NUFORC Sighting 17117

Occurred: 2001-03-29 15:30 Local
Reported: 2001-04-03 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 6 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Washington, MO, USA

Shape: Other

Spinning "Chrome-like" shiny square traveling on changing course.

While driving north on Jefferson Street through town, my 9 year old daughter noticed an object in the sky. She said "Dad what is that? It's really shiny." I looked and couldn't see it at first, but she continued to talk about it and soon after I spotted it too. I pulled the car over and got a very good look at it. The object was square in shape from a frontal view, but thin from a side view. The front of the object, while square, contained 4 circular shapes within it (like 4 dinner plates placed side by side, two across, two down, to fill the square.)The front was "chrome-like" and extremely shiny. The back side of the object was black & flat with no other markings. The object was on end and slowly spinning horizontally, so that to look at it while spinning was to see the shiny side of the square, then the thin, then the black side, and so on; a pattern of thick & thins. While spinning, the object traveled North towards downtown, then made a turn to head West near Busch Creek. A guess to it's speed may be about a varying 10-25 miles an hour. A guess to it's height from the ground would be approx. 100-150 feet. The overall size estimate would be 5+ feet with the thinner side maybe 1 foot thick. We watched the object as it changed course and even tried to follow it, but it soon vanished from our sight due to obstacles. I am anxiously awaiting an explaination of what we saw. I am not the type who even proposes this could be a UFO. I feel that I am a well grounded person as well as local business owner and would much prefer an explaination of this, than none... but I still cannot explain what my daughter & I saw. My wife had each of us draw on paper what we saw & they matched exactly. I would not have reported this, but my wife insisted, since afterall, it happened right in the middle of town during daylight hours around 3:30 in the afternoon. Is there anyone out there in Washington that saw this too? Please report to this site if so.

Posted 2001-04-28