NUFORC Sighting 35550

Occurred: 2003-04-12 20:30 Local
Reported: 2004-03-11 11:59 Pacific
Duration: 1 minute
No of observers: 1

Location: Pensacola, FL, USA

Shape: Orb
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Changed Color, Aircraft nearby

unidentified traversing light or sighted object

(A previous report has been filed in April of 2003, but this report is a little more descriptive with additional details that I intentionally left out of the original report due to the uncanny occurrence of sequence events that followed after the initial event, and due to a possible embarrassment to myself for reporting more correctly an abnormal occurrence; yet, I feel the truth must be fully known because of its eerie oddity.) On Saturday night, April 12, 2003 between the hours of 8:30 PM and 9:00 PM, I was on the fishing bay bridge (Pensacola side) at pillar marker number 44 just before the so called "hump." I was facing directly due East with the 3/4 full moon brilliantly shining at an angle in the sky between 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock; and when I was facing directly south, the moon was brilliantly shining at an angle in the sky slightly beyond 12 o'clock. The night sky was crystal clear with no clouds in sight, and the temperature outdoors was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. While I was looking directly due east, I noticed a large, star-like object between 22 to 30 degrees above the eastern horizon, and the object appeared to be located near Navare or Fort Walton Beach. It was flickering like a star that cyclically changed into different colors of red, green, and blue. My first thoughts was UFO because the lights were changing in a timely color pattern. It also appeared and felt to my perception to be inside our atmosphere, but the distant was too vastly away to make any definite identification in which I could clearly identify what I was seeing. It almost seem like it had an oval shape to it which the elongated part of the object was facing upwards. I was wondering to myself if I was the only person out of about a hundred people who were fishing on the bridge that night may have seen what I saw. So in a UFO joking mood, I decided to briefly shined my floodlight for less than a few second directly towards the object as in playful mode to get the attention of whomever may be inside if it was a UFO (like who shined that light at me, somebody can see me thought) which at time I was still actually thinking it was possibly a large planet or star, and I wanted to get the attention of the people on the bridge so they might glance at the flood beam and gazes towards the direction that I saw the star-like object in the sky. The floodlight's beam could not reach the object that I saw in the sky. Since the object didn't move an! d it appeared to be stationary, I decided that the object I was seeing was just a large star or planet since some stars or planets do flicker and shine similar like the object that I seen. But the object that I just described is not the main reason why I wrote this account. It is what happened two to three minutes later after I briefly shined the flood light at the object (star).

While I was still facing directly east as I was fishing and becoming bored because the fish-bites were slacking, I saw an commercial airliner appear from out of the tree line directly from the North-East slightly over the bay. The commercial airliner began making its slow, sharp bending approach about a mile out into the bay towards Pensacola's airport for landing. As the commercial airliner was veering towards the airport, it looked like it had a zillion lights on it. The commercial airliner disappeared from my viewing as it approached and descended towards the Pensacola's airport landing strip. The commercial airliner seem like it had been escorted because about 10 to 15 seconds later, two military aircraft appeared from out of the same direction and elevation the commercial airliner had just recently appeared. The military aircraft didn't follow the same route that the commercial airliner took while it was approaching into Pensacola's airport. Instead, they made their turns towards Navare or Fort Walton Beach separating from each other as they flew towards those cities. They also began flying in what appeared to be a zigzagging or searching pattern. I could clearly see the shape of the military aircraft in the moonlight. The military aircraft also had their identification lights on which were blinking red on one side of the wing, and blinking green on the other wing. Their strobe lights could be clearly seen all the way across the bay. Then about 30 seconds later, I saw an object come from the same direction and elevation the commercial airliner and military aircraft had appeared. The direction of the object was either directly from the north or from the northeast at an angle of 45 degrees above the eastern horizon heading south. This object seem like it had just tailed the commercial airliner or the military aircraft. This object when first spotted appeared to be only 2 miles or less away from my position or 1/8 the distant from the fishing bridge to the midway bridge which is near t! he town of Midway. This object was horizontally traveling at the same elevation the aircraft were flying and about the similar speed of a landing commercial airline, and the object was brighter than the brightest satellites; the object's light seem like the same intensity of arc-welding, yet, it almost seem like it was glowing but in a soft glowing manner of either a pure white color or of arc light color. I can't recall if the object reflected a mirror image of itself onto the water's surface, but I think it did since it was so brilliantly illuminating. The object also seem like it had a solid and spherical shape similar to a globe. If the object that I was viewing was a satellite, it was too extremely low in orbit, for I seen satellite traversing the skies in the past. This object had no distinguishing shape such as an outline in the moonlight, nor did it create any audible sound as it approached my position. If I was to estimate the size of this object when I saw it at its closest approach to me of about a thousand yards or less, I would say it appeared no smaller than a baseball, or no bigger than a basketball. When I first seen this object, I wasn't expecting it and it scared the blinky-blank out of me because the first thing that entered my mind after just shining the floodlight at the star-like object was "OH blank! That must be a UFO scout investigating who just shined a floodlight at the mother UFO ship!" My fear then ease to "it must be a satellite because it looks like a satellite." But I was still wondering until after few seconds had past then I said to myself, "That is an awfully low satellite going really slow. It can't possibly be a UFO." I was mesmerized by the object because I never seen anything like it traveling so low and slow and brilliantly illuminated. But still this is not the main reason why I wrote this account.

What really caught my attention was the fact while I was watching what I thought may be a satellite traversing the sky, the object's (satellite?) illumination just simply turned off like somebody flick the light switch to the off position once it past my two o'clock angle. The object's light just didn't dim and fade away like other satellites that I seen in my past. Just about a couple of miles before almost entering Gulf Breeze area, this object just instantly stopped shining its lights. This object didn't even forwardly project a beam like a headlight beam. I seen meteorite's in my past, and those meteorites had always left behind what I call a trailing light. The object I saw traversing didn't have this trailing light for like I said, it originally look like a satellite. The military aircraft never ventured into the area where I saw that traversing object where it just simply disappear in a blink of an eye after viewing it for at least 30 second to a minute.

Is it possible for satellites to just instantly blink out so far away from the horizon, or what I saw that night was truly an UFO possibly posing as a satellite? I never in my past searched for UFO's in the sky, nor did I do any UFO sighting research about past sightings of them until these events occurred, and I am still seriously skeptical about UFO's reports, but the night I saw those events still has me thinking of what type of object it was that I saw traversing the night skies, and what was it that I saw motionlessly situated except for changing color pattern near the distant horizon? Was it just a fluke incident of nature? About a week after the incident, I looked at some star chart for that night. All of the viewable planets were on the West side that night, and the only bright star viewable on the east side was suppose to be way down south. I looked at the satellite charts between the hours I saw the glowing object, but I could not find any satellite that may had been traversing during those hours I saw the glowing object that instantly disappeared before my very own eyes. I couldn't possibly be the only person who saw this object which simply vanished into nothing with the moonlight brilliantly shining everywhere; there were just too many people on the fishing bridge that night. Well, I guess I'll never know what I saw, and it almost a year later and still I can't find any answers to what I saw that night. What I wrote is the best that I could describe of what I saw on the night of April 12, 2003.



Posted 2004-03-17

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