NUFORC Sighting 08834

Occurred: 1999-08-20 16:30 Local
Reported: 1999-08-26 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 10-15 sec
No of observers: 1

Location: Crisp Point (on Lake Superior, 25 mi. NW of Paradise), MI, USA
Location details: USA/Canadian Waters

Shape: Formation


Unidentified object flying on/above the horizon of Lake Superior, seen from the beach. The object flew (or floated?) at an apparently inexplicable speed, heading roughly NE. The object seemed to be composed of two parts arranged in unchanging formation.

I am a college student at home in the Upper Penninsula for the summer. I am a painter, and drove to the remotely located Crisp Point Lighthouse on Lake Superior to paint a picture of the adandoned lighthouse still standing there. I stood my easel up on the beach and had been painting for roughly 45 minutes when an object on the horizon of Lake Superior caught my eye. Visibility was perfect that day, and the sky at that time was cloudless. A small shape was closely followed by another small shape on the very edge of the sky, slightly above a thin layer of reflecting air atop the water, but I do not remember if I could see the shapes reflecting on the water. The shapes, if I were made to guess, were rectangular, but I am not certain what their shape was so perhaps this is an association of my own with the Great Lakes freighters commonly seen on the horizons of lakes: the cabins atop the hulls of which are angular in form. The object (I will assume it to be one object, for the two shapes moved in connection), however, moved at a rate of impossible speed for any sea-going craft, given its distance from me at the time. I watched it soundlessly cross nearly a third of the 180 degree horizon in about ten seconds, then I looked down for a reason I do not remember, either to look for my camera or pick up a dropped brush. When I looked up, the object's path had taken it behind the remains of a defunct pier jutting out from Crisp Point which obscures the horizon. I assume it vanished over the horizon behind the pier, for it did not emerge from behind it. The object followed a roughly north easterly course from where I first noticed it to the NNW, travelling consistently at the same rapid speed. The largest visibility possible across water on a clear day is twelve miles, so I assume it to have been at that distance. Though it is possible that two large supersonic jets, perhaps bombers, somehow flying in close formation at an altitude lower than about 500 feet above the water could explain the sighting, the sighting still remains mysterious to me, given how unlikely it is that two such jets would be following this course towards the elevated shoreline hills of Pancake Bay and batchawana Provincial Parks in Ontario (hills visible to the ENE of Crisp Point, and furthermore that the speed of the object seemed greater than any plane I have ever seen at that distance. The object moved far faster than a jumbo jet cruising overhead (which would be cruising at six or seven miles away), and either of its two portions were at least as large as a jumbo jet appears at that lesser distance. I have spent a lot of time on the Great Lakes and never seen anything similar, so I thought I would report it, especially as I expect it would have been visible from the region of Ontario around Pancake Bay, east of Crisp Point and Whitefish Point in Michigan. Perhaps the Canadian Navy is secretly testing a new supersonic freighter that will put American shipping to shame?!

Posted 1999-08-30

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