NUFORC UFO Sighting 186518
Occurred: 2025-01-05 23:14 LocalReported: 2025-01-07 14:55 Pacific
Duration: 1-2 minutes
No of observers: 2 - Pilot
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Location details: viewed from moving car at 25 mph or less. The object was moving as well.
Shape: Rectangle
Color: dark
Estimated Size: large square bottom
Viewed From: Land
Direction from Viewer: East
Angle of Elevation: 65
Heading: West
Closest Distance: 500 feet
Estimated Speed: ?
Characteristics: Lights on object
Moving rectangular object with 20' x 20' bottom (approx) with red/green lights on opposite sides; other 2 sides had white lights.
Driving home after dark in our neighborhood with a speed around 25 mph. I was in the passenger seat and my husband was driving. I noticed an aircraft banking. It had red and green lights on opposite sides. The other two opposite sides had white lights. I assumed it was a commercial flight headed associated with RDU air traffic. Our area is often in their flight path where they make a turn to/from the airport. The reason it was of note, is that it seemed way too low and I was visually having difficulty understanding the direction that it was heading with the assumption it was coming to/from RDU. I said to my husband, “That airplane is way too low”. I continued to watch it. We continued down the road where it goes downhill and the object was out of sight. As you continue on the road, it goes uphill. At the peak, I looked up and saw the object. I could only see the green light and the two white lights at this point. It was very close, had a rectangular bottom which appeared dark in this environment. The rectangular area was large. Upon seeing it out the passenger window not far above my side of the car, I said to my husband, “It is right there. It is low. It is big.”
We turned onto Golden Heather. He looked out his driver side window and said “I see it. It is big. I guess we have those here now too.” He reported, it moved out of sight.
I joked, “Maybe they are here to visit their vulture overlords.”
We pulled into the garage at home. I got out to the driveway to look and there was nothing unusual visible. My husband said, “It moved away from here.”
I know how small a mavic drone looks at 400 feet. This was definitely large and seemed low. It is difficult to declare the elevation and size with accuracy as those two factors affect each other. It appeared about the size of a 2 car garage at least 20 feet by 20 feet in comparison with the house it was over. It felt lower than 400 feet, but with something appearing that large, it was likely higher.
There was no noticeable noise we could hear from the interior of the car. We did have the radio on low. The location of our home also experiences helicopter flights to/from hospitals. We know what helicopters sound like. This was not a helicopter. We were close enough to visually identify it was not a helicopter.
When the object was close enough to see, it behaved like a drone. As it was moving from East to West, the green light was visible, but not the red light. The green light was on the forward side of travel, indicating tilt in that direction, much like a drone behaves, assuming it is flat in nature. The white lights were still visible while the green was visible and the red light was not.
Note about the vulture comment. There have been 50+ vultures gathering in the highest tree at the back of our property over the past month or so on various nights. This is a new wildlife behavior we haven’t experienced before in the many years we have lived here. They were gathered there the night of this sighting and the object would have flown quite near them a half a block away, if it continued its flight after we last saw it.
I have seen the recent news reports of the sightings. In almost every instance of photo/video, it looked like someone filming an airplane or some flashing dot in the sky - or it is digitally faked. I was skeptical of the frenzy of sightings. I was not looking for a sighting. It appeared in the course of living my life.
Posted 2025-01-11