NUFORC Sighting 11057

Occurred: 1999-11-18 01:50 Local
Reported: 1999-11-18 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 20 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Columbus, OH, USA

Shape: Triangle


While on patrol in my police cruiser I noticed a dark object coming from the east. As it grew closer I noticed it was triangular in shape. It made a banking turn and continued north and out of sight.

I am a police officer for a suburb of Columbus, OH. I had a ride-along passenger, who is a reserve officer for another agency in the area. We were attempting to find a dark area within the city to observe the Leonid Meteor Shower as it was a slow night. We had driven back into a railroad yard and stopped the cruiser. We had been there no longer than five minutes when I noticed an object coming from east to west just west of downtown Columbus. At first I assumed it was an airplane. I quickly realized this was not the case. It appeared similar in shape to an F-117 Stealth Fighter as it approached head-on. I say this because it seemed to have similar sharp angled features. After watching it for about 5-10 seconds I told my partner to get out of the car as I was doing the same. I pointed in it's direction and said "Do you see that thing?" He too spotted the object just before it began to make a slow right banking turn. As it turned, it showed it's underside completely to us. It appeared to be an equalateral triangle shape. There were no flashing lights of any kind on the craft. It's underside had some sort of distortion to it almost as if it were camaflouged. There was absolutely no sound coming from the craft. It appeared to be relatively close to us and I actually tried to shine my spotlight on it to light it up but it was too far away to be illuminated by it. We often have the police helicopter fly by as we are close to the heliport and it was much larger in size comparison than the helicopter although it appeared to be at a similar altitude. After completing it's turn it leveled off and continued north having just made a 90 degree turn. It was travelling slowly across the sky; slower than the helicopter would to use it as a comparison again. It just seemed to glide as a stingray does through the ocean. It disappeared out of sight to the north of our location. I called another officer to meet me and we told him about the incident. He suggested I call Port Columbus Airport. I end! ed up ca lling the Airport Police and identified myself to them and asked if there was anyway they could find out if the tower had anything unidentified on their radar. After being on hold for a couple minutes the dispatcher advised me she'd been in touch with Tracon and they had nothing unusual on their radar in the time frame I'd reported. I cannot say what the craft was but I can say it was like nothing I've ever seen and the odd part is that it was completely silent. I have seen and F-117 fly and I know they are quite loud. I can also say with 100% certainty it was not any type of meteor. It was close enough to us that we could distinctly see it's edges and shape although it was not self illuminated. I could not say for sure what color it was as it just appeared dark in the sky. It would have been very easy to miss had we not been looking right at it. I am truly baffled by what we saw.

Posted 1999-11-23

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