Occurred: 2005-07-21 23:00 Local
Reported: 2005-08-24 07:40 Pacific
Duration: approx. 20 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Columbus, OH, USA

Shape: Disk
Characteristics: Lights on object

Unidentified solo object over Columbus

My son and I had just pulled in my driveway after working late on a network wiring job. It was a full moon and there was a large cloud formation just blocking the moon, but the upper side of the cloud formation was illuminated by the moon. It was a great image and we got out and my son started photographing the cloud formation with his camera phone. The cloud formation resembled a developing thunderhead.

I'm a fairly avid sky watcher and I noticed an object moving from left to right across our line of sight as my son was photographing the cloud formation. The object was illuminated an unusual amber across it's length and there were no blinking lights as a plane or helicopter would have, and the longer I watched it the more obvious it became that it was, in fact, unidentifiable. There were no wings on the object. It was travelling a path not normally taken by local air traffic at the altitude it was at. I wish I could give an altitude, but I'm not well versed in that. It was at an altitude I normally see the business class of Lear jets travelling at as they leave the airport on the east side of Columbus. However, this object was flying a straight horizontal path with no deviation in altitude during the time I observed it. There was commercial aircraft visible in the region higher up, but nothing close to this object.

I commented, "That's not a plane." My son replied, "What is that?" He then took a picture of it and commented how weird it was.

Some of what appears as a faint outline of a series of trees in the background at left is, in fact, the clouds we were looking at. The object was in the foreground of the cloud formation we were initially looking at. The object is just about to move out of our view to the right. The light in the foreground is over my garage. There is a Magnolia tree visible and the living space is to the right of the garage.

My son's laptop had to go in for service, and it took awhile to get this photo back from him. I document our hours so I'm positive of the date. The time is accurate to +/- 15 minutes.

Strange, the object appears sightly different than what I visually observed, and looks closer than I recall. It was better lit visually I also recall. It's entire side circumference was a dull amber glow, with a distinct dark border on top and bottom when I first observed it.

The trajectory was roughly east to west. There was no sound evident.

I'll foward the image exactly as I have received it from my son. Nothing has been done to alter the image. The camera takes very good images, but a little blurring is evident in the foreground, which may have also affected the clarity of the object. itself.



Posted 2005-09-02

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