NUFORC Sighting 36758

Occurred: 2004-05-01 23:30 Local
Reported: 2004-05-07 00:56 Pacific
Duration: 4 min.
No of observers: 1

Location: Helena, MT, USA

Shape: Triangle
Characteristics: Lights on object

appx. 50' triangular, lighted craft hovering @ 100', then moving away proportionately as I approached.

As I drove toward town from the East, I noticed from about a mile away that there was a bright amorphous, stationary light, or possibly closely clustered lights, that seemed to exist in an area where there is nothing more than the intersection of a couple dirt roads, and a normally well-traveled highway. Though it was near the airport, it was too far North to be a tower, etc. As I approached the intersection, I began to realize that this was absolutely an aircraft of some kind, hovering at appx. 100 feet. Being an Air Force veteran, I instinctively turned down my radio, rolled down my window, and put my ear to the wind in order to detect (or not) audibly the sort of power plant that could be lifting this immense craft. There was nothing but the sound of my slowing engine, as I eventually found myself completely bewildered, and at a dead stop ion the highway, head craning out the window. There were three distinct points, each with its own circular, whitish light; no windows, etc. My first thought was something like, "Whatever the hell this is, why would it choose to hover idly right here. Then, I slowly turned back East onto White's road in order to observe it more closely. As I gazed up at the craft, innumerrable possibilities flashed in and out of my mind, each being dismissed as an impossibility for any number of (known) scientific and avionic detractions, and as this went on, I started to become a bit anxious (again w/regard to any fathomable agenda the craft's occupants/operators could possibly have), and so I let out the clutch and began rolling forward. As I did, to my utter astonishment, it began moving in the same direction, at the same rate of travel, as I. Anxious to somehow verify what I was seeing, I realized that not one other vehicle was even in sight for about the last three minutes- unusual at the time. Anyway, desiring to hasten fate, I hit the gas and noted that the craft was keeping perfect distance and rate of acceleration to me. Confused, and somewhat frustrated with my inability to conventionally rationalize, or at least share the experience with even another motorist, I began yelling and giving the SUV everything it had. Almost as if it (they?) had sensed my increasingly negative emotional state, it suddenly broke pace w/ me (@maybe 70 MPH), and began to arc upward and to the West, as its speed increased at an eye-popping rate, and then it went lights out. I hammered the brake, skidding to a stop just in time for the first oncoming vehicle to see nothing more than a cloud of dust around my truck. This was one, though not the first of 4 or 5 events of similar magnitude and inexplicability. Another time, on another well traveled dirt road further East in the valley, I viewed a seemingly identical craft hovering over a house at appx. 40 feet. I left before it did.

Posted 2004-05-10