Occurred: 2000-05-05 19:30 Local
Reported: 2001-07-20 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 15 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Onawa (Near, on I-29), IA, USA

Shape: Changing
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object, Emitted other objects, Changed Colo

Ball of light separated into three lights and accelerated out of view.

I was driving home from college, north on Interstate 29 approximately ten miles from the Onawa off-ramp and the modern rest area, when I cited the object in question. It was about 7:30 PM, and the sky was mostly sunny with few clouds. As I was driving I saw what first I thought was a plane, so I ducked my head down so as to view it, since it was just out of my sight as I sat in a semi-rigid driving position. What I observed was a light, pulsating from orange to blue to yellow to pink, which was slowly streaking across the sky from the west to the east at an angle of 270*. When the object became perpendicular to the interstate it split apart from one object into three separate objects with the same properties in an equilateral triangular pattern. The three objects then rapidly accelerated and disappeared from my view. Once I had witnessed this I continued on the interstate until I reached the rest area just north of Onawa at which I pulled off to see if anyone else had seen what had happened since it occurred less than five minutes beforehand. When I got out of my car, other people were standing on the sidewalk and from what I overheard it sounded like they were talking about what I had seen. I walked by them without asking them though since I didn't want to sound crazy, because I wouldn't want someone walking up to me at a rest stop talking about a UFO. I am a Cadet of the United States Army, and have taken college astronomy courses so I know what I saw was not Mercury, a "shooting star", Venus, or any other astronomical body. What I saw reflected light and emitted light that changed colors, and although the sun was starting to set it was still light enough out that the stars would not be visible, nor was the sun a hindrance since I wasn't looking into the western sky.

Posted 2001-08-05

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