NUFORC Sighting 42601

Occurred: 1973-10-01 21:30 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2005-02-28 22:29 Pacific
Duration: 1 1/2 hours
No of observers: 5

Location: Hixson, TN, USA

Shape: Oval
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object

Oval, brilliant lights, red glow, windows, metallic, no sound; After we lost sight of it and went to find it, it showed itself to us.

This event took place on the first Sunday in October 1973. I was a high school senior at the time. My mother had been visiting her sister that evening. My aunt's house is about a mile from the base of an area called "Big Ridge." Its a residential area.

As my mom was going to the car to leave (between 9:30 & 10 p.m.), my aunt walked out with her. They stood in her yard talking and my mom noticed bright lights coming down Big Ridge. She told my aunt to look at those funny looking lights on a car coming down the ridge. My aunt told her that couldn't be a car; there was no road in that particular spot. They agreed the lights were highly unusual so they continued to watch it.

All of a sudden the lights (or craft) shot straight up into the sky. They continued to watch as it zipped up & down the length of the ridge faster than anything they had ever seen in the sky. Its movements were quick and sharp; up, down, back, and forth. It would go so far away they could barely see it; then as fast as it disappeared it would zoom back into full view. At the time, we were hearing about lots of UFO sightings so thats the first thing they thought about - it had to be a UFO.

My mom came home (about a 10 minute drive) and told us what they saw. My sister, her son who was about five at the time, and myself got very excited and wanted to go back to my aunts house to see it. So we all piled into the car and went back over there. When we got there, some of my cousins were trying to see it through binoculars but all you could see was fuzz; it was much clearer with the naked eye. After a while it got very far away and didn't come back our way. My adventurous mother figured out which direction it had gone and said "it looks like its up around Valleybrook." Valleybrook was, at the time, one of the most exclusive subdivisions in our area. This is where it gets GOOD.............

We all jumped back in the car and headed up Hixson Pike toward Valleybrook (about five miles or so from my aunt's house). I swear to God somebody/something in that craft knew we were looking for it and knew exactly where we were going. Theres a large curve right before Valleybrook. As we came out of the curve we had full view of the subdivision on our left.

And there it was, at the back of the subdivision, moving slowly along the tree tops toward the road we were driving on. I believe that finding the craft in the exact location my mom said we were going to was no coincidence; somehow they were tapped into our thoughts, knew we were looking for them, felt maybe we were going to be receptive to them, and came down to show themselves to us.

The craft was huge and beautiful and it scared the living daylights out of us. I don't think our reaction was one they were looking for because we freaked out. If we had continued the direction we were driving and the craft had continued on the path it was on, we would have driven right under it. By that time my mom, who was driving, was frantic. She was screaming "I'm not driving under that thing" and we were screaming back at her to not drive under that thing - to do something to keep from it.

Luckily there was a second entrance to the subdivision so we turned left onto that road. The second house on the left was the only one with outside lights on so we pulled into their driveway. This put our back to the craft which was hovering at that moment over a small pond at the edge of Hixson Pike. My nephew was screaming "Oh God, Oh God, Oh God." My sister threw open the car door and had one leg out of the car; she was going to run into some stranger's house.

By the time we pulled into the driveway and i turned around in the backseat to look at it out the rear window it was gone. Totally vanished like it was never there. We have no idea which direction it went when it left; it disappeared that fast. I can't help but wonder if it would have stayed longer if we hadn't panicked. I also sometimes wonder if they still watch me and know when I'm reliving the events of that night.

WHAT THE CRAFT LOOKED LIKE: It was oval in shape, had a metallic body, small windows around it, in the center of the bottom was a cluster of the brightest, whitest, clearest, most brilliant lights I have ever seen. That was 30+ years ago and I've yet to see any white lights that have remotely compared to them. Around the entire craft was a red glow. There was no physical/visible red light (like a bulb); only a glow.

It was being driven with precision along the tree tops and made no sound. When we first spotted it at the back of the subdivision it was skimming along the tree line behind a row of houses. It moved slowly and continuous until it reached the road we were traveling on. Thats when it stopped and hovered over the pond. It never crossed Hixson Pike; it just vanished into thin air. We didn't report our sighting to anyone because we didn't know who to tell.

When we told our story to friends/acquaintances/family in the following days, we were treated like idiots and just made fun of. After seeing the ABC special last week and finally getting names of people who might be interested in our story, I decided it was time to tell it. Whether anyone believes what we saw or not is irrelevant; we know what we saw, the story hasn't changed in 30 years, and will never change. I only regret that video cameras weren't available then like they are now.

My mom is now 85 years old and her memory isn't what it used to be, but one things for sure, she still remembers that first Sunday in October 1973.

NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that date of sighting is approximate. PD

Posted 2005-04-16