Occurred: 2005-07-21 20:00 Local
Reported: 2005-08-09 12:51 Pacific
Duration: 10-20 secs
No of observers: 0

Location: Unknown, -, USA

Shape: Cylinder


A pale orange vertical cylinder object seen on an America West flight.

I was flying back from North Carolina to Arizona on July 21st 2005. The flight took off around 5pm EST from Raleigh Durham on America West. I think the flight number was 844. About 3 hours into the trip (I assume maybe somewhere around Texas area but I really dont know for sure) I saw an object out the window. The sun was still up and there were scattered clouds. My plane was flying arounnd 33,000 feet. This object was above a section of clouds (not in the clouds but a cloud bank formed a backgroud). So the object was definately not on the ground and if I had to guess I would say it was maybe 1/3rd the distance to the ground from us so it was flying at about 20,000 feet.

The object appeared as a cylinder shape, its surface was slighlty reflective it sort of appeared metallic but it was at an extreme range to me so I dont know for sure. The objects color was sort of a light/pale orange color or possibly light biege. The color was uniform across the object. I saw it for around 10-20 secs. The object appeared to be static. It did not move and seemed to be fixed in the sky appearing to move at exactly the same speed as all of the surrounding clouds. The other thing that was very odd was that unlike a plane that would fly in a horizontal positon the cylinder was vertical. If it was a plane it should have been moving downward at a rapid speed, if it was climbing Im not sure it could have kept that up for 10-20 secs and in either case it didnt appear to be moving at all. The distance was too great for me to descern any details like wings, designs, etc. It just looked like a very small cylinder or possibly a cigar shaped object. There were no visable ballons or anything like that above it.

Most everyone else was watching a movie on the plane with the windows closed so I doubt anyone else saw it. The pilots probably saw it. I was sitting on the left side of the plane (if one is sitting down facing foward towards the front of the plane I was on the left side).

I am a systems engineer for a major semi-conductor company and I was flying on a business trip that day. I am also an amatuer astronmer and I have spent a lot of time looking at the sky. I dont know what this thing was but I am pretty confident it was not a standard plane. It could have been something the government was doing or it could be something else.



Posted 2005-09-02

© 2023 National UFO Reporting Center. All rights reserved. Use or reproduction within any application without written consent is prohibited.