NUFORC Sighting 54065

Occurred: 1973-12-23 16:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2006-12-18 23:51 Pacific
Duration: 1-5 minutes?
No of observers: 0

Location: Colorado/Oklahoma (in flight), CO, USA

Shape: Disk
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aircraft nearby

Metallic disk with rotating orange lights seen from the window of a commercial aircraft between Dallas and Denver.

I was flying home for Christmas from Florida via Dallas/Denver on a commercial aircraft probably Braniff or American. We were at cruising altitude (30,000 ft?) between Dallas and Denver. I was gazing out the airplane window towards the west when a light from behind the plane caught my eye. I looked back and saw a saucer/disk flying parallel to the plane a couple of hundred yards from the plane and slightly lower. I watched while the disk caught up to the plane, passed it, and continued on ahead of the plane until I lost sight of it due to the angle of my line of sight out the plane window. The disk was fully visible and relatively close so that I had an unimpeded view of the side and top of the disk. The disk itself was a silvery, metallic color and was shaped very much like an upside down saucer. Around the circumference of the disk, there were rotating bright orange lights and stationary orange lights, looking very much like the wooden spokes of a vintage car when it travels at a certain speed and it looks like the spokes are stationary. There were no markings or external features of any kind on the surface of the disk and no signs of a vapour trail or obvious propulsion system. My feeling at the time was that the disk was about 40 feet across and 15 feet high. During the sighting I glanced around the cabin of the plane to see if anyone else had seen it, but there were very few passengers aboard and of those, no one seemed to be looking out my side of the plane. I would be thrilled if the captain and airline crew on this flight contacted you and made a report of their sighting because they could not have helped seeing this disk.

I'm only sorry I didn't talk to them after the flight or remembered the flight number but at the time I was quite satisfied with the fact that I had seen this disk. I thought at the time that this could be some kind of experimental aircraft but I have to this day not seen anything like it. I submitted a report to one of the UFO agencies back in 1983 or 84 and it was published in their journal, Alan Hynek wrote a little comment on it. But since it isn't in your database I thought I should send it to you as well.

NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. PD

Posted 2007-02-01