NUFORC Sighting 11676

Occurred: 2000-01-10 19:15 Local
Reported: 2000-01-11 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 6 to 8 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Mannford, OK, USA

Shape: Oval
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aircraft nearby

Two bright objects perpendicular to one another and appeared to be heading on a fast collision course, when one passed over the other, the lower continued east, then just disappeared, seconds later, the other continuing north, disappeared also.

The viewing location was in my pasture about 32 miles west of Tulsa, Okla and 5 miles south, in the area 6 miles west and 2 1/2 miles south of Mannford, Okla near 2 east and 2 south of Silver City, Okla (but it's probably not on a map). About 1 1/2 hours after sunset my wife and I were unloading hay out in an open pasture for the cattle. The evening was cool, clear, and silent, with no wind or clouds,and I don't believe there was any moon yet. I saw the Orion constellation in the east and looked higher and saw the constellation above Orion that looks like a little letter "Y". Directly over my head I noticed a bright roundish object moving at a high rate of speed from due west to due east. It was brighter than any star in the sky and appeared to be a single glob of white light. Thinking it to be a meteorite I told my wife to look straight up. She did and listening, there was no sound, and no trail behind it or anything. I then noticed motion in the southern sky and saw an identical bright white object speeding due north. Both objects were now in clear view and I judged by their heading, that they would barely miss crashing into one another. They kept coming, never slowed, and they didn't burn out or weaken in intensity of their light. They both seemed fairly large considering the distance, or altitude they seemed to be at, larger than a big jetliner I would say, yet there was no noise, no vapor trail, no winding jet turbo-drone type sound, and going way too fast, yet it was perfectly quiet. The object coming from the south passed just over the top of the object coming from the west and both continued straight ahead on their same respective courses. As I watched the first object continue due east, it unexpectedly disappeared at about a 60 degree angle up from the east horizon as measured along the path of my line of vision. It went from full bright white, to dim blue white, to gone in half a second. No sparks, no tail, no trail, nothing. I looked back north to the other object and it continued bright and was getting further away, racing along at the same high speed. Low on the horizon to the east I could see the soft glow of the city lights from Tulsa, hidden from my view by hills, yet illuminating the humidity and/or dust and pollution hanging in the air. I noticed an airplane low to the east northeast about where the Tulsa Int'l Airport is located. The plane looked like it was heading west, and probably had just taken off. The plane had a solid white light on the front and a red blinking light to the side, as is common. I strained to hear the plane, but it was still too far away, as it is at least 45 miles to where the airport is located. I realized when looking back to the bright white object that the object was traveling at least twice or more than the speed of the airplane, and was much brighter. As I watched the object speed due north, now in the distance, it suddenly dimmed to off white for a fraction of a second, then just vanished from sight. Maybe both objects individually turned off their light at different times, but there was never so much as a blink of any colored light, or any warning light, only a bright white, a single, same intensity, solid white light. I'm thinking that maybe the altitude where they were passing through was high enough that surface reflection was occuring from the sun, which had already set in the west, an hour and a half earlier. As we watched the first object speed east it could have gone into the Earth's shadow, making it invisible to us. Same with the second object a few seconds later, as it was higher because it passed over the first object at their point of crossing, so it may have reflected sunlight for a little bit longer time until it got too far to the north in the Earth's shadow and just seemed to disappear. We looked back to the airplane, and it continued it's slow progress forward. We are both used to seeing satellites circling the Earth, falling stars, meteorites, meteor showers, comet tails, etc. I've never seen anything like this, both were clearly bright, fast, and seemed to have purpose in their close pass at each other. We stood a few more minutes and looked around, scanning for more information, more clues, but there was none. I have no idea what the objects were, or what they were doing.

Posted 2000-01-22