NUFORC Sighting 47002

Occurred: 2005-10-14 19:45 Local
Reported: 2005-10-14 22:20 Pacific
Duration: 15-30 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Lincoln (east of), MT, USA

Shape: Egg
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

egg/circle shaped, red/yellow/white lights - west of Lincoln tonight

This is the first weekend that I have driven to Lincoln and back to Missoula since the days have become shorter, the sky is now dark enough in the evening that anything in the sky would stand out.

I saw, several miles east of Lincoln, a flashing egg shaped, or circle shaped, object in the sky above a ridgeline directly in front of a bend on Hwy 200. I'm not familiar with the area's backroads so I couldn't tell you exactly what mountain range or roads you would have to take to reach that summit. Now at home, I can look at the map and say that it was north of Nevada Lake, west of Great Divide Ski Area. My depth perception probably wasn't that great, so the object was probably farther west than that - probably at a distance near I-90 - as I later figured once I headed further west (but I'll get to that in a minute).

I just remember rounding the bend and immediately having a gut feeling, after looking at the extremely large light in the sky, that I needed to pull over to make sure I knew what I was looking at. I wanted to make sure it wasn't a mountainside flashing beacon for planes or an airplane itself.

It hovered above the ridgeline. So I thought, perhaps, that it was a star. However, the flashing red and yellow or white lights were really curious looking. Aircraft have rhythms, straight flight pathes (pretty much, unless they bank and even then it's a wide turn) and consistent light patterns, but this one did not. It was sporadic and the red was flashing in uneven, non-patterns. It stayed in the same position and did not move for approx. 7 minutes. Then it moved right and then straight down beyond the ridgeline out of sight.

I pulled back onto the road and headed west again on Hwy 200 hoping to catch another glimpse of it just to be sure - I like to play devil's advocate, even to myself.

I did see it again and took a left turn at the Avon/Helmville cut-off road. I drove down about a mile and parked to see it better. It eventually disappeared out of sight, down over what seemed to be a ridgeline of some sort way in the distance (looking towards the Garnet Range (now that I'm looking at a map). There must have been some kind of ridgeline in the distance maybe covered by fog because of the way it disappeared. But you couldn't see it with the naked eye either. Once I head back that way during the daylight hours (and no fog) I'll try and see if there is indeed a mountain range there.

To the right of me (during this occurance, as I was traveling to my second location to stop and look) there was one aircraft flying which eventually flew so far north I couldn't see it through the clouds anymore. Then about the time that one was too distant for the naked eye, another one appeared and went parellel to Hwy 200, then out of sight. I stopped even further down the road, approx right past the North Fork of the Blackfoot River, just before Ovando and looked back into the sky to make sure I didn't see anything else. Once stopped, I saw another three jets total in the time that I sat there. I marked the time that I started watching from my first stop, but then lost track of the clock at this point while looking. One of the jets was traveling quite fast and you could see the mist tail emitting from it.

Whether or not these jets were military or commercial aircraft, I cannot say. I thought it extremely peculiar that so many aircraft would be in that vacinity at the same time buzzing around. I kept looking at the sky all the way back to Missoula and never saw any more aircraft. And why not? I was nearing Missoula, which has an airport! Am I just a dork? Or did anyone else see this and think the light looked peculiar? I'll be curious to find out.

NUFORC Note:

Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD

Posted 2005-10-20