NUFORC Sighting 27714

Occurred: 2002-12-06 00:30 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2003-02-15 15:20 Pacific
Duration: 15 - 20 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Halleck (near), NV, USA

Shape: Unknown

Top secret "X-craft" flights may be occurring in remote, rural areas well outside test facilities.

Incident: Gigantic "Stealth" Object Encountered Near Halleck, Nevada Date: Late Nov./Early Dec 2002 Location: Hwy. 229, 10 mi. SE of Interstate 80, 25 mi. ENE of Elko, NV (Elko County) Number of witnesses: 1 Description: Shape, Size, Altitude, Speed of object all unknown; No discernable features, no lights, just black void in sky casting giant shadow on ground.

Witness account: Between 12:30am and 1:00am on a Saturday night in late November or early December of 2002 (not sure of exact date), I was driving my truck northwest on Nevada State Highway 229 just a mile or two north of the Lamoille/Ft. Halleck Road (dirt), from which I had just exited. I was scouting out good vantage points for nighttime photography of the Ruby Mountains, the west slopes of which were now about 7 miles behind me.

Under a mostly clear sky with a bright moon, I was cruising very slowly along the road, stopping occasionally to glance back and evaluate the panorama for good shooting locations. This was perfectly safe to do because the road has an EXTREMELY low volume of traffic, especially at night. As it turned out, on this particular night I encountered no other vehicles on the road. Hwy. 229 is used primarily for access to local ranches and to the Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge (about 60-70 miles south and lying on the east side of the Ruby Range), and for all practical purposes would give a first-time visitor the impression of being a closed but well maintained seasonal road.

I had just descended into a shallow "dip" in the landscape about a half-mile across and then came to a complete stop. I turned off my lights so I could better view the full distance behind me under moonlight, and left my engine running just in case I had to quickly clear the way for any approaching traffic.

My truck windows are heavily tinted, preventing one from getting a crystal clear view of distant nighttime surroundings. Since it wasn't too frigid outside, I rolled down my driver's side window to look back toward the mountains and see if any light pollution was visible from rural homes or ranches. However, this only gave me a good view of everything on my side of the truck, so I had to alternately look through the back window to see the land to the rear and rear right.

While I was turned to my right and looking out the rear window, I became aware that the bright moonlight I had been bathed in all night was suddenly not there. As I described to a friend recently, what happened during the next few seconds was a lightning fast series of thought processes and internal debates with myself in trying to rationalize why the moonlight was gone when no clouds were present to obstruct it. At no time was I in a panic. Everything happened too fast for me to develop any sense of fear about the situation. Maybe it was because I was preoccupied with my scouting mission and not dwelling on thoughts of being all alone and vulnerable out in the middle of "J.S. Nowhere." I guess my first reaction was to look up through the rear window thinking I might spot a large owl or other nocturnal bird of prey, which had swooped down low over the truck. I saw nothing ... and I mean NOTHING ... no moon ... no stars ... just pitch black. However, the shadow covering me persisted. I shifted my eyes downward onto the landscape behind me and could see a sharp outer boundary of the shadow about 1/8 of a mile back down the road (beyond that, the land was visibly lit by the moon). I then spun around and looked out my open driver's window to see the western boundary of the shadow, about 100 yards away, moving at a brisk pace toward me. So whatever was casting this shadow was moving west to east.

I stuck my head out the window and looked up, but I saw absolutely no discernable shape; just a mysterious mass of darkness the size or altitude of which I simply could not determine. In the span of about 15 seconds, the shadow moved across the area where I was parked and disappeared over a low hill to the east side of the highway. The moonlight now once again flooded the truck and immediate surroundings.

Not having seen or heard the source of the shadow (my truck engine remained running during the incident), I have absolutely no idea how big or how high the object was or how fast it was moving. All I know is that it was huge enough to cast a shadow I estimate to have been up to 1/4 mile across and moving about 30 - 40 miles per hour.

The odd thing about this whole experience is that I never felt frightened or in any kind of danger. I knew that something strange had just happened, but didn't really fathom the weirdness of it until sometime later. In fact, I was only recently prompted to report this experience.

All the above is fact as I remember it. Now for the conjecture. My belief is that the object was some sort of experimental aircraft, perhaps a mega-sized "stealth blimp" much like that reported numerous times since the early `90s. I believe one of the most famous sightings of such a craft occurred just a few years ago in southern Illinois. It was reported by several policemen, who tracked it into Missouri. If what I witnessed (or didn't witness) was some kind of experimental military craft, it was far from any test facility, where you'd expect to find such a vehicle. Could it be that developers wanted to see how far out of the safe zone they could fly this thing without being spotted by the citizenry? Unless someone else saw it before I did, then the testers succeeded in flying the device some 300 miles from the nearest test site - the Nellis Test Range (part of which is better known as "Area 51")- before it was spotted ... or at least detected by yours truly.

Even if anyone else on the ground experienced what I did that night, they were probably just as perplexed as I when they looked up and couldn't see any definite, solid object in the sky above. So my question to readers is whether or not anyone else has encountered such a virtually invisible object elsewhere in Nevada or any other place.

One interesting sidenote to this: Just recently, I caught the tail end of a radio news report about an "unknown, unauthorized aircraft" flying low and disturbing livestock on ranchland in the Crescent Valley area (90 miles SW of where my encounter took place). I didn't get enough details about that particular sighting, but I gathered from the story that it was a follow-up to a previous report from some weeks prior. I'm now wondering if that sighting actually occurred the same night as mine. If there is anyone out there, especially in the Elko, Carlin or Crescent Valley area, who might have more info about the other sighting, I'd like to know so I could follow up and maybe start piecing together the puzzle. If this is indeed some kind of stealth blimp, how big could it possibly be ... and why would it be so big?

NUFORC Note:

Date may be approximate. Witness elects to remain semi-anonymous. PD

Posted 2003-03-21