NUFORC Sighting 165685

Occurred: 2021-12-03 16:30 Local
Reported: 2021-12-04 07:55 Pacific
Duration:
No of observers: 2

Location: Southbridge, MA, USA
Location details: Visible on the Masspike, in Southbridge, and then in Connecticut heading toward New York

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Lights on object, Changed Color, Aircraft nearby

We followed a bright white star and at closer range saw an unidentifiable hovering aircraft; it traveled far in the blink of an eye.

At approximately 4:30 in the evening, I went to my car to do some errands. I immediately noticed a very bright white point of light in the sky. It was much bigger and brighter than a star or a planet, but was not identifiable as an aircraft because it appeared to be completely stationary. I noticed it at dusk when there was still light in the sky (roughly in the same area of sky as I had, two months previously, seen a strange collection of lights moving in unison).

There was a second, smaller, less bright object as well that I noticed at the same time. I am still not sure whether this particular object was a planet or a phenomenon similar to the brighter one. It definitely was not a star, as it was too large and it did not twinkle. At the time when I saw both of these objects, no other stars or planets were visible in the sky, as there was still some daylight.

I was mostly interested in the brighter object, which I could not assign to any familiar category. I kept looking for it as I drove around completing my errands (admittedly, I was alert to strange phenomenon in the sky because of the unexplained objects I had witnessed two months prior). It was clearly visible from several places in town, but it was low enough in the sky that it couldn’t be seen from every location. It remained a very, very bright point of light, but when I saw it from certain angles it almost seemed to have a metallic gleam and I couldn't tell if it was completely spherical. It didn't twinkle (in the sense of periodically dimming) like a star, but at some moments its light seemed almost to pulsate with extra beams. It remained stationary the entire time I was out and appeared to still be in the same place when I arrived home in my usual parking space, but I noticed that it seemed actually to be slowly descending, as it was now partly obscured by the branches of the tree in my neighbor’s yard.

At that point, I got out of my car to take a video and pictures of the light to show my boyfriend (because he was very skeptical two months ago when I told him I saw a whole collection of UFOs outside!) The video wouldn't send, so I called him to tell him about it, beginning the conversation with the sentence, "I think I'm looking at a UFO." He spontaneously asked, "Are you talking about that really, really bright star?" It turns out he was on the Massachusetts Turnpike, heading toward Sturbridge, and he was also staring at it. He said the traffic had slowed and he suspected other drivers were slowing down just to look at it. He wasn't yet sold on it being too out-of-the-ordinary, suggesting maybe a planet had reached the closest point to earth in its orbit. But after he arrived home, as we stood outside staring up at it, he noted out loud that it was definitely not perfectly round, and he thought he saw two extra pieces coming out of it. (His eye are sharper than mine, so I’ll take his word for it, though I did agree it did not look perfectly spherical at certain angles. It is difficult to find words to describe or remember exactly the miniscule features of what was really just a large point of light, but it did at times seem as though light was reflecting off of it, and at times I think the shape could better be described as a knot than a dot.)

The two of us decided to drive around to see where we could get a better view. It had been an hour and a half since I first saw the very bright light, and it was still in roughly the same place in the sky, so there is no way it was any ordinary aircraft. As we drove around town, trying to see it better, we eventually turned down Mashapaug Road, which is very woodsy. (As we drove, straining to see it between the trees, I kept my eyes on the other light, the planet-or-UFO. It helped me estimate where in the sky I could find the abnormally bright light, which by now had descended much closer to the horizon.)

Finally, we came to a spot where we had a clear view. I think the clearing in the trees was due to a body of water but by now it was completely dark and hard to see landscape. But the light appeared closer now, as it was larger, and it now appeared bright yellow rather than white. As we followed the curve in the road I think we encircled the object, coming so close that we could see it almost right above us. From this angle, it appeared to be an actual saucer-shape with three rectangular lights. We both swearing and exclaiming; it was so surreal-looking! I said, "It's shaped like a stereotypical flying saucer in a movie!" My boyfriend said, “That is definitely not an airplane!” We both noted the three rectangular lights and the lack of any blinking lights such as you would see on most aircraft.

There was a row of cars behind us, maybe also trying to get a glimpse. We couldn't safely stop. We came to the gas station at the highway and turned around, but we couldn't see the bright levitating object in the woods anymore. We turned around again and onto the highway, and from there we could see the object in the sky behind us. We drove until we were able to reverse-course and keep driving towards the bizarre yellow light but it was so low on the horizon we kept losing it in the trees. At several points I noted the second, maybe-planet-maybe-UFO in the sky appeared to have the same knotty, not-quite spherical quality, and I said, “That has to be another one.”

At one point, I saw a bright streak, like a very fast shooting star, and when next we saw the light it had moved and was behind us. We turned again, still trying to follow it. At one point as were staring at it we noticed a car pulled over on an access road with a better view, watching it also. There were also a lot of normal airplanes in the air at this time, at least some of which we speculated were trying to keep an eye on it. We could easily distinguish our UFO from these craft because it was much brighter.

We lost sight of it again and when we saw it, far down the highway, low on the horizon, in the direction of New York, we decided it was too far away to keep chasing and went home - still searching the sky in case it came back or in case we saw another. It was gone from the sky when we parked. The brightest point in the sky now was what seemed to be an ordinary planet, and I couldn’t tell if this was the same maybe-planet-maybe-UFO that had accompanied the unnaturally-bright UFO. It was difficult to judge by memory how bright the second one had been compared to the normal heavenly bodies because I had only been approximating its brightness in comparison to the bright UFO. I had difficulty remembering its location for the same reason; I had been approximating its location based on its distance from the bright UFO, and now the bright UFO was gone. By this time it was approximately 8:30PM.

For background on the observers - I'm a historian who spends most of my time these days researching a book I'm writing on U.S. history and working online part-time. I'm also neurodivergent and used to being dismissed as weird. My boyfriend works in biotech and is usually not considered weird by anyone. He is pretty open-minded but definitely a scientist and needs to see proof before he'll believe in something as far-fetched as a mystery hovercraft outshining the stars. Now he's seen it for himself!

Posted 2021-12-19