NUFORC Sighting 57247

Occurred: 2007-06-21 20:35 Local
Reported: 2007-06-23 00:35 Pacific
Duration: 40 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Clarklake, MI, USA

Shape: Cigar
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

black helicopters, disc and cigar sighted near Jackson, MI

Around 7:50 pm EST I heard what I believe to be were several military helicopters flying slowly and low, over the swamp behind my home. It sounded like they had come from the direction of Jackson, MI (northwest of my location) and flew onward, in the direction of Brooklyn, to the southeast. I didn't actually see them, only heard, what seemed to be, several loud, powerful helicopter engines (the whoop-whoop sound was easily noticibale) At 8:00 EST I heard more heliocpters behind my home and they seemed to sit over the swamp behind my home. There are several horse pastures surrounding this swamp and this realization made me concerned that there was possible animal mutilations occurring in my neighborhood. I felt this because while hearing the helicopters come and go, I began to feel like I was being watched. I've had that same feeling while in the presence of the UFO phenomenon. The helicopters left after a few minutes but I don't recall in which direction.

Around 8:05 I hear them again.

This time I ran for the camera as I wanted to get a photo or two. I know that I may have to jump in my car to get a good look at them as there are many trees in my yard and neighborhood. They departed before I could get my Sony Cybershot DSC-H5 out and 2x telephoto lens attached.

I was a bit unnerved by the helicopters and began to feel the overpowering need to take photographs outdoors. Around 8:30 I went outdoors with camera and tripod in hand. I set up to shoot some stills of the moon and try out the manual settings on this digital SLR. I snapped a few images of the moon while having problems with the tripod. I detached the camera body from the tripod and began snapping off dozens of photos into the air,just above the tree line to the NE. I can't explain why...I just began to shoot images.

The two images attached, "disc" and "cigar-close", were shot around 8:30pm on 21 June 2007. I saw a small, black disc flying erratically in the sky, like a balloon in turbulant wind...but under much more control. It was flying from west to the east.

The photo with the cigar shaped image was one of many images taken during a 'manual burst' of dozens of images. The image preceding the one with the cigar and the one after contain no objects in the sky but were taken within an extremely short time (1 to 5 seconds between images.

It should be noted that both images employed 8x zoom (the camera has a 12x internal zoom) and a 2x telephoto lens. I found a setting that worked for me and left it on manual so that I could retain the digital f-stop and shutter speed.

I will email the two photos of odd craft soon.

Posted 2007-08-07