NUFORC Sighting 24047

Occurred: 2001-11-11 23:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2002-07-30 21:00 Pacific
Duration: 4 hours
No of observers: 5

Location: Bloomington, IN, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Changed Color, Aircraft nearby

White/red/blue light over Bloomington, IN between 11pm and 3am on November 11 and 13.

At about eleven in the evening sometime in the second week of November, 2001, (I'm not entirely sure of the date, though I think it was the eleventh,) my roommate directed my attention out our dorm window to a strange light in the sky northwest of the IU Bloomington campus. It was admittedly rather hazy that night, though what kind of conventional aircraft appears as a bright light periodically highlighted by flashes of red and blue and stays in one place for exceptional periods of time? My roommate gathered three of his friends to watch the show; helicopters (we think, they didn't make any sound) had begun to show up at about ten past eleven and circle around the light. Wanting to be a bit more indulged, I went down to the street (East 3rd) and ventured west to Jordan Avenue to have a closer look. I'd at first thought the light was much farther northwest, but apparently it was less than a mile from our dorm and thus slightly north of the campus, directly up Jordan Ave. As soon as I made the intersection and this observation, it arced up to the west very, very quickly from a dead stop. I lost sight of it for the trees, so I kept going west along 3rd Street and made a stop on top of the Ballantine Hall parking garage. I looked around and didn't see anything, so I headed back. As I approached Jordan Ave. heading east, I saw it again, motionless over a residential area to the southeast, seemingly about the same distance it was from me before. The helicopters were gone at this time. I didn't bother going after it; the cops were prone to patrol the area for party-goers at that time of night and it was late. I thus sat out in front of my dorm and watched it do practically nothing for the next half-hour or so and went back up to my room, as there wasn't much left for intrigue. I did some work until about 3am and went out for a coffee, and was a little surprised to see that the object was still in the same place, still doing practically nothing. It was in the exact same place for the duration of the same time ! period t wo days later as well.

NUFORC Note:

We suspect the object may have been a celestial body, but that is only a guess. PD

Posted 2002-08-16