NUFORC Sighting 29653

Occurred: 2003-07-09 11:35 Local
Reported: 2003-07-10 12:43 Pacific
Duration: 20 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Sylva, NC, USA

Shape: Changing
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

The disk I saw was easily able to avoid the fighter aircraft pursuing it

Unexplained Aerial Observation (Credit Union Number - ((telephone number deleted)) & ((name deleted)) On Wednesday, July 09, 2003, at approximately 11:35 AM I pulled into the parking lot of the State Employees’ Credit Union in Sylva, North Carolina.

The weather was sunny to partly cloudy.

I stopped the engine to the car and could hear what I thought were fighter aircraft maneuvering overhead and possibly practicing "dog fighting". We hear that on occasion in our area. Then I heard something different.

What I heard was a distinct and momentary whooshing noise. The tone of the sound was in such a low frequency range that I "felt it" as well as heard it. Indeed, I thought that maybe one of the aircraft was in a flat-spin and was plummeting toward the ground.

I remember thinking, I wouldn’t be surprised if the aircraft wasn’t going to crash. Indeed, I was anticipating an explosion. I paused for an instant after getting out of the car and wondered if it was headed for the ground how any one could get out of the way.

The lower frequency sound stopped. I began walking toward the main entrance of the Credit Union but could still hear jet engines. So I stopped to look up. Most of the time when you hear jets maneuvering in the day you can’t see them but I looked up because of odd initial sound I had heard.

What I saw first was a disk-like object suspended just between a high cumulus cloud structure but above the mountain ridge. I estimate the altitude of the object to have been at about 600 feet. The object was at least ¾’s of a mile away (SSW) from where I was standing. The profile of the object’s shape reminded me of an aluminum garbage can lid. It was a dull aluminum color rather than bright and shiny.

Momentarily the aircraft, I believe it was an F-14 with its wings extended, appeared out of the bottom of cloud cover in a relatively tight nose-down turn. Within a second after F-14 came out of the cloud cover the disk-like object vacillated or vibrated from side-to-side for an instant and then flipped on its side. There was a brief flash of light that came from the disk when it flipped to its side (like the sun’s reflection bouncing off of glass).

As the F-14 straightened up from its nose-down attitude, I had a brief instant’s view of the aircraft’s profile and a clear view of under-belly of the disk (it appeared as a circle). The disk suddenly disappeared and appeared in another location (about 15 to 20 degrees to the left of where it was – but at the same relative altitude) but the disk had shrunk at least half in size. The re-sized object looked darker and more cylindrical.

I didn’t actually see the disk travel to its new location although I was looking right at it. The entire change in location and size occurred in a time frame that was less than the blink of an eye.

The F-14 leveled out and vectored toward the disk. The object, as if in response, simply shrunk further in size and vanished. I saw motion whatsoever. The object neither moved up, down, right or left. The object simply disappeared as if a rheostat was “turned down” on the image. Shortly thereafter I heard the sound of the engines of the aircraft that had been throttled up in pursuit. I also heard the throttle down – as there was nothing left to pursue.

I don’t know what the disk-like object was. However, I’m 100% certain it wasn’t operating under the same rules of gravity under which we operate.

(I heard the aircraft for more than 20 seconds but only physically observed them for 10 seconds or less) I went into the Credit Union, stunned. I told the lady behind the counter what I had seen. One of the ladies next to her said, interrupted and said, “What did you see?” I told her. She said, “I heard it over the speakers”.

I will NEVER look at the sky again in the same way. Everything that I knew about physics and aviation went right out of the window with what I observed today.

I’m now forced to reassess all that I knew to be real.

Posted 2003-07-16

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