Occurred: 1983-07-15 00:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2002-08-21 22:38 Pacific
Duration: 15min-?
No of observers: 1

Location: Vanderbilt, MI, USA

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object

Swirling inverted black-hole cloud with a brightly lit center and whisps of clouds and lightening coming from the center of the mass.

I was fourteen years old, living in the family home, which was an isolated house in the middle of a field. Having grown up in that home from the age of four, I was familiar with all the sounds that would occur in and around the house. On several occasions I thought that I had heard noises, and I would grab an AR-7 22-caliber rifle that my uncle had given me and would pose with it in plain view in the front picture window to scare away anybody who may have been creating a noise by nosing around outside. Not the wisest thing to do, in retrospect, but I was a virtual child and thought that a show of arms might protect me when my family was away or asleep.

On this particular occasion, my mother was asleep in her bedroom while I was awake watching television. I heard two distinct bumps on the wall of the house just outside the familyroom. I was so sure that I heard the noises that I not only grabbed my rifle, but cocked it to load a round in the chamber, which primed it for a seven-shot semi-automatic operation. I walked out the garage door and around to the side of the house, thinking that either there was somebody out there or that an animal of some sort was causing the noise. I looked around the corner of the house, and didn't see anything. Then I looked up...

What I saw doesn't fit into any description of a UFO. The only way I can describe it is that it was a single swirling cloud much larger than my home, rising up into a funnel, which terminated in a brightly lit, white cloud. Inside the funnel there were both whisps of smoke and lightening, which went straight down the sides of the funnel, defying the flow of the clouds.

I was so entranced by what I saw, that I hadn't noticed until minutes later that I had dropped my rifle. I grabbed it and ran inside my home to wake up my mother, who came outside in time to see the last remnants of the swirling cloud.

I stayed awake for the remainder of the night, watching the news for any report of a strange weather phenomenon that may have explained what I saw, but no mention of it was ever given by any of the local stations.

It's been over twenty years, and the wonder of that object has never left me. I've told very few people about it, since most people refuse to believe in anything unless they see it with their own eyes. I'm writing this now in the hopes that perhaps somebody has seen something similar and can help me understand what it was. In all the years since the event, I've never heard anything similar, weather-phenomenon or otherwise.

I don't know if this constitutes an actual sighting, but it was the single most impressive sight that I've ever witnessed. The beauty of it defies description, but I've done my best to give an accurate perception of what I saw that evening.



NUFORC Note:

Date is approximate. PD


Posted 2002-08-28

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