NUFORC Sighting 72132

Occurred: 2009-09-06 19:57 Local
Reported: 2009-09-07 16:06 Pacific
Duration: 1.5 - 2 min.
No of observers: 12

Location: Harrisville, MI, USA

Shape: Circle
Characteristics: Lights on object

Orange oscillating light object silently tracks South to north near Sturgeon Point MI.

The following took place on 9/6/2009 at 9:57/PM in Alcona / Harrisville MI, approximately 2 miles north of Sturgeon Point light house. where my family and I have a cottage and my Brother and his family have a cottage behind ours. My family and I (in all 12 people, 9 adults & 3 children) were sitting out by the fireside no one drinking ...(yet).

We were watching the fire and talking about all the things that a family talks about; when abruptly my brother says "hay what is that "? (being the prankster he has always been) I thought I was going to turn and see something comical... when I turned I saw an object that was a red / Orange color, oscillating light moving across the crystal clear, calm, Moon lit night (winds aloft were out of the west as would become evident about 45 min. later when some Alto Cyrus clouds rolled in).

I was sitting looking to the North, He was to my right and looking West when he sighted the object which was tracking South to North, sort'a following the lake shore. It came up from behind me and moved across the sky slightly west of our over head vantage-point. We all re-in-acted the event right away to get the length of time, we agreed that it took between 90-120 seconds to traverse the portion of the sky, keeping in mind the trees behind and in front of us (his property is in a clearing).

I said right away "this is not an asteroid or meteor because it was not moving east to west, but South to North". Every one was taken "a-back" it appeared to have a constant oscillation, there was no erratic behavior about it as it moved silently across the sky.

It is so hard to tell the altitude it was at, you know, is it slow small and low? or is it large fast and high? my guess is large, moderately fast and high it seemed to move slower than the Space Station... my daughter said she thought it was tumbling and that she could make out a dark shadowy "organic shape" to it, and the red orange light looked like the light from Tungsten lights she works with (I know that I focused on the direction and the light not looking at the whole object so much). My Brothers daughter took 4 pic's of the light on her camera phone, and I am going to forward them to whom ever I need to.

The light from the object sorta faded out kind of like it passed our field of view because as it faded I could see a gray shape that was still visible as it moved along. I would say that it would be analogise to driving by a traffic light for parallel street with a crossing (only much larger, Much Larger!) with the Sun Screen (bonnet or hood... what ever you call it?) this would allow you to see a faint amount of light to an ever increasing amount then to it's zenith followed by an ever decreasing amount till it was no longer visible but you can still see the traffic light, all while oscillating.

Posted 2009-12-12