NUFORC Sighting 09887

Occurred: 1999-09-24 07:00 Local
Reported: 1999-09-24 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 3-5 min
No of observers: 1

Location: Chico, CA, USA

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Left a trail

small silver object, low flying in very strait line emitting what looked to be a thick bright billowy contrail the shape and length of a comet tai ended at a point and abruptly, no dispersion of smoke.

In car returning home the last 2 blocks, up in the sky what looked to be at the altitude of a small plane, but I could not make out the object only twice in its flight did I glimpse, the color silver. What was so odd was the tail of what seemed to be a contrail from the object immediately from the back end that was much thicker than the object itself and extended about 15 lengths of the object into a point, as though it were the tail of a comet. The contrail was thick and solid, but billowy looking and was very illuminated or bright, but it did appear like smoke that was coming from the object. It did not trail off in a long dispersed fashion, like it does from high flying aircraft that leave contrails across the sky. This stuff coming out of this thing was very contained in its appearance. The object traveled very slow almost 4 min in my vision while I parked the car in the drive went in the house, grabbed the phone came back outside and called my husband at work and proceeded to describe what I was seeing to him. It traveled as though I were seeing it from the side view but as it moved farther away it was not exactly perpendicular to me. The path was more like southwest to northeast. (If I have my bearings, correct) Clear sky and no other aircraft in the area I will send drawing by fax. ((Name deleted))

NUFORC Note:

The witness in this case is well known to NUFORC, and we consider her to be a very reliable source of information.

Posted 1999-10-02