NUFORC Sighting 36729

Occurred: 2004-05-03 21:26 Local
Reported: 2004-05-05 07:11 Pacific
Duration: 20 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Helena, AL, USA

Shape: Chevron
Characteristics: Lights on object

Two adults witness boomerang-shaped object during a strange sequence of events

My wife and I were headed home after eating dinner at our friends' home. There are two ways to go home, the short way and the long way. The long way is only about three minutes longer, but 99 percent of the time, we take the short way. My wife was driving and for some reason when we came to the point where we could chose between the short and long way, I told her, "take a left, let's go the back(long) way home." Right before we took that left turn, I noticed a small single-engine plane flying S/SE at around 500 to 700 feet. I could easily see its red and green lights. Bessemer Municipal Airport is about six miles NW of this location. This airplane looked like it may have departed from Bessemer due to its altitude.

We continued to drive the long way home and I thought to myself, "why did I tell her to go this way?" and "I hope she didn't mind me telling her to go this way." We turned right at Highway 58, going west in Helena when I clearly noticed this big object in the sky with three white lights, the center light being the brightest of the three. I could see the grayish outline of a boomerang shape, with the bright light in the center and the left and right white lights on the edges of the "wings" of the object. For some reason I nonchalantly pointed to it and said, "see, things like that." I don't know why I said that. We had not been talking about seeing strange things. It was like the whole reason why we went the long way home was to see this thing.

When she saw what I was seeing, she stopped the car and asked, "what is that?" and "it's not moving." It wasn't moving. It looked like it was stationary in the sky. The object was about 35 degrees, NW of our location at a range of about 1 mile and an altitude of anywhere from 1000 to 5000 feet depending on the size of this thing. It was "pointed" in the direction of SE and none of the lights were blinking. The pure-white aspects of the lights on this thing really stand out in my memory of seeing it. The center light was as bright as Venus is currently in the evening, and I recall seeing this object and Venus at the same time, with Venus to the left and higher up in the sky, maybe five degrees away. At an arm's length, the boomerang-shaped object was about 1-1/2 inches wide and 1/4 inch tall.

A car was coming up behind us so we had to start moving down the road. As we did, I kept my eye fixed on the object. Intermittently, trees would pass and block the view that I had of the object, but it was still there. We came to Highway 17 and instead of turning left to go home, my wife turned right to get a better view of this object. My view was blocked by a gas station and the bright flourescent lights of the outside of the gas station. When my view was clear again, the object was gone. We continued to drive north on this road. Oddly enough, there was a vehicle off the road and in the ditch on the side of the road with its headlights on, but we didn't see anyone in it. This distracted us briefly, but it didn't seem to be a serious accident. We continued to drive and we saw what appeared to be the object again, but now it was way to the north, about 5-7 miles away, much higher in the sky and what appeared to be headed to the north. It was now moving away from us quickly and we soon lost sight of it over the northern horizon(toward Birmingham).

We drove through a subdivision on our way back home, driving slowly to see if we could notice the object once more, but we never saw it again. We circled around by the forementioned gas station and saw where a police cruiser was arriving on the scene where the vehicle was in the ditch. We made it home about 90 seconds later where we discussed what we just saw.

These questions remain: What did we see? How did it move so far away, changing directions and altitude so quickly? What made us go home that way? Why did I say what I said when I saw the object? Did the driver of the vehicle in the ditch see this thing, thus distracting the driver to cause the accident? I guess we will never know that. Maybe I am over-thinking this whole thing, but my wife and I know that we saw a large boomerang thing with three lights floating stationary over Helena, AL for at least 10 seconds that night.

Weather at the time: skies were clear, the air temperature was in the 50's(F) and there was a light northerly breeze.



Posted 2004-05-10

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