NUFORC Sighting 34328

Occurred: 2003-12-30 16:45 Local
Reported: 2004-01-06 19:36 Pacific
Duration: 15 min

Location: Alexandria, VA, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Left a trail

3 objects with a trail of smoke attached hovered together in the sky over the expressway

While on I-495 S. towards Richmond, VA, heading home from work, I sat in very slow traffic and observed what I thought was airplane smoke left behind in a very clear sky, a perfectly straight line. I was in so much traffic that I reached max. speed of approximately 5 mph every minute or so. This is when I noticed that the straight line I thought to be left in the sky by an airplane was instead attached to a light of some type moving slowly across the sky from east to west. This line of smoke remained intact with the craft. I then noticed 2 more traveling together across the sky. I believed them to be normal aircraft until they performed a strange maneuver in sync with one another. The sun was beginning to set and the line of smoke attached to the craft was becoming the color of the pink sky. The first object began to descend in a very slanted motion and the other two followed, one hanging back a bit further than the other. As the objects descended further, the slant they were on began to appear like they were taking a nosedive, then began somewhat of a hovering movement. These objects along with the smoke at their tail, which was now a very bright pink light as the sunset, appeared to stop descending. It's very difficult to explain, but somehow the trail of smoke that was attached as a tail was now above the objects, almost like the trail was a very bright light being shined out of the top of the craft, but it still resembled smoke of some kind. All 3 objects just sat there in the sky. This went on for the 15 or 20 minutes that I was stuck in traffic in that area. As I began to merge onto I-95 2 more lines of "smoke" began coming from west to east. I can not say what came of these objects, as they were out of my view as I entered I-95. However, this is the first of many observances over the past week since 12/30/03.

NUFORC Note:

We believe that the possibility of contrails would be the first item to be ruled out, before we could conclude that the objects were UFO's. PD

Posted 2004-01-17