NUFORC Sighting 33702

Occurred: 2003-12-09 19:54 Local
Reported: 2003-12-09 18:25 Pacific
Duration: 5 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Terre Haute, IN, USA

Shape: Triangle
Characteristics: Lights on object

Slow moving silent triangle defined by pale yellow chevron and a single bright center light with moving north in southern Vigo Co.

I was driving west on Harlan Drive (commonly known as Stuckey Road) about 4 miles east of US Highway 41 in southern Vigo county. I saw a bright light in the sky to my south at a fairly high angle of elevation. There was little apparent motion of the light, not unusual in itself. This is about 10 miles south and a little west of Hulman Field (airport) where F16 fighters fly in and out all the time. However the duration of event and its lack of apparent motion and the brightness of the light were triggers for my interest. I turned south on Hutchison Street off of Harlan, still on my path home, and I saw the light was now less intense and I stopped my car about 1/2 mile south of Harlan Drive and got out to look at this object. At this point I could discern that there were five pale yellow lights in a symetric chevron with the point in the direction of what I perceived to be a slow movement in the direction of north by northeast. The apparent size of the object was about the size of my thumb with my arm fully extended. There was a single white light in the center of the apparent triangle formed by the vertices of the pale yellow chevron and this light flashed on and off at a slow rate. The center light was not a harsh white like a strobe light. Also the white light seemed very big for a what would normally be an anti-collision strobe light on an aircraft. I watched the object over the period of a few minutes gradually go north and become obscured by a tree line to the north. It was completely dark, the sky was partly cloudy and the moon was almost obscured by clouds. I could not determine the actual size of the object as I had no references to determine its actual altitude. If it was a small craft like a fighter, it was pretty low; if larger who knows?. I could detect no sound. This object might have easily been some kind of conventional craft, but I have never seen any aircraft with such pale yellow running lights on the leading edge of its wings, and operating so quietly. There w! ere no red/green navigation lights. Hence this registered very strongly with me as an unusual sight. For what its worth, I am not qualified in any way as an aviation expert; I am ex-military. This thing did not spark anything except curiosity in me, and I tend to doubt this was any kind of ET craft. However it was flying; it was a real object; it was strange enough to be called unidentified. So in my book, its a UFO.

Posted 2003-12-19