how much longer the wave was going to continue. Then suddenly, someone in the group shouted – “Look, there it is again. It’s back.”
I looked up into the dark sky and again saw what appeared to be the same disc, lit the same way as the original object, but this time it was higher on the horizon and a short distance away from us. We watched as the object moved toward us and then it suddenly stopped and began to hover. After a few seconds of hovering in place, the object began to quickly move directly down and toward the ground, but stopped and hovered again possibly at about 200 feet. Then a few seconds later it simply remained at that altitude, but moved about 100 feet and stopped to hover again. Then it quickly shot straight up into the air back to the level where we had first seen it hover. Then hovering in place at this higher altitude, it moved about 100 feet away at that same level and stopped again. Then again rushed to the ground area, again to about 200 feet off of the ground. We all waited in anticipation to see what was going to happen next. But now we heard the distinct sound of jets moving into our airspace.
The unusual object, hovering at this rather low altitude, suddenly shot off at an angle at tremendous speed until we could no longer see it.
Then we all saw what appeared to be two military jets moving into the sky in formation. As they entered the same area where the object had just been making its odd maneuvers, they circled that area, and then quickly moved away in the same direction that the object moved.
Just a minute later, two light planes, possibly single engine aircraft, moved into the area in the same formation as the military jets did, flying alongside each other. They also circled the local airspace and then like the military aircraft, moved off into the direction of the UFO.
We all began talking again about what we had just seen. Someone wondered if we were in the middle of an alien invasion. Others told their own, personal UFO stories from the past.
And all of us wondered out loud if we would ever see this strange object again.
We did not have to wait long. About 30 minutes later, what appeared to be the same object moved into our air space from the original direction it had approached from. And then the object performed the same maneuvers it had done earlier in exactly the same fashion – stopping and hovering, moving toward the ground, sliding over, shooting up, sliding over again, shooting to the ground, and then moving out of our area at tremendous speed.
And then again the military jets moved in, completed their circling, and again moved off in the same direction as the UFO. And again, the light planes moved in and completed the same actions. We all stood outside another couple of hours that night, but the strange object and the known aircraft did not return.
Once 1973 had finished I learned the larger story from Stan Gordon and the odd reports of the Bigfoot creature in the same area at the same time.
Many years later, Gordon and I would reunite on the subject and work on the book, Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook. Gordon chose a methodical case-by-case look at what occurred that year and relates the cases with great detail from an investigator’s point of view.
If you study ufology and have not yet read Gordon’s book, I would suggest this particular volume be read and studied as one more important piece of the larger puzzle as we resolve the UFO enigma.
Hearing my parent’s story of watching a UFO hover over a gas station near their home in the early 1950s was chilling, but seeing an actual UFO at 45 feet propelled me into a lifetime of UFO interest culminating in a recent four and-a-half year project covering the latest news on incoming cases.
The following is selected edited witness testimony from Assigned Cases for February 2013. All of these cases are currently under investigation by MUFON field investigators.
February 11, 2013, 8:30 p.m., Longwood, Seminole County, FL, Case 45682. “My teenage daughter was driving home from the store at about 8:30 p.m. last night,” the witness stated. “As we were coming down the block I noticed a green, small light cross the road at about 20 feet overhead that left a trail as it moved. My first thought was a lightning bug, but I then realized it was too big to be and I never see lightning bugs here. We pulled into the driveway and I jumped out of the car looking up. It was then about 10 to 15 feet overhead and moved diagonally but was now red and also leaving a trail. As it moved all you could see was a color trail and no object. I was never able to actually see an object which blew my mind because it was not that far! I looked toward the tree tops across the street and saw a white light blink once and never saw it again. I just stood there dumbfounded trying to understand what it was that I just saw. I started to feel faint or woozy and decided to go inside. As soon as I went inside my husband asked me what I was looking at and I said I saw something. He then began to describe the same thing with the same colors that he had seen earlier in the evening before I could describe to him what I saw. It seemed as if it was crisscrossing the street going over homes for some reason and felt as if it was alive in some way? I am having a hard time explaining the experience.”
February 17, 2013, 6 p.m., Papaaloa, HI, Case 45764. “I was sitting on my front porch, having a cigarette when I looked up and saw a black spot a little ways off in the distance,” the witness stated. “I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed that it wasn’t moving. There was a bit of wind so if it had been a bird, kite or something similar it wouldn’t be that still. I watched it carefully to see if I could identify it, but it appeared to be morphing shape from having a boomerang type shape to being a saucer, to being a perfect orb. It moved a few times from the southwest to the southeast direction, each time stopping and hovering perfectly still for a few moments before moving a little more. Suddenly, it dropped straight down a bit and then headed off to the east. I ran inside and grabbed binoculars as well as getting my dad to come outside with me. We both observed it hovering again, perfectly still just above the tree tops (Although it must’ve been behind them, depth is hard to discern against the sky). I looked through the binoculars to see that the color of the object was cobalt blue and shiny. Like car paint. There were no lights and no sound. Right after observing it through the binoculars, it disappeared completely. This all took around half an hour-ish and I stayed outside about another hour longer, hoping to witness something further but to no avail.”
February 9, 2013, 7:30 p.m., Charlottesville County, VA, Case 45663. “I was watching Matlock around 7:30 p.m.,” the witness stated. “Father yelled as I ran out with video cam in hand. The UFO was hovering above the house as the lights turned red to green and white to blue and Yellow-Orange moving north to south. Five minutes later a black helicopter with a searchlight came from west to north. Then 30 seconds later two jets past from east moving to the north.”
February 2, 2013, 5:50 p.m., Dutchess County, NY, Case 45570. “I was driving on Route 9 north near Academy Street in Poughkeepsie, NY,” the witness stated. “ I first noticed the object as what looked like a plane crashing or falling out if the sky. It had red and white lights. As I got closer it swooped down near the tree tops at a 45-degree angle. It was metal and comparable to the size of a small plane, diamond or triangular in shape with some type of tail with lights. It had a strange depth to it. Many other cars were on the road that night who may have witnessed this. When I realized it was not a plane I screamed. I continued to drive due to traffic and high speed. It was off to right top side as I drove off. I considered turning around to take pictures, but I was too afraid since I was by myself. I went home and told my husband and called in the sighting. No one has yet to come forward as I am hoping they will. I have contacted the local paper. I have been trying to deny to myself what I saw. It was disturbing and difficult to make sense of. Anyone who saw this, please report it. You will not be ostracized. You can call the local police or newspaper. I have also reported to the national reporting center.”
January 12, 2013, Ciscero, Hamilton County, IN, Case 45704. “Coming south on Interstate 31, I made a right turn on Interstate 47 heading west,” the witness stated. “Place is Bakers Corner just west of 47. Saw a light coming down and I thought it was a plane coming in for landing. I leaned forward to get an idea what direction it was to the right side of my car. I was looking through my windshield. Looking up I saw a red light about 40 feet up and it changed to a bright light and then to a bluish light. This light had about a three to four foot diameter and I could see it was recessed. That’s when I noticed the red light was above and to the rear of the car. At that time the lights blinked off. I was trying to locate them when I looked in the mirror and saw a vehicle with one light coming up behind me. I proceeded driving that vehicle followed me. When I got to Interstate 421 the vehicle was no longer there. I thought it may have been a tower at that location. I went back a few days later and there was no tower. There are a few towers in the area but none had the shape of lights that I saw. Whatever it was seemed to have stopped right above us and the trees. It bothered me that I couldn’t get a better look. That’s why I went back to the area.”
Artists seek inspiration from many sources, but if seeing is believing – Tom Jensen creates UFO models after an incredible southern Missouri triangle sighting in January 2,000.
Most ufologists are now familiar with the January 5, 2000, case of a slow moving triangle that crossed southern Illinois with multiple police agencies following the silent object. Bill Birnes and the History Channel show, UFO Hunters, featured the case. Our Illinois State Director Sam Maranto investigated.
Jensen was an assistant fire chief with two police officers who saw the same craft in nearby southern Missouri about an hour and-a-half before reports began in Illinois.
“It was a life changing event,” he said. “I will never forget the details of that night.”
But Jensen did not immediately begin building UFO models nor did he discuss the case much as he worked for state government, and like other professional positions in corporate America, talking about a UFO sighting was not considered acceptable behavior.
Model UFO by Tom Jensen.
Now in semi-retirement he and his wife are living in Minnesota, where he built his first UFO model as a prank during the Halloween season.
“I built a semi-full size model as a Halloween display,” he said. “Then the guys from MUFON in Minnesota and North Dakota were fighting over it – and I was thinking who was going to get here first with the check to buy it? Well, the guys from Minnesota got here first. And then we set it up in a banquet room at a Minnesota MUFON meeting and one of the members commissioned me to build a second one just for him. The cost for that second one was about $3,500 to build it. It even had a chrome dome on it.”
Jensen said he has only built two of the larger models, but has completed a dozen or more of the smaller, desktop models. Some of them include LED lights that are battery operated. He mainly builds the saucer-shaped UFO, but has also completed other shapes including the triangle.
Tom Jensen
But after seeing a large, triangle-shaped object close up, does Jensen believe we’re dealing with extraterrestrials?
“I’m not a firm believer that these crafts are from outer space,” he said. “Somehow I think that our government has something to do with it.”
Long before he created UFO models, Jensen completed a lot of water color paintings, but arthritic joint pain over the years caused him to instead take up woodworking.
He has created many kinds of children’s toys, including a fire engine and a San Francisco trolley car.
Jensen currently only builds with cherry wood and he does take orders – for toys and UFO models. If you have an interest in having something built, contact him at tandbjensen@bvillemn.net.
The UFO witnesses now in their 50s and older who had an experience during a long period of 20th Century American mockery are slowly coming forward to tell their stories. A 75-year-old from Edmonton, Metcalfe County, KY, filed his report with MUFON on January 7, 2013, as Case 45069. Aside from some light editing and punctuation updates – the story that follows is in his own words.
“Well guys, I’m going to tell you about this one, but don’t tell me I was crazy or I’m just lying after all the years I’ve kept it to myself, okay?
“Me and my family were on our way to church one Sunday evening about 7 p.m. back in 1959 or 1960. Not sure what year it was, okay, and we were on what is called Old Randolph and Edmonton Road, which is probably 10 miles south of the main highway, just an old blacktop country road. “Okay, this little country church set on this country road and we had to go over what is called the Roger Glass Hill. It’s a blacktop about halfway between Edmonton and Randolph Road, okay. He was the judge at that time in Edmonton, KY, but the road just before you get to this steep hill is a sharp curve and just as you clear out of the curve you’re on your way over this pretty steep hill. And if you’re going too fast with all of those little pea-sized gravels that works out of the blacktop on country roads, and you’ll skid on them.
“If you hit your brakes too hard, as you are ending and out of the curve, it sort of startles you because then you’re headed over this steep hill then and you have a tendency to hit your brakes and skid on those little gravels and you’ll slide off the sides of the road if you’re not careful. “But I knew this old country road very well. Been down it several times and as we approached the hill back a distance before we got to the hill, you could see a bright glow glaring upwards. “But from what? We don’t have any idea.
“My mother-in-law told me, you better slow up, there’s something wrong up ahead there. “See the glow of lights looks like at about the old Roger Glass Hill, so I slowed up to about 35 mph, which is okay there if you know the road. As we got closer, the light I could tell it was glaring up from that steep hill.
“Well guys, you’re not going that fast at 35 mph, but when you are startled by something it’s not slow either. If you just hit that brake pedal, when we went over this hill, I could see it was emitting an ungodly amount of light from it. In fact, it was glowing a very, very bright, odd looking, white light. And when I slammed on my brakes, of course my 1951 Mercury Monterey just slid on all of those little pea-sized gravels, and I thought we were going to skid into this thing and I just threw my arms up in front of my face and eyes to protect my face from flying glass, but I got stopped just in time.
“And they were all screaming – stop, stop, stop.
“And I had the brakes on, but it just skidded on the gravel and my car slid I guess within 30 feet of this thing, setting right smack dab in the middle of the road. No way could I have ever gotten around this thing. It was hanging over the side of the road on both sides and it had bright lights flashing off and on in different colors, but it was sort of glowing underneath too.
“So they were crying and yelling at me to get back away from this thing. But when you’re startled so badly you just can’t get anything right. But I kept telling them, quit screaming and yelling. I’m going to back up the hill hoping all the time another car wouldn’t come flying over the thing and hit me from the back and kill everyone in my car. So I finally got the damn car started and went to backing up to the top of this hill and when we got there I stopped and was trying to get my senses and figure out just what the hell this damn thing was.
“And as we were staring at it, the damn thing started glowing really bright and sort of raised off the roadway where it was setting at and then guys, that’s when I knew this thing wasn’t from this earth. “The thing just started gradually lifting off the ground. And then it got probably 15 or 20 feet up. I’m telling you guys this damn thing looked like a damn bullet streaking away from there. “And like I say, it literally just vanished before our eyes. People, I have never in my lifetime ever seen anything equal to it, not before then and never since then either. It was probably in the dark and scared to death too of this thing.
“Looked like it was 30 or 40 or maybe even 50 feet in diameter. It could have been bigger than that, but it nearly scared everyone to death and it just vanished and us setting there looking at it as it disappeared into the night sky.
“And that’s the last time I went that road after dark too.
“Never again did I go that way. I’m 75 years old now guys and I’ve never told no one about it because if you had told anyone about something like that back when, they would have put you in jail or had a warrant taken out for lunacy saying you were crazy as hell.
“But guys, you can believe me or you cannot believe me. I can care less, but I know what I saw. It wasn’t just some kind of gas or mistaking a flashlight for this light. I know what I saw with my own two eyes.
“What it was I have no idea. But take my word for it. Since then I’ve worked on huge aircrafts in Venice, CA. I’ve worked at Transco Electronics in California.
“I’ve worked on all kinds of jets and choppers and take my damn word for it. It wasn’t any type of airplane and man on this planet doesn’t have enough brains to build an airplane that could go one-third the speed, or to make it plain, a fraction of that speed it took off at.
“If someone says, or tells you there’s no such thing – you tell them – I’ll tell them – they are a damn liar. I saw one. I know they are real people. Don’t you ever let anyone make you believe different either.
“They live out there somewhere, and hey, the strangest thing – this damn thing didn’t make any sounds or noise or anything you could hear. Nothing from its motor at all – no sounds.
“Thanks guys. I wish they weren’t all dead now. I would have all seven of them to tell you just what I tell you here in this email. But sadly, me and my wife at that time have since divorced and she passed away. And the other six have all since passed too. But you can take my word for it, none the less, this did happen people.
“I would gain nothing by lying to you. I want nothing from you. But just make people here know they are real. Where they come from is beyond me.”
New Year 2013 kicked off with an uninterrupted flow of domestic UFO reports. Good testimony describing low level objects where the witness was in close proximity seemed to be increasing during December with a steady stream of triangle shapes.
The low level cases continued immediately into 2013 with multiple states reporting good witness testimony. Images and video continue sporadically and, as usual, most are modest in quality.
Population is an interesting report criterion to watch as the frequency of close proximity cases includes a steady stream from small town America.
At least two known hoaxes were submitted since January 1, 2013, both quickly acknowledged by investigators. One inventive submitter copied a clearly-visible street lamp head and simply pasted it in the sky overhead. Clever, but investigators aren’t laughing. In France, it’s a crime, but you’ll have to read the other, bigger, story on this page to find that out.
The following are selected interesting cases that include edited witness testimony. Unless otherwise noted, these reports remain under investigation.
Two Florida witnesses reported watching a silent, cylinder-shaped object that moved under 500 feet over their Miami rooftop about 9:20 p.m. on January 1, 2013, in Case 44934.
The two witnesses had just returned from dinner and were on their driveway at the time the object was first seen. They began to videotape the object that made no sound.
“The object was a tall, cylinder shape. It had no visible protrusions, appendages or identifying marks. I would estimate the size as roughly 10 feet tall with a diameter of approximately 6 feet. The object glowed with a white light. The bottom glowed with a white and orange, pulsating light that emanated in a lens flare pattern about two feet out sideways from the bottom of the object. No light seemed to emanate downwards, even as it flew over our rooftop and driveway.”
The witness provided one piece of video and four illustrations with the MUFON report. Miami has a population of 408,568.
A Westport, CT, witness reported watching a “glowing, blimp-like craft flying under the cloud cover” just after midnight on January 1, 2013, in Case 44892.
The witness was outside walking a dog when the object was first seen.
“Looked up to see a large, orange-yellow glowing blimp-like craft flying under the cloud cover,” the witness stated. “I thought it was a commercial jet at first, but it was about 10 times brighter than a jet’s navigation lights and did not flash strobes like jets do at night.”
The object did not appear to be anything that the witness was familiar with.
“It was not appearing like any normal craft, jets, helicopters, etc. and when I realized it was totally silent, I was perplexed. It traveled a little faster than corporate jets that fly by the house for Bridgeport, CT, airport. It was fairly low in the sky passing behind trees and eventually lost sight of it in the northeast sky.”
The witness summed up the experience.
“It looked about the size of a blimp, but made no noise, and traveled straight, but with a dancing type trajectory. I never saw anything that closely resembled this object in 60 years of seeing aircraft, etc. at night.”
Silver Spring is in Montgomery County, MD, population 71,452.
Two Montana witnesses at Ronan reported watching a “line of lights that turned into a triangle and then began spinning” and moving away at great speed in different directions about 1:11 a.m. on January 1, 2013, in Case 44887.
The witnesses were driving north through Ronan when the lights were first noticed.
“They were too bright to be planets and too high to be power line reflectors,” the reporting witness stated. “That’s what I thought they were at first. I wasn’t sure what the lights were and pointed them out to my passenger.”
Ronan is a city in Lake County, MT, population 1,871.
An Illinois witness at Johnston City reported watching a “large, pyramid-shape bigger than a two-story house” just 500 feet away that was moving northeast and making a static-type noise about 6:02 p.m. on December 29, 2012, in Case 44937.
The witness in Florida Case 44934 from January 1, 2013, provided this illustration to show where the object was originally seen and the point when they began to video tape.
The witness was working when someone yelled out.
“I have no idea what it was,” the witness stated. “It was like nothing I ever saw before. It was 500 feet away overhead and moving northeast. It was making a static-type noise and you could smell ozone like after a lighting strike.”
The witness described the object.
“The object was pyramid-shaped around the size of two-story house. It had green, amber, red, and blue lights flashing faintly lit around the trim of it and a soft, white light pulsing across the surface from the center. It was flying around 50 mph.”
Johnston City is in Williamson County, population 3,557.
A group of witnesses just outside of Aberdeen, NC, reported watching a “black, diamond-shaped UFO” just above the tree line that turned upside down and disappeared into the night sky about 7:40 p.m. on January 2, 2013, in Case 44972.
The group was returning from a trip to the beach and were about 30 minutes outside of Aberdeen when the object was first observed.
“We all looked out the side window and observed what looked to be a diamond-shaped craft, descending at an odd angle,” the reporting witness stated. “It was just above the tree line and it had five lights, four white ones on each corner and a red blinking one in the middle. It was very large in size”
The witness described the object’s size.
“I’m not sure exactly – maybe 40-50 feet – maybe more. It’s hard to gauge size when you’re looking at something you can’t explain. Anyway we watched and listened as it made no sound.”
The object moved quickly away.
“It flipped upside down and disappeared into the night sky. When it flipped you could see one of the lights as stationary so the whole thing must have completely rotated upside down. Then it took off and it was gone.”
Aberdeen is a town in Moore County, population 3,400.
An Indiana witness driving along State Road 64 in Harrison County and approaching Crandall reported watching “a white orb with a red glow” hovering about 100 feet off of the ground before moving south about 10:20 p.m. on December 31, 2012, in Case 44973.
Photo from Indiana Case 44973 that occurred on December 31, 2012, in Harrison City. The witness was driving along State Road 64 in Harrison County and approaching Crandall reported watching ‘a white orb with a red glow’ hovering about 100 feet off of the ground. The witness said the object ‘looked perfectly round and had a white center with a red glow surrounding it.’ The case is under investigation.
The witness was heading home from work when the object was first noticed.
“It was about 100 feet off the ground and looked perfectly round and had a white center with a red glow surrounding it,” the witness stated.
The witness began taking photos of the object.
“I managed to get two pictures with my cell phone. The first one was really blurry from the sleet and rain hitting the windshield of my car. I rolled down the window of my car and started to lean out the window for a third picture.”
The witness described the object’s movements.
“The red glow literally in matter of seconds peeled away starting at the bottom going around the white center to the top and formed sort of a candle shape, dropped a couple feet and took off to my left heading towards Crandall, Indiana.”
The witness submitted one image with the MUFON report. Crandall is a town in Harrison County, IN, population 152.
An Ohio witness at Lisbon reported an object hovering over a nearby cornfield about 6:37 a.m. on January 3, 2013, in Case 44986.
“It was hovering over the corn field west of my house,” the witness stated.
The object moved in a spiral motion.
“As it would move it would spiral and move east.”
No other details were immediately available on the case. Lisbon is a village in Columbiana County, northeastern, OH, population 2,821.
A Granby, CO, witness reported watching a silent, cigar-shaped object projecting a beam of light about 8:02 p.m. on January 2, 2013, in Case 44999.
The witness had just gone outside to look at the stars when the object was first seen.
“As I watched it come closer I could see it had two lights on the body with a flashing light in between,” the witness stated. “The color of the lights were kind of amber. It did not have red and white flashing lights, FAA regulations.”
The witness described the object’s movement.
“It was flying in a straight line.I could see a jet flying in the background and I could faintly hear the jet sound, but this object that was closer made no sound that I could hear. I live in the mountains and it was a quiet night. I can’t tell you how high or how far it was but I can say it was definitely over my valley. I should have heard something.”
The witness watched the object until it flew out of sight.
A Texas witness driving west along El Dorado after exiting I-45 at Webster reported a black, triangle-shaped object the size of a football field with four bright lights was moving just above the trees about 7:45 p.m. on January 3, 2013, in Case 45002.
The witness was driving home from work when the object was first noticed.
“I noticed it out the corner of my left eye,” the witness stated. “I thought it might have been a new light pole since I had never noticed it before, but the lights were becoming much larger. I was driving about 30 mph and started to slow down as the lights were starting to move over the trees. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.”
The witness said there were other vehicles on the roadway at the same time and that they were slowing down.
“It was very large, maybe a football field long. It moved directly over my car and the others heading northeast.”
The witness described the object.
“From underneath it was a solid black triangle with the top being at the back of the craft. At this point, I had rolled down my windows and heard no sound other than that of the other cars, typical rolling tire noise.”
The witness became frightened, but decided to pursue the object a second time.
“I could feel my pulse beating in my face. I went to my apartment about three minutes away, grabbed my video camera and ran out the door back into the car. I headed back toward I-45 hoping to get a good camera shot and it was gone. I drove around for a good 20 minutes trying to find the lights. I know what I saw and I know I’m not going to get any sleep tonight.”
This case was closed as an Unknown UAV. Webster is a city in Harris County, TX, population 10,400.
A Georgia witness at Rome reported watching a “very large, rectangular” object that was slow moving at the tree top level about 9:30 p.m. on January 3, 2013, in Case 45009.
The witness was driving to work when the object was first noticed and thought to be either a meteor or a cell tower.
“It was rectangular in shape, maybe 40 to 50 feet across and 15 to 20 feet high. It was the pretty blue color, like the police emergency lights, but steady, not strobing. It was maybe 20 to 30 feet above the trees. It was slowly turning to have the blue lighted side face Potts Road.”
The witness continued to watch the object.
“It just slowly crept into the night over the trees. Never did I ever hear a sound, or wind from and propulsion. At the junction of Ward Mountain Road and Potts Road it was directly over the road in front of my car. The moon was not up as of yet, and except for the bright lights, I had no idea of its shape.”
Rome is the largest city in, and the county seat of Floyd County, GA, population 96,250.
A Richmond, TX, witness got out of his car for a better look at a “weird amber-colored light” and realized it was attached to a silent, black, triangle-shaped object about 9:15 p.m. on December 31, 2012, in Case 45006.
“I noticed a black triangle-shaped object behind the weird light. Since it was cloudy I could not see anything above the strange object. What’s even weirder was that the flying object did not make a single sound. I know it was flying very close by, but there was no sound.”
The object moved away.
“I lost sight of the light and the object as it flew directly above me because it was very cloudy at that time.”
Richmond is a city and the county seat of Fort Bend County, TX, population 11,679.
An Alabama couple driving north along I-65 in Calera reported watching “a silver disc 20 feet off of the ground and about 50 feet” away about 5 p.m. on December 18, 2012, in Case 45011.
The witnesses first noticed “two bright, white flood lights and a blinking red light in the middle.”
“The lights were brighter than any I have ever seen,” the reporting witness stated. “We thought it was a tower. I was supposed to turn left after getting off at the Shelby Co. Airport exit, but just had to go right and check it out.”
The couple disagreed over whether the lights were on a tower or not.
“We saw from very close up, a silver disc with white lights on either side and a red flashing light on the middle front. I felt as if it was watching us because it was tilted towards us. She said ‘lookout!’ as I was going into the other lane and a car was coming.”
A two-story building then blocked their view momentarily from the object.
“I whipped the car around and went right back. Less than 60 seconds had passed. It was Gone!”
The couple reports that four other witnesses saw the object, but did not follow it.
Calera is a city in Chilton and Shelby counties, AL, population 3,158.
A Colorado witness at Loveland reported a “strange craft” crossing the sky about 11:35 a.m. on January 6, 2013, that seemed to change shape between a cigar and a saucer in Case 45054.
“Witnessed a strange craft traveling north by northwest in a semi linear path changing its elevation, up then down, in a seemingly unnatural way, maintaining a medium speed rate with no lights or any markings indicating its terrestrial origins,” the witness stated.
The object seemed to change shape.
“Its shape was at times a cigar and at moments a saucer shape. It looked smooth and either silver or white.”
After the object moved away, the witness stated that a military vehicle moved in the same direction.
“Moments after, a black, military-style helicopter was seen going in the same direction as the unidentified craft, being around a half mile out.”
A South Dakota witness at Yankton reported watching a light in the sky that looked like a police light where smaller lights are ejected from it – a pattern that has been observed over a period of four days about 10:30 p.m. on January 3, 2013, in Case 45060.
The sightings began on January 3, 2013, at about 10:15 p.m.
“I couldn’t help but notice what looked like police lights (‘cherries’ or whatever they’re called) in the sky to the south,” the witness stated. “I was pretty sure there weren’t any cop cars flying around that night, and the part of the sky I was looking at is a pretty busy flight path. On any day at any time of the day I see planes and especially helicopters flying by, usually flying northeast. This was definitely not a plane or helicopter.”
Then the witness noticed a smaller object being ejected from the larger object.
“A smaller thing like it appeared to fly out of and away from the first object. Its flight trajectory was a sort on parabolic curve toward the ground.”
The second object seemed to affect cows on the ground nearby.
“And as soon as object number two disappeared behind background trees and houses I heard a herd of cows about a mile away freak out briefly. Nothing really happened; no cows were harmed and the diving craft didn’t crash. But seeing that made me realize that there may be more of them. I looked around at the sky and spotted about four more of them but all were either smaller or at higher altitude than the first one.”
These light patterns have been spotted now for four consecutive days.
“But every night there seems to be more of them. Thursday there were maybe about three or four of them. Friday, January 4, 2013, there were about six of them. Saturday night at about 1 a.m. there were at least 11. While I write this it’s about 6:30 p.m. and they seem to have started early because instead of being on the eastern horizon, right now they are almost directly overhead, and other new developments are that they must be lower because they are much easier to see.”
As the witness was writing the report, one object appeared to be at or near ground level.
“And about 15 minutes ago I saw something with all of those same flashing lights, but was much closer to the ground and I can see the shape of it – maybe triangle or stealth fighter shape. There are no military bases around here or anything else that should bring so much aircraft other than the usual traffic of private planes, crop duster planes and medical helicopters. Tonight is as interesting as all the other nights so, I guess the story continues to unfold.”
Yankton is a city in and the county seat of Yankton County, SD, population 14,454.
A Mississippi witness in Tate County reported and photographed “a bright, hovering craft” that seemed to vanish after turning off its lights on November 11, 2012, in Case 45059.
The witness was driving along a country road and heading into town when a “very bright, blinding light” was seen.
“I thought it was a jet about to fall out of the sky,” the witness stated.
But then the object shut off its lights.
“The craft just switched off its lights when I came to a stop in the road. I had my i5 phone so I jumped out and snapped a picture. At that moment the very large craft just vanished from sight. No sound at all. It was pointed southwest.”
The witness speculated.
“The craft just vanished. It could have some sort of way of becoming invisible.”
Tate County is located in northwest Mississippi, population 28, 886. The witness stated that the nearest large city from the sighting area was Memphis, TN.
A report of a football field long, triangle-shaped UFO moving low over Webster, TX, last week prompted a nearby resident to come forward with new testimony on what may be a similar low flying craft over Harris County, according to January 8, 2013, testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
A Texas witness driving west along El Dorado after exiting I-45 at Webster reported a black, triangle-shaped object the size of a football field with four bright lights was moving just above the trees about 7:45 p.m. on January 3, 2013. Case 45002 was completed by Texas MUFON and determined to be an Unknown.
A new witness in Friendswood – about six miles directly west of Webster – reported watching “four bright lights not moving” that then moved over a nearby tree line about 8 p.m. on December 19, 2012, in Case 45093.
The witness read the Webster story, and seeing similarities in the two reports, decided to come forward and filed with MUFON on January 8, 2013.
“I was going south on I-45 and turned on El Dorado going west,” the witness stated. “I live at the intersection of Black Hawk and Barcelona Drive, almost directly west 2.5 miles – just like the Webster report almost exactly.”
The witness expressed regret at not stopping.
“I did not see the object move over me. I kick myself as I did not stop. I did slow down right before the school on the right on El Dorado Drive. I slowed to almost a stop, but kept moving with the window down. I did not hear any sound. I too was wondering – is this a new light tower? Or what could it be?”
The object seemed to stop and hover in place.
“It moved slow to almost a hover, and then seemed to keep moving northeastward. I was not the only one slowing down. I saw two others just slowing as I did. I did not see an object – just a grouping of lights that seemed to be connected some way as part of an object.”
The witness stated that he should have stopped and observed the object longer.
“I am glad I saw this article about Webster because every day since I have kept thinking – what did I see or I wish I would have stopped to observe longer. It was almost the same as the Webster, TX, sighting – same area, different date.”
Friendswood is a city in both Harris and Galveston counties, population 35,805.
The triangle UFO continued throughout 2012 as a “top three” reporting shape, according to MUFON monthly statistics. MUFON recorded 90 U.S. triangle UFO reports during November 2012 where the event occurred during November. The number of reports made for this shape is typical for 2012 monthly reporting. Please keep in mind that the number may increase over time as additional witnesses report events that occurred during that month in the future.
The following is a sampling of edited witness testimony from 14 November 2012 cases that have already been closed out as an Unknown.
November triangle reports began at 8 p.m. on November 1, in Merlin, Josephine County, OR, with Case 43656.
“I live on two acres in the country with a good view of the sky,” the reporting witness stated. “I walked out to look at the stars and noticed lights coming low and slow from out of the west. I called my wife to come out and look because the lights were coming from an unusual direction. I didn’t know what it was. I just knew it wasn’t an airplane because airplanes are my hobby. “It was a triangle-shaped object with a cluster of lights in the front followed by a red blinking light in the center and another light close to that. At first it looked like two separate crafts, but as it got closer we could see that it was one big one. It headed towards the north and then banked towards the east and then disappeared. There was no noise at all.”
November 2, 2012 6:35 p.m., Phoenix, Maricopa County, AZ, Case 43729. “When I saw and recorded it was at 7th street just south of Bell Road around 6:35 p.m.,” the witness stated. “Three bright, white lights heading due west being trailed by a helicopter. My video is on Youtube, along with another (much better) video that catches the object from a block away. As it moved further west you can clearly see the lights are in a triangle pattern. When we first saw it, it appeared to be three large, non-blinking, slow moving white lights in a row (as shown on the other YouTube video) but clearly a triangle pattern as seen in my video. Watch ‘bright lights over Phoenix 11/2/12’ first, then mine ‘UFO Phoenix 11/2/12.’ Watching both videos gives a great perception of exactly what my mom and I saw.”
November 3, 2012 5:30 p.m., Katy, Waller County, TX, Case 43835. “We noticed the green sphere-like object in the sky and both observed that it was moving back and forth and up and down,” the witness stated. “We both knew this was not a plane. There also was another, smaller object. The pictures were taken between two and four seconds apart, so it was moving at a great speed. There is a small airport nearby, and we are very familiar with the landing and flight patterns, also colors of airplanes. There is a green outline in the clouds, and it looks like a green beam going downward. The object changed shape or possible turned over, and went to the south where it seemed to join with a cloaked, large object, which can be seen in the last photos. It looks like a cloud, but there is a clear outline of a huge disk, and cloud/vapor trail coming from the south/southwest.” 11:45 p.m., Des Moines, Polk County, IA. Case 43716. “The lights were aligned like the three points of a triangle,” the witness stated. “I could not see a solid object between the lights, but the way they moved together made me believe they were part of a solid object. The lights were above the tree line and appeared to be very close to me. I was worried that while I was sitting there the object/lights were going to fly over my house. They appeared to be much lower than an airplane would fly. I would estimate that they were approximately 100-200 feet in the air, maybe higher but definitely below the light cloud cover. I remember thinking that when the object flew over, it was so low that I would be able to see all the detail and that frightened me. The lights were gliding very slowly, not wavering from their position in the triangle and moving in a westerly direction. The lights were circular in shape and were about five times brighter and larger than the brightest/largest star in the sky. I watched the lights for about 10 minutes as they moved west, toward me, then they began to slowly fade until they appeared no brighter or larger than the average star.”
November 4, 2012 9:10 p.m., Herculaneum, Jefferson County, MO, Case 43707. “Observed three lights forming a triangle in the sky,” the witness stated. “The lights stayed on and did not blink. I was able to determine that the object that the lights were attached to was dark and triangular-shaped. The object seemed fairly large. When I first observed the object it was hovering. I watched it for what seemed to be 30 seconds. All of a sudden the lights flashed very brightly and the object took off at a very high rate of speed. I also heard a ‘whooshing’ sound that did not sound like a helicopter or airplane.” Field Investigator: “The area of the sighting is VERY interesting. Herculaneum is located on the banks of the Mississippi River, Scott AFB is just across the Mississippi River in Illinois, and Herculaneum is the location of the largest integrated lead producer in the Western Hemisphere and the 3rd largest producer in the world. If something ‘unknown’ was to be seen hovering, this would be a likely area considering information obtained from previous sighting reports referencing water, mining areas and military bases as active areas.”
8:27 p.m., Fayetteville, Cumberland County, NC, Case 43730. “I was driving west down Cliffdale Road coming back from the store,” the witness stated. “It looked like a cop helicopter looking for someone, low over houses to my left while driving south. Looked like this triangle within three white lights sitting over houses near the intersection of Cliffdale and Prestige. Turned around to get another look as quick as I could and it was gone.”
November 6, 2012 4:50 a.m., Hazelwood, St. Louis County, MO, Case 43755. “Noticed what I thought was an airplane fly across the highway,” the witness stated. “It got above the field to the side of the highway I was on. I pulled over and watched it descend down while flying back over to the highway right over my car. The first time I saw it the only reason I noticed it was because it was hovering over the bridge like just above it making it maybe 100 feet above my car.”
5:30 p.m., Jackson County, MO, Case 43750. “We noticed a bright ball of light hovering over a central monument, Liberty Memorial,” the witness stated. “We were curious and drove toward this part of town, only a five minute drive to reach this monument. We got there and the object began to move northwest at a slow stall and unusually low altitude. It became a jet. It flew low enough for us to see in detail the underbelly with no markings, all white non-commercial jet making no sound. Our car did not vibrate as expected to be directly under a jet. I watched as the jet slowly passed over our windshield and then looked at it through the moon roof briefly. We were driving 25 mph. The scale was 2/3 the space of our moon roof. It took approximately three seconds to cross the moon roof view. It kept up its northwest flight path with a constant speed and altitude.”
November 8, 2012 8:15 p.m., Calabash, Brunswick County, NC, Case 43813. “A triangularly-shaped red light formation appeared, however, this was much, much, much different,” the witness stated. “This object was approximately 40 feet tall and I would estimate at its widest point at least a quarter-mile wide.Truly amazing and scary at the same time. Each point of the triangle had its own red light and the ship flew with no sound and only 100-200 feet off the ground over houses and out towards the beach.The flashing white lights and orange orbs are very common in my area and no one knows anything. Hundreds of videos uploaded on Youtube and nothing.”
November 9, 2012 7:40 p.m., Jacksonville, Duval County, FL, Case 43834. “I glanced upward and saw a very unusual ‘airplane’ at about 80 degrees,” the witness stated. “It was triangle-shaped (equilateral) and had softly glowing white light along its two forward edges. It appeared to be sub-divided by softly glowing light into six smaller equilateral triangles. It was moving at a high rate of speed in a straight-line flight path and I estimate that it was at an altitude of 5,000 feet. The object passed directly overhead and was silent. The object seemed to disappear when it was at about 70 degrees from my position. I estimate the duration of the event at between five and seven seconds.” 10:05 p.m., Parkville, Platte County, MO, Case 43807. “The object was about 200 or so feet above the tree line, but there were no sounds or wind gusts,” the witness stated. “A helicopter flying that low would definitely give off some sound. I thought this was really strange, so I slowed down to about 15 mph because there were no other cars on the road at the time. I noticed the lights were in a triangle shape but I couldn’t make out what was connecting the lights. The object was either transparent or blended very well with the night sky. The bright white light was on top. This light was the biggest and brightest. The smaller red and blue lights were underneath this main white light, forming the outline of the triangle shape. All the lights were flashing and becoming brighter at random times. When I was closest to the UFO I noticed it was not moving at all and was just hovering very low to the ground, maybe 200 or so feet above the tree line. I had to make a quick turn and I lost sight of it.”
November 10, 2012 6:28 p.m., Castle Rock, Cowlitz, WA, Case 43828. “Three totally silent, solid, reddish orange glowing spheres forming an equilateral triangle,” the witness stated. “Size: Each sphere approximately the size of a dime held out at arm’s length. The three objects were close enough to my car that I almost stopped my car as I actually feared that they might block the road, but they stayed hovering where they had been the whole time so I continued southbound on Si Town Road. They were totally silent. They did not blink, rotate or change color. They maintained a constant luminosity until the end of this event. They were each very bright and each sphere was about as big around as a dime held at arm’s length.”
November 17, 2012 6 p.m., Richmond Heights, St. Louis County, MO, Case 44062. “I thought it was a fast moving lone cloud, but then it was clearly a black triangle when overhead and made no noise,” the witness stated. “It only had some faint lighting around the edges, which may have been reflection from the city below. It disappeared over some high cirrus clouds, so I assume it was very large.”
November 29, 2012 12 a.m., Waterloo, Laurens County, SC, Case 44239. “I saw the rectangular shape and heard no sound,” the witness stated. “It has three or four white lights down each side and two red or blue blinking lights. It seems to disappear behind clouds when it starts back southwest.” The triangle UFO continued throughout 2012 as a “top three” reporting shape, according to MUFON monthly statistics. MUFON recorded 90 U.S. triangle UFO reports during November 2012 where the event occurred during November. The number of reports made for this shape is typical for 2012 monthly reporting. Please keep in mind that the number may increase over time as additional witnesses report events that occurred during that month in the future.
The following is a sampling of edited witness testimony from 14 November 2012 cases that have already been closed out as an Unknown.
November triangle reports began at 8 p.m. on November 1, in Merlin, Josephine County, OR, with Case 43656.
“I live on two acres in the country with a good view of the sky,” the reporting witness stated. “I walked out to look at the stars and noticed lights coming low and slow from out of the west. I called my wife to come out and look because the lights were coming from an unusual direction. I didn’t know what it was. I just knew it wasn’t an airplane because airplanes are my hobby. “It was a triangle-shaped object with a cluster of lights in the front followed by a red blinking light in the center and another light close to that. At first it looked like two separate crafts, but as it got closer we could see that it was one big one. It headed towards the north and then banked towards the east and then disappeared. There was no noise at all.”
November 2, 2012 6:35 p.m., Phoenix, Maricopa County, AZ, Case 43729. “When I saw and recorded it was at 7th street just south of Bell Road around 6:35 p.m.,” the witness stated. “Three bright, white lights heading due west being trailed by a helicopter. My video is on Youtube, along with another (much better) video that catches the object from a block away. As it moved further west you can clearly see the lights are in a triangle pattern. When we first saw it, it appeared to be three large, non-blinking, slow moving white lights in a row (as shown on the other YouTube video) but clearly a triangle pattern as seen in my video. Watch ‘bright lights over Phoenix 11/2/12’ first, then mine ‘UFO Phoenix 11/2/12.’ Watching both videos gives a great perception of exactly what my mom and I saw.”
November 3, 2012 5:30 p.m., Katy, Waller County, TX, Case 43835. “We noticed the green sphere-like object in the sky and both observed that it was moving back and forth and up and down,” the witness stated. “We both knew this was not a plane. There also was another, smaller object. The pictures were taken between two and four seconds apart, so it was moving at a great speed. There is a small airport nearby, and we are very familiar with the landing and flight patterns, also colors of airplanes. There is a green outline in the clouds, and it looks like a green beam going downward. The object changed shape or possible turned over, and went to the south where it seemed to join with a cloaked, large object, which can be seen in the last photos. It looks like a cloud, but there is a clear outline of a huge disk, and cloud/vapor trail coming from the south/southwest.” 11:45 p.m., Des Moines, Polk County, IA. Case 43716. “The lights were aligned like the three points of a triangle,” the witness stated. “I could not see a solid object between the lights, but the way they moved together made me believe they were part of a solid object. The lights were above the tree line and appeared to be very close to me. I was worried that while I was sitting there the object/lights were going to fly over my house. They appeared to be much lower than an airplane would fly. I would estimate that they were approximately 100-200 feet in the air, maybe higher but definitely below the light cloud cover. I remember thinking that when the object flew over, it was so low that I would be able to see all the detail and that frightened me. The lights were gliding very slowly, not wavering from their position in the triangle and moving in a westerly direction. The lights were circular in shape and were about five times brighter and larger than the brightest/largest star in the sky. I watched the lights for about 10 minutes as they moved west, toward me, then they began to slowly fade until they appeared no brighter or larger than the average star.”
November 4, 2012 9:10 p.m., Herculaneum, Jefferson County, MO, Case 43707. “Observed three lights forming a triangle in the sky,” the witness stated. “The lights stayed on and did not blink. I was able to determine that the object that the lights were attached to was dark and triangular-shaped. The object seemed fairly large. When I first observed the object it was hovering. I watched it for what seemed to be 30 seconds. All of a sudden the lights flashed very brightly and the object took off at a very high rate of speed. I also heard a ‘whooshing’ sound that did not sound like a helicopter or airplane.” Field Investigator: “The area of the sighting is VERY interesting. Herculaneum is located on the banks of the Mississippi River, Scott AFB is just across the Mississippi River in Illinois, and Herculaneum is the location of the largest integrated lead producer in the Western Hemisphere and the 3rd largest producer in the world. If something ‘unknown’ was to be seen hovering, this would be a likely area considering information obtained from previous sighting reports referencing water, mining areas and military bases as active areas.” 8:27 p.m., Fayetteville, Cumberland County, NC, Case 43730. “I was driving west down Cliffdale Road coming back from the store,” the witness stated. “It looked like a cop helicopter looking for someone, low over houses to my left while driving south. Looked like this triangle within three white lights sitting over houses near the intersection of Cliffdale and Prestige. Turned around to get another look as quick as I could and it was gone.”
November 6, 2012 4:50 a.m., Hazelwood, St. Louis County, MO, Case 43755. “Noticed what I thought was an airplane fly across the highway,” the witness stated. “It got above the field to the side of the highway I was on. I pulled over and watched it descend down while flying back over to the highway right over my car. The first time I saw it the only reason I noticed it was because it was hovering over the bridge like just above it making it maybe 100 feet above my car.”
5:30 p.m., Jackson County, MO, Case 43750. “We noticed a bright ball of light hovering over a central monument, Liberty Memorial,” the witness stated. “We were curious and drove toward this part of town, only a five minute drive to reach this monument. We got there and the object began to move northwest at a slow stall and unusually low altitude. It became a jet. It flew low enough for us to see in detail the underbelly with no markings, all white non-commercial jet making no sound. Our car did not vibrate as expected to be directly under a jet. I watched as the jet slowly passed over our windshield and then looked at it through the moon roof briefly. We were driving 25 mph. The scale was 2/3 the space of our moon roof. It took approximately three seconds to cross the moon roof view. It kept up its northwest flight path with a constant speed and altitude.”
November 8, 2012 8:15 p.m., Calabash, Brunswick County, NC, Case 43813. “A triangularly-shaped red light formation appeared, however, this was much, much, much different,” the witness stated. “This object was approximately 40 feet tall and I would estimate at its widest point at least a quarter-mile wide.Truly amazing and scary at the same time. Each point of the triangle had its own red light and the ship flew with no sound and only 100-200 feet off the ground over houses and out towards the beach.The flashing white lights and orange orbs are very common in my area and no one knows anything. Hundreds of videos uploaded on Youtube and nothing.”
November 9, 2012 7:40 p.m., Jacksonville, Duval County, FL, Case 43834. “I glanced upward and saw a very unusual ‘airplane’ at about 80 degrees,” the witness stated. “It was triangle-shaped (equilateral) and had softly glowing white light along its two forward edges. It appeared to be sub-divided by softly glowing light into six smaller equilateral triangles. It was moving at a high rate of speed in a straight-line flight path and I estimate that it was at an altitude of 5,000 feet. The object passed directly overhead and was silent. The object seemed to disappear when it was at about 70 degrees from my position. I estimate the duration of the event at between five and seven seconds.” 10:05 p.m., Parkville, Platte County, MO, Case 43807. “The object was about 200 or so feet above the tree line, but there were no sounds or wind gusts,” the witness stated. “A helicopter flying that low would definitely give off some sound. I thought this was really strange, so I slowed down to about 15 mph because there were no other cars on the road at the time. I noticed the lights were in a triangle shape but I couldn’t make out what was connecting the lights. The object was either transparent or blended very well with the night sky. The bright white light was on top. This light was the biggest and brightest. The smaller red and blue lights were underneath this main white light, forming the outline of the triangle shape. All the lights were flashing and becoming brighter at random times. When I was closest to the UFO I noticed it was not moving at all and was just hovering very low to the ground, maybe 200 or so feet above the tree line. I had to make a quick turn and I lost sight of it.”
November 10, 2012 6:28 p.m., Castle Rock, Cowlitz, WA, Case 43828. “Three totally silent, solid, reddish orange glowing spheres forming an equilateral triangle,” the witness stated. “Size: Each sphere approximately the size of a dime held out at arm’s length. The three objects were close enough to my car that I almost stopped my car as I actually feared that they might block the road, but they stayed hovering where they had been the whole time so I continued southbound on Si Town Road. They were totally silent. They did not blink, rotate or change color. They maintained a constant luminosity until the end of this event. They were each very bright and each sphere was about as big around as a dime held at arm’s length.”
November 17, 2012 6 p.m., Richmond Heights, St. Louis County, MO, Case 44062. “I thought it was a fast moving lone cloud, but then it was clearly a black triangle when overhead and made no noise,” the witness stated. “It only had some faint lighting around the edges, which may have been reflection from the city below. It disappeared over some high cirrus clouds, so I assume it was very large.”
November 29, 2012 12 a.m., Waterloo, Laurens County, SC, Case 44239. “I saw the rectangular shape and heard no sound,” the witness stated. “It has three or four white lights down each side and two red or blue blinking lights. It seems to disappear behind clouds when it starts back southwest.”
From Peter B. Davenport’s column, National UFO Reporting Center, with photos by Illinois State Director Sam Maranto
Chicago, November 4, 2008, @ 9:20 p.m. (LOCAL)—At 8:05 p.m., on Wednesday night, November 5, 2008, I received a call over the Hotline from a concerned mother in West Virginia, who reported that on the previous evening, Tuesday, November 4, her daughter had experienced a very unusual occurrence, which both mother and daughter were alarmed and confused by.
The mother briefly described that her daughter, an undergraduate in Chicago, IL, was driving her car during the previous evening, when suddenly, the daughter’s late-model Japanese four-door sedan, was simply “shoved” one lane to the right.
Given that I field a broad spectrum of calls that have nothing to do with UFOs, my initial reaction to the call was that the case would be of little interest, but how wrong my preconception was.
Curious to know more, and having little else to do that night, I telephoned the daughter in Chicago, and obtained a more complete picture of what had happened.
At approximately 9:20 p.m. (CST), the young woman had left her apartment, gotten into her car (a compact, late model Japanese four-door sedan), and had started to drive north on Lake Cook Road toward Interstate 94. She was planning to meet with a friend to discuss school matters.
Just a block or two from her apartment, and still south of the entrance to the interstate, the witness reported that she felt a strong “nudge” against her car, which was strong enough to shove it very quickly from the center lane of the three-lane road into the far right lane.
The driver was mystified by what had happened, but thinking that she might have hit something, or someone, and she began looking actively all around her car, and in her rear-view mirrors. She saw nothing that caught her attention, but her scanning of her immediate area satisfied her that she had not been hit by another vehicle, since none were visible anywhere near her location, and she could see nothing in the road behind her. The one thing she did note, however, is that her outside driver’s mirror was missing.
Realizing that her car might have been damaged, although it seemed to drive normally, the driver turned right onto Revere Drive, and turned on her emergency flashers. She then exited her car, but she was not prepared for what she saw. The whole left side of the vehicle appeared to her to be “pressed in” in an irregular fashion, as if the metal had been melted, leaving deep furrows in the metal doors and body. Making the situation even more baffling to the driver was the fact that the metal didn’t appear to be torn at all, and the paint did not appear scuffed, cracked, or missing, and none of the glass windows or plastic light lenses was damaged. It appeared as if some type of mysterious force had just pressed the metal into deep furrows, leaving the rest of the car unaffected.
Thinking that some kind of accident had occurred, which she didn’t fully understand, and concerned over the condition of her relatively new car, the woman called the 9-1-1, explained the situation to the operator, and a police officer was dispatched to her location. The driver was interested in having a formal police report generated, most of all to be able to satisfy her insurance company that the incident had occurred, and that it had occurred as she described the events to the investigating officer.
When I spoke via telephone with the young woman, she sounded to me to be both eloquent and sincere, so I decided to pursue the case further by turning it over to Mr. Sam Maranto, the State Director for MUFON/Illinois. Within a very short period of time, Mr. Maranto had visited the driver, and had taken several photographs of the damaged car, copies of which he forwarded to NUFORC in Washington State.
Photo from the November 2008 ‘mutilated car’ case in Chicago where the vehicle’s metal appears to be pressed or melted rather than torn. Credit: Sam Maranto. Sam Maranto photo.
Sam Maranto photo.
Based on the baffling appearance of the left side of the car, I immediately offered to purchase the vehicle, in order to preserve the evidence in the case. However, the owner declined the offer, Mr. Maranto reported, explaining that she liked the car, and she preferred to have it repaired, and restored to its original condition. As a result, she took the car to a nearby repair facility, which initiated the repair, part of which involved either replacing the doors, or cutting out the damaged metal and replacing just the panels. Mr. Maranto arranged also to remove a few paint chips from the damaged area of the car, and conveyed them to a laboratory at the University of Chicago for analysis, which was conducted, and apparently completed by mid-February 2009.
Making an already strange case stranger still, sometime during mid-January, Mr. Maranto discovered that the damaged doors, which were being held for him at the body shop, mysteriously had disappeared. Mr. Maranto reported to me that because of the sincere and contrite reaction of the proprietor of the body shop over this strange disappearance, Sam felt that the proprietor was reporting the mysterious theft honestly.
What compounds the mystery still further is that approximately two weeks after the disappearance of the doors, an unidentified male entered the offices of the University of Chicago laboratory, where the paint chip analysis had been completed, represented that he had been sent by Mr. Maranto to pick up a copy of the completed report, and to retrieve the paint chips. The report and samples were given to the stranger, he left immediately, and he has not been seen since. No one knows who he was, and no one knows who had sent him. Tragically, the laboratory had not kept a copy of the report in its computers, so both the samples, and their analysis, were lost permanently, together with the doors.
Someone must have wanted that evidence very badly, I conclude. The only logical conclusion is that someone who is very interested in the UFO phenomenon, for whom expense may be no concern, and who prefers anonymity, appears to have organized a very well-orchestrated effort not only to obtain evidence related to the case, but to deny others access to the same data. The rather daring double theft must have been well planned, and it was superbly well executed.
* * *
Many months after the above incidents had occurred, and as I continued to ruminate on the case, searching for some explanation for what had happened to that car, something quite surprising suddenly occurred to me. Whether it is merely a coincidence, or whether it is some type of very subtle message, intended to convey information, I cannot say, but I feel duty-bound, as an investigator, to share honestly with the readers my epiphany…
The damage to the automobile, a black sedan from Chicago, occurred at almost precisely the same time, 9:20 p.m. (Central Time), that the momentous announcement was being made on the east coast that the presumed victor in the Presidential election, held on that date, November 4, 2008, was U. S. Senator Barack Obama, the first Black American to win a Presidential bid, who also was from Chicago. Not only did these two events occur on the same night…they occurred at the same time.
Whether there is any possible message here, or whether it is just one of those rare, and meaningless, coincidences, I cannot say. However, it is an example of how a UFO investigator, if he delves deeply enough into a case, may gain very subtle insight into an incident, even if he does not fully understand what its significance may be.
Selected and edited witness testimony and field investigator notes from the fourth quarter 2011 are reviewed in this fourth and final feature on cigar or cylinder-shaped objects from closed cases with a final determination of Unknown UAV.
The year-end cases begin on October 7, 2011, in Morgan County, GA, where multiple family members were driving home and noticed something odd in the night sky.
October 7, 2011 – Morgan County, GA. AN1, Category 1. Case 32471.
On October 7, my Mom and me were coming home from my sisters. When we came across Brownwood Road , I noticed something in the sky. I asked my Mom what is that? She looked and she said right away, “That is a UFO”. We pulled off the road and watched it for at least 5 to 10 minutes. It was way longer than an airplane and it had lights. I was looking at Mom when I first noticed it and I just knew it was a UFO. It was very long and green, blue and white lights were under it. It was moving very slow. I thought it was very cool. This is the first one I have seen and I believe they are here and they live among us. We just wish they would reveal themselves to us. They have not caused any problems that we are aware of. The UFO just disappeared.
Field Investigator: There does not appear to be any celestial body that could have been misidentified according to the time and date check. The METAR data also corroborates the witness statement of no cloud cover. A check for over flights of a possible airship blimp was done through the Internet site for MetLife flight operations. The events calendar showed that no MetLife aircraft were in the state at the time and date of this sighting. This rules out the possibilities of a lighter than air commercial aircraft being seen. In addition, this rural area of Morgan County has limited over flights of visible aircraft. During the interview I did not see any aircraft pass over. It is in my opinion that both these witnesses did in fact witness something that they cannot explain. Using all available resources I cannot definitively find any made-man object that could have been mistaken or misidentified. However, with the described size of the object I am hopeful that there may be a radar signature found. I contacted a local certified meteorologist to check the radar and see if anything was captured during the time of the observation. I am awaiting his findings and will make an amendment to the case once I have a response. At this time I am concluding that this is an unknown phenomenon, described as a craft or object (UAV).
October 17, 2011 – Randolph County, NC. CE1, Category 2. Case 33039.
Image above left – a small burn mark was left on the witness in Case 33039, discovered the day after the event. The above right image is a bruise the witness received after the event – in January 2012. The lower right image is a rash on her son that appeared after the event. He gets the same rash every year on the same date.
Went out to get dog approximately 9:45 p.m. on very clear night. Out in field next to our property above the tree line approximately two football fields away was a large, glowing, orange object with the red aura floating, then very quickly disappearing, leaving a light path. Ran quickly inside, locking my doors, very upset.
Field Investigator: 2011-12-06. I am going back and documenting this case with more information the witness has given me. A few days after I had initially talked to Witness A, she called me back to tell me the following. She ran in the house and she got her husband, Witness B, to come out to look at the orb. By the time he came out the orb was gone. The orb had been about 100 yards away from where she was standing. She said it was about the size of a car or a mini-van. (By chance a similar sighting occurred nearby within the same month. See case 31921.) She said that she felt like it was watching her and that it was there to get her. A week or two after this event had occurred she shared with me that the following morning around 2 a.m. she woke and found herself standing naked in her bedroom with her cloths in a pile next to her. She feels very uncomfortable even being undressed, even in her own house so this was exceptionally strange. She does not remember getting out of bed and much less having gotten undressed. When she got back in bed her husband asked where she had gone. She responded, “I don’t know.” The next day she complained to her husband that she had a pain on the lower part of her back. Her husband looked at her back and described a small red dot inside a bruise that was in the shape of a triangle. I have attached the image. It is not too clear in the image, but she said she felt like it was a burn from a laser because it left a small round burn mark. January 24, 2012: The second image imagejpeg952.jpg is a bruise she received on Monday, January 23, 2012. The third image is a rash on her son that appeared this week. He gets the same rash every year on the same date. This is an on-going case with many reports. I am closing this case only because there are already newer reports for Witness A and other members of her family.
October 26, 2011 – Cobb County, GA. CE1, Category 2. Case 33044.
Witness location map of the incident for Case 33044. Credit: Google Maps.
I had been taking a customary walk around my neighborhood and stopped at my driveway to try to spot a hawk that was making hawk sounds from a group of trees behind my neighbor’s house. His trees were around 80 to 100 feet high. Slowly this UFO appeared to rise up from behind the trees. My first thought was excitement that I was going to see my first UFO. Then I realized that it only appeared to rise up. It was moving in a straight line. I then thought it was a dirigible and I started looking for a gondola, windows, lettering or towing a sign. There were none and I became less excited. There were no engines, propellers, jets nor steering mechanisms. The bottom half was silver colored and the top blue of what I could see. It didn’t appear to be over 200 feet high and about 100+/- feet long and 20/30 feet in diameter. It was moving in a straight line from the south in a north/northwest direction at 30mph+/-. It disappeared out of sight and I thought no more about it for a day or two.
Field Investigator:
A. WITNESS INTERVIEW ON January 29, 2012. The witness was at the foot of his driveway at Robinson Road, trying to see a hawk in the trees behind his neighbor’s house at about 10 a.m. on October 26, 2011. The conditions were clear, sunny, and with no wind. He noticed a silvery object moving in his direction from the southeast, from behind the trees where he was looking for the hawk. It first appeared to be a large, round, silvery object, but as it got closer, the witness could see that it was elongated, and he was looking at the front of it. It moved steadily from southeast to northwest maybe 100 feet or so above the trees (which are maybe 100 feet tall). The object crossed Robinson Road northeast of the witness; he was looking up at it at maybe a 60-degree angle. The object could be seen as being silver or silvery white on the bottom, and dark blue on top. There was no sound, no lights on the object, no ribbing, no surface features at all. There were no fins, no steering mechanism, no gondola, and no markings. The object appeared to be maybe 100 feet long and 30 feet in diameter, tapering towards both ends (“like a stretched out football”). It continued to the northwest until it was out of sight. I asked the witness to hold up his hands and show me how large the object was at its closest point; his hands were at least three feet apart. The witness told me that he spoke with one of his friends about this, and his friend said he had seen a Metlife blimp in the area near the sighting date. The witness suggested that I look online for the Metlife blimp. Images on-line of their blimps usually show dark blue sides and white top and bottom.
B. Additional Witnesses: None.
C. Natural phenomena do not come into play here. Weather conditions (from wundergound.com) at 9:55 a.m. were as follows: 57.2 degrees F, 73 percent humidity, 10 mile visibility, wind direction/speed – calm, no precipitation, and clear conditions.
D. Man-Made Objects: On January 31, 2012, I spoke with a gentleman who works in the blimp operations department at Metlife. Metlife blimps used to have a color combination of dark blue on sides with white lettering, and white on top and bottom, with a figure of “Snoopy” at the anterior end on each side, with red tail fins. I was told that in February of 2011, the colors were changed to red and white. A Youtube video from July, 2011, shows one with white sides and blue lettering, with red on bottom, blue on top, with a figure of “Snoopy” at the anterior end, and red tail fins. The gondola is quite obvious, and has one propeller on each side of the gondola. Interestingly, a Metlife blimp was traveling from Lawrenceville, GA, to Gadston, AL, during that time, and would have passed over Marietta on the day of the sighting. In fact, on globe-guardian.com, someone reported seeing a Metlife blimp over Marietta on October 26, 2011. However, given all of the facts of the sighting, and the characteristics of a Metlife blimp, this does not seem to be a plausible explanation for this sighting.
E. Other Possibilities: Spoke with Public Affairs office at Dobbins AFB who checked with the field manager and air traffic controllers. They reported to have no records of anything in their airspace on that date and time (no hits on their radar). Spoke with the Marietta PD (911 dispatch); no UFO sightings were reported for October 26, 2011.
F. Witness Check: The witness is a 71-year-old retired engineer. He worked at Lockheed. Retired from Lockheed and became interested in Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) training, which he now teaches. The witness seems very credible, and had only a passing interest in UFOs prior to this sighting.
III. SIGHTING EVALUATION AND CONCLUSIONS. Unknown – UAV. The research I conducted could not satisfactorily provide an explanation for this sighting. Although the initial impression I got was that this was a blimp, it had neither tail fins nor a gondola, nor any visible means of propulsion, and it was totally silent. Therefore, it must be classified as an unknown.
November 3, 2011 – Horry County, SC. CE1, Category 1. Case 40688.
I was in Myrtle Beach around the 3rd of November, 2011, staying in a beach front hotel top floor. Approximately around 10 p.m. I was sitting on the balcony having a beer and listening to the ocean sounds of night when suddenly maybe 100 feet away, an amber-colored light appeared out of nowhere. It stayed on for maybe five seconds, then turn off, then back on and off sort of like a flashing effect. This lasted probably another 10 seconds, and then it shut off completely. A few seconds later another amber light appeared just to the left of the first and did the same pattern. The lights were parallel to the beach as if signaling something further south. What transfixed my mind is that I could see some detail around the lights as they flashed on and off. It seemed to be mechanical similar to the type of lights you see in studios for photographic and filming lights, the kind that have shutters or lighting supports on all four sides. To me, at first I was thinking how could something this big appear out of nowhere and in total silence? And how did they get it up there, maybe 75 feet off the surface of the water, and how did they keep it so stationary? Not once did I think it was a UFO because it hadn’t hit me yet to realize it. And of course I didn’t think about my cell phone camera until it was gone. Actually I didn’t look into this at all until a friend told me South Carolina had many amber light sightings around that time. Maybe when I couldn’t hear anything due to the ocean? It was close enough for me to hear something. But just silence.
Field Investigator: He states he has had previous sightings similar to this one. The sighting was of an amber-colored light about 100 feet from his location. A few seconds later another object same as the first appeared and then disappeared. There was no sound associated with the object. The case is classified as unknown.
November 4, 2011 – Mahoning County, OH. CE1, Category 2. Case 33143.
I was stopped at the intersection of Route 46 and Mahoning Avenue in Austintown, Ohio, this afternoon. I was on Route 46 facing Mahoning Avenue in the left turn lane. The sun was shining and it was around 2:45 p.m. I was staring straight ahead and there was a lot of traffic. It’s mid day rush hour and cars were everywhere. From my left an object came directly into my eyesight. What caught my eye immediately was the sheer length of the object. It seemed to be glowing, bright white and had no appendages. It was very bright there in the sky. Not necessarily reflecting the sunshine, more of a glow. It was gliding along very low and slow in the sky. The sheer size of the object was 2-3 or more of full airliners placed in front of each other. It wasn’t big in girth, just really long. I see airplanes everyday flying low. I know what they look like and this thing was long. There’s no way this could have been mistaken for a commercial airliner. I watched it glide over the gas station in the sky. Others have had to seen this. It was heading towards Ohltown/ Norquest Boulevard direction towards the interstate. I had no method to record it, no camera, which was very upsetting. I pulled into the gas station parking lot and watched it go over the treetops. Had it not been for the rush hour traffic and having to get my kids from school I would have tried harder to follow it. I had to get back home. There is a nearby bank, gas station and other stores with surveillance cameras. One of them had to have captured this object. It was glowing and big enough to see on cameras for sure. They would be the best in gathering more information. Hopefully more people come forward. There has to be others that seen it.
December 15, 2011 – Buchanan County, MO. FB1, Category 1. Case 34431.
I’m in Saint Joseph, and last night I saw a UFO around 7:40 p.m. It was very low (under 1,000 feet) off the ground, and it slowly flew overhead, heading north east-ish. From what I could see, it was cigar-shaped. It had two lights, a green one at the front and an orange one at the back. I know it wasn’t a plane, because it was travelling in the direction of the green-orange light. It probably went about 5-10 miles, then it started changing directions. First it would move left, then right, then forward, then back. And it was moving without making the turns a regular aircraft would make. Probably watched it for about 10 minutes or so (unfortunately it was too far away to get any pictures or video of). When it was flying overhead, there was another low flying plane about 500-1,000 feet above/behind it, however, it took a different path, and both plane/UFO went in different directions. The UFO lights I saw for some time, however, the plane went out of sight within a couple of minutes, however, the UFO lights continued to move back/forward/left/right.
Field Investigator: I believe the witness to be a credibly, trustworthy person. He had nothing else to add to the description, except to say that he was certain of what he saw. Note that there have been a number of cigar or blimp shaped objects across the U.S. lately.
Reports of the cylinder or cigar-shaped objects continued in 2011 during the third quarter as we review seven selected CMS cases for Part Three in the series. Selected witness testimony and, when available, edited field investigator notes are used.
Today’s story begins in Pennsylvania’s northwestern Erie County on July 16 where an on-duty police officer is on patrol and has an encounter with a UFO.
July 16, 2011 – Erie County, PA, MA1, Category 1. Case 30329.
The witness provided this map to illustrate how the object moved in Case 30329 that occurred in Erie County, PA, on July 16, 2011.
“I have been a police officer for 10 years, and I served active duty in the United States Army in a reconnaissance unit. One of my duties in the military was to observe and be able to identify aircraft from many countries, primarily those from the United States and the former Soviet Union. I am also a huge fan of helicopter aviation. I was working patrol on the night of July 16, 2011, on the 10:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. shift. I was in uniform and in a marked patrol car. While patrolling on a main street in town, I was driving southeast away from the lake and toward the downtown area. At approximately 10:52 p.m., I noticed a single, white light in the sky moving northwest. The light appeared to be at an altitude of approximately 1,000-2,000 feet over the downtown area. I first thought the object was a helicopter. Just up the street from me was a large hospital which averages probably 4-5 medical helicopter transports a week. I am very familiar with the medical helicopters which frequent my area, and after a few seconds I realized that what I was seeing was not a helicopter. As the light came toward me, I realized that it had no navigational or hazard lights (the green and red lights which flash on an aircraft). It had a single, white light. It was very bright at first. As it got closer to being directly overhead, I noticed that the light appeared to be cigar-shaped. But as it got even closer to being overhead, the light seemed to dim. By the time it was overhead (approximately one minute since I first saw it), it was as dim as most of the stars in the sky. In fact, if it hadn’t been moving, I probably would have thought that it was a star. I actually stopped my patrol car in the middle of the street and had to stick my head out of my driver’s side window to look up at the object because it was directly overhead. The object continued to move northwest, but it was dim and appeared to be much higher than when I first saw it. In fact, it appeared then that it was 10,000 feet or higher. Then I was amazed when the object stopped dead in its tracks and began to zig and zag, back and forth! It went in all directions. I would estimate that if it was 10,000 feet high, it was probably moving maybe 200 feet in each direction around the point where it had stopped. It became difficult for me to watch the object with my head sticking out the car window and looking over the roof of the car to my west, so I made a u-turn and parked along the curb. I could now see the object by looking out of my window toward the west. Shortly after I parked, I phoned my wife to tell her what I was seeing. My cell phone indicated that I called my wife at 10:53 p.m. on July 16, 2011. Just after I started talking to my wife, the object stopped zigging and zagging and it began to move toward the east. Just then, another police unit with two officers pulled up and asked what I was doing. I ended the phone call with my wife and I informed the officers about the object that I was watching. We then exited our respective vehicles while we watched the object. Both officers saw what I was seeing. One of them believed it to be an aircraft. The other officer said she wasn’t sure what it was. As we watched the object continue east, we noticed an aircraft far out in front of it, also flying east. The object and the aircraft appeared to be around the same altitude, but the object had become so dim that it was hard to determine how high it was. In fact, several times the object’s light appeared to fade out completely and then quickly fade back in. However, at no time did the light of the object appear to flash or blink. All three of us watched the object move east and, once again, it stopped in mid flight and began to zig and zag around the point it stopped. The one officer continued to believe that the object was an aircraft, and the other officer said she didn’t know what it was. Then the other officers had to move their vehicle because they had stopped in the travel lane and they were blocking traffic. I got back into my vehicle and drove east and parked in a parking lot one block east of my original location where I continued to watch the object. It continued east and its light faded in and out a few more times. I lost track of where the aircraft, which I had seen in front of it, had flown. Then I received a call for service from my dispatcher and I had to leave the area. The total time I watched the object was approximately 15 minutes. Later that night I looked to the sky in the direction I last saw the object but I didn’t see it again. Through the course of the night I did see two meteorites, one to the north of town over the lake and one to the south. However, I am familiar with what meteorites look like and the object I watched was NOT a meteorite. Later in my shift I tried to call the local international airport to see if they had any aircraft or any other contacts on radar at that time. But I only got an automated system and was never able to get through to anyone there.
July 27, 2011 – Madison County, KY, CE1, Category 2, Case 30381.
The witness pulled several still frames from a video including this image from Case 30381 that occurred in Kentucky’s Madison County on July 27, 2011.
“I was outside on my front porch with my camcorder, because my dogs where taking a fit, so I went out there to see what they were barking at. About that time the phone rang and it was my niece, and it just so happened we were talking about UFOs, when right out of the blue, this low fiery looking, egg-shaped object came over the field west of me, heading northeast. It was moving real slow and lights were flashing from it. I grabbed my camcorder and filmed it while I was telling my niece what I was seeing on speakerphone. It did not make any noise at all. And it was close enough to hear, but I couldn’t hear nothing. Then it looked like it was changing shape or something. Then it went behind the trees and I couldn’t see it no more. The pictures I am sending you are actual photos of what I filmed.”
Field Investigator: “The witnesses’ home is in a low area, the lowest in the trailer park, with I-75 directly east of her running in a north-south direction with a slight turn towards the east going south. Her viewing of these different events included on this tape are from her front porch (I-75) side from about 310 (WNW) degrees to about 180 (south) degrees. As you can see in the videos, they are moving different directions. Her angle of viewing is typically 30 degrees to about 80 degrees from horizontal. One view was of a light going south to north off to the ESE of her. Another was lights going north to south off towards the ESE of her. Another was a group of lights that came out of the ESE and passed just south of her. On this video is also a daylight scan of where these objects (lights) have been seen from the witnesses’ front porch. She states that she only sees these on clear nights. Hopefully, someone with the capability to analyze these tapes can determine what she’s seeing. It would put her mind to ease if they were objects known to humans.”
August 5, 2011 – Montgomery County, PA, CE1, Category 2. Case 30686.
“1) Driving on 422 East between Trooper and the Oaks Exits directly across from the Christian Academy but on the Valley Forge side of the road. 2) Unusual. 3) From far away it looked like a radio tower, but there were three white lights and no red flashing light. 4) Twenty feet off ground, object did not move while I was watching. There was three white lights (not blinding, however, I could not see above the side of the UFO). 5) Called my friend who was following me to make sure she saw it too. She did and we both were in complete shock. She first thought it was a fighter jet, however, when we got closer there were no markings, no color, no ammo and it did not move. 6) Continued to drive on 422.”
Field Investigator: “Assigned field investigator was not able to get in touch with witness. Through several other independent sources we were able to collaborate the witnesses’ sighting. We were able to triangulate the object and it was Unknown.”
August 6, 2011 – El Dorado County, CA, CE1, Category 2, Case 31250.
“I was driving north on Eldorado Boulevard at exactly 2:25 p.m., Saturday, August 6, 2011, just passing Bowmens Club on the right when I noticed two bright lights in front of me in the sky above the hill and houses about 400 feet up and descending slowly down and to the left. They looked like two boxes a few feet apart. My first thought was maybe a kid’s kite in the park that I knew was just over the hill. I was driving up a hill at the time so it was really easy to notice and there was other traffic right next to me and behind me. My thought was they have to being seeing this too! As I was driving over the hill watching these two boxes descending down toward the ground, they were just a few feet apart. I thought maybe it could be two white birds descending in perfect formation until they started turning downward and the two boxes stretched out longer into two perfect shapes, like rectangles. At this point I got excited and looked for a place to pullover. Then these two objects kind of leveled out and moved north towards Folsom Lake away from me. They moved about a thousand yards away in just a second, then quickly faded away from view. So I kept driving just maybe one block and they reappeared again getting brighter in seconds. My thought at this time was maybe it was an airplane reflecting in the sun. A real white airplane. But it was two objects just a few feet apart. At this time I reanalyzed the size of the objects were about the size of two cars. I glued my eyes on these and slowed way down and almost completely stopped at the green light in front of the park. Then the two objects slowly faded away again, so I pulled over and got out my binoculars. The objects were gone, but there was a vulture flying around up there where I last saw it so I focused on it and hoping the object would return. After a few minutes it did not, so I took off driving north again on Eldorado boulevard towards Green Valley Road. I crossed Green Valley Road as this turns into Salmon Falls Road about two miles still looking towards the west when the object appeared again. This time it was one object, but looked like a square box. I immediately pulled over. It was moving north rapidly about 600 or 800 feet high and got behind some trees blocking my view. So I took off after it and could see it in the next few minutes through the trees as I was hurrying to get about a mile up the road to a place I knew was clearer of trees. I noticed the object kept pulsating in and out of brightness and vision, and turning while I was chasing it. Right when I was getting to the clearing it got real bright and stopped for a second. It looked like a perfect big ,white box in the sky slightly rotating about 800 feet above the Folsom Lake with a hill in the background behind it. Then it started moving slowly to the west and faded away. I stayed there for about five more minutes hoping to see it again but I did not. I realized this whole encounter lasted about 12 minutes and over five miles.
Field Investigator: “The UFO looked like a box kite with one box above the other. It was bright white and the exterior looked like a Lowes’ sign. The object then changed shape; the box on top moved down to the side and both boxes stretched out about four feet into a hexagon shape. It sped up and looked like it would hit a hill when it pulled away and dimmed. The witness estimates that the object moved about one mile in a second. It disappeared briefly then reappeared as a single box. The witness followed the object in his car and watched as it brightened and dimmed repeatedly. Witness estimates speed of the object while he was following it to be around 50 mph. In its final form, the object is square, spinning, pulsating, and about the size of a large storage container. Witness last saw it when it stopped moving, then shot off the left and disappeared. All of this happened in broad daylight around 2:30 in the afternoon. The witness seems sincere and concerned about what he saw.”
August 13, 2011 – Dane County, WI, CE1, Category 2, Case 30912.
“My wife, daughter and I were returning home shortly after sunset last Friday night, driving east on Highway 12 just west of Cambridge, WI. I saw a floating orange light at about 1 o’clock, floating perhaps 200 feet in the air. I pointed it out to my wife and daughter and they saw it too. It looked to me like a glowing orange light bulb, and I could not distinguish any shape of the object. It appeared to hover or float in one spot the whole time we observed it. After a few moments of observation, my daughter said, ‘I keep trying to imagine a tower holding it up, but there’s no tower.’ We observed it for perhaps a minute or two, then lost sight of it. It never moved the entire time we saw it. I wish we had pulled over to observe it more closely!”
Field Investigator: “The witness seemed very comfortable discussing the event. I asked him if he or his family members have had any headaches or missing time. He stated no. I also asked the witness if this was his first sighting and he stated ‘yes’. During the event, he remembered some other observations. The object looked like it was glass or translucent and kind of frosty. I checked for airports in the area and checked the weather from that evening, and it matched what the witness stated. He did seem very genuine and eager to talk about his experience. With more than one witness to this object to back up the witnesses’ observation, I would have to conclude that this object is unidentified.”
September 5, 2011 – St. Louis County, MO, FB1, Category 1. Case 31649.
“(Ellisville southwest of St. Louis, MO). While relaxing in the backyard on the deck laying in lawn chair with my granddaughter sitting next to me enjoying the nice afternoon and watching humming birds at the feeder and looking into the sky with a few clouds I noticed a flying craft with brilliant, silver cylinder-shaped with small hump, no wings, moving very, very slow from the southeast to northwest direction just barely above thin clouds. My granddaughter saw it too. As it went over a small cloud and the cloud drifted it never appeared again. As we watched, it was as if it disappeared into the blue sky. She yelled for her Dad to come out, but he was too late and just dismissed the incident but did believe we saw something. From watching airplanes at that height in the past it was the size of a Southwest Airline plane. About 5 minutes later, the same place in the sky a huge craft just appeared. It was 10 times larger than the smaller craft we observed earlier as it moved slowly from the northwest to the southeast for two minutes. Wonder how something that big with no wings or tail can stay in the sky moving that slow. I must assume they don’t need aerodynamics but use another source of power to move. Then all of a sudden it just disappeared as if you would turn off a light. It was a brilliant, sliver color. Having served in the military, I’ve seen flying craft from the B-1, B-2 and B-52 bomber. Been in fighter planes and touched, walked around and looked into the cockpit of the infamous supersonic Blackbird and have seen aircraft carriers. That was not swamp gas, optical illusion or a weather balloon, or any known craft I’ve ever observed. It was as large as an aircraft carrier. Cylinder-shaped, but had a slight hump on top. My granddaughter and I thought we were lucky to have witnessed the UFO event. She believes in them now. I always have since I saw one in 1957 as a teenager along with thousands of people across the city and as it went north of St. Louis in the early morning on a Saturday or Sunday when we were out on the school yard playing ball and it was silver and huge , but never had MUFON then. The government stated then that it was mass hallucination or possibly swamp gas (ha… no swamps north of St Louis). Well, that’s the end of my sighting. Keep your eyes open and please report what you see as that’s the only way to understand what’s happening out there. Good luck.”
September 19, 2011 – Platte County, MO, CE1, Category 1, Case 39329.
The witness provided the Field Investigator with this illustration of the cigar-shaped object from Case 39329 that occurred in Platte County, Missouri, on September 19, 2011.
“My mother and I were watching it out the windows facing east and it was coming just over the tree tops from the west heading southwest. After it passed over the apartments, I ran out to the front and continued to see it ascend over I-35 and into the low lying rain clouds. It was all black in the back part and looked flat there, unlike the sides and cone front, which were white with 7-8 glossy lights, navy blue window trim with the window part white too. A design in the same blue color was observed on the larger, front window but I couldn’t make it out. The best I remember it was a zigzag type like a lightning bolt of some sort. Two blinking lights; one on the front and one on the back part. I remember red and green and blue lights blinking. Two long antenna; one top and one bottom with blinking, colored lights on the top and bottom. There were many lights around the complex and other complexes and it helped reflect off of the craft and was very visible to see because of this fact. I have seen blimps up close and they are real loud with their propellers and this craft made no noise at all. It did not wobble or appear to be swayed by the breeze, but made an intended straight line over the complex and I-35. Also, no undercarriage for a crew and passengers was ever noticed like a regular blimp and no rudders at the back also. We viewed it in the back of the building about 60-70 yards away and it was only about 40 yards off the ground and looked about 30-40yards long. We saw it at an angle going southwest. I have wondered why the craft had the antennas on the top and bottom and after thinking about it thought the most practical reason is that it uses them for sensors and markers since the large, silver, metal power lines were just a feet below these antenna. My guess is they are retractable and that explains why I never saw them on any cigar-shaped UFO on Google image search. I will download the picture to you tomorrow from the sketch I took just an hour after we saw this object. Yes, I have often wondered how drivers on I-35 didn’t get a million dollar shot at this object, but by then it was just starting to descend into the dark rain clouds.”
Field Investigator: “I have communicated with this witness by phone and email. He called me and I suggested that he file an official report at mufon.com first, and then we would follow up. He stated that there was no sound whatsoever. He sent me a drawing of the object he and his mother saw (see attached). The only discrepancy I can find is the weather history from weatherunderground.com says it was clear at that time, but the witness says there were dark rain clouds. I have seen this on other occasions where the weather website was wrong. He seems very credible, and has been doing research since seeing the object in an effort to explain it. Note: This was just before the huge UFO flap in Kansas City in October. This is one of the most unusual reports I’ve worked on.”
Multiple witnesses are a positive thing for any UFO investigation, especially when they are scattered and you have accounts from different perspectives.
One of the toughest parts of the UFO investigation business is often something as simple as having a witness come forward at all. We all realize that many good cases go unaccounted for because the witness does not want to tarnish their reputation or career with being a UFO witness.
A new witness has surfaced this month that may relate to a rather good case that occurred in southern Illinois in early January 2000 – an account with multiple witnesses that included police officers in several towns that were chasing the object. The story was told on Bill Birnes’ network show, “UFO Hunters”.
Illinois State Director Sam Maranto recalls the case well and says the story played out the evening of January 4 and into the wee hours of January 5, 2000.
The new witness recently read a story of mine about a Missouri case and he decided to come forward with his account of what happened in early January 2000. In a telephone interview, he says he heard the news about what happened in southern Illinois, assumed it was the same craft, but he did not report it.
In part, the witness stated, “I lived in a little town south of St. Louis, MO, back in 2000. I was the assistant fire chief for our district. I was coming home from a fire call at a neighboring township about 3 a.m. I picked up all the radio traffic from the local law enforcement channel.”
The radio traffic was rather unusual. He said he made the decision to investigate and met up with local police officers.
“Seems they were chasing this craft that had come across the Mississippi River and was heading right to the police officers and myself.”
They were able to locate and observe the object.
“We picked up the craft off of Highway 50 & I-44 traveling southeast about 25-30 mph, about 500 feet above our cars.”
The group of professionals decided to give chase.
“We kept up with it for about an hour before it took off across country and disappeared.”
They were not able to capture the object on camera.
“We did not have a camera with any of us and the dash cameras on the two police cars would not pan up to film this craft.”
The witness decided to build a model of what he saw that night and an image of that is included with this story. The information from this witness was passed on to both Illinois and Missouri MUFON and both states are currently conducting an investigation.
Maranto pointed out that this case “came on the heals of a mass sighting in Rockford, IL, just days earlier.” He said that if the new witnesses’ date and time matches, it could very well be the same object seen by multiple police officers in Illinois. The object could then have traveled southwest and into the area where these witnesses were located that same night.
ROGER MARSH 
