NUFORC Sighting 68146

Occurred: 2009-01-18 23:00 Local
Reported: 2009-01-19 22:17 Pacific
Duration: 20 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Jacksonville Beach, FL, USA

Shape: Cigar
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object

Glowing cigar shaped object creates intense glow in sky and move across ocean.

Around 23:00 on the beach in Jacksonville Beach, Florida me and a friend witnessed a bright cigar shape craft move like nothing either of us had seen before. We had decided to go out for a quick stroll on the beach since it was a relatively clear night out compared to the previous week. After a short walk south my friend suddenly stopped and was peering south south-east slightly out towards the ocean before I could ask him why he stopped a bright orange glow took hold of my attention in the direction he was staring. Both of our eyes were affixed to this point where this glow took up a good chunk of the sky it looked as if a bomb had gone off. At this point we both realized this was right around the same place in the sky that shuttle launches could be seen from the Kennedy space center which we had witnessed many times before. As we discussed this a bright almost glowing light orange or dark yellow cigar shaped object appeared in the orangery haze. The object slowly started moving vertically about the same speed as the shuttle. Me and my friend assumed we were watching a shuttle launch and were both pretty surprised that neither of us had heard anything about it and that the beach was vacant except for us. With a shuttle launch it seemed almost impossible that we would be the only ones out to watch . Although surprised we continued to watch the object astounded that we were the only two watching this great event. About 2 minutes in to the object rising vertically it seemed to be slowly moving north towards us no longer gaining altitude. The bright glow kept growing more intense as it moved towards us. Suddenly we realized this object was leaving no trail of smoke so the idea came to me that maybe this was a helicopter but there were no blinking lights just a steady light orange glow. I attempted to take a picture on my phone but it was so dark that nothing came out. The craft now around 45 degrees from its first appearance then appeared to move west out towards the ocean and over the ! period o f around 2 minutes the once intensely bright light slowly dimmed. Then the craft about the intensity of a star slowly moved south and over the period of a second faded away as fast as it appeared. I have never seen any object emit no trail, have no blinking lights, and be absolutely silent. Throughout my entire life I've never witnessed Helicopters, planes, balloons, shuttles, or any other type of aircraft behave the way this object did. Me and my friend have an open mind regarding UFO sightings but were pretty skeptical of what we were witnessing and were wondering if anyone else may have witnessed this event being easily in the view of the entire coastline. Any information could be helpful to aid us in figuring out what we saw that night.



Posted 2009-03-19

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