NUFORC Sighting 68021

Occurred: 2009-01-10 18:10 Local
Reported: 2009-01-14 12:14 Pacific
Duration: several minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Bountiful, UT, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object

Falling star like light object making erratic maneuvers

On Saturday, January 10th 2009 at approximately 6:10pm in the early dark evening, I witnessed the following account.

About a mile north before the city of Bountiful, Utah traveling south on I-15, I saw above me through the front windshield a bright white/yellow falling star traveling north to south my same direction. The “star” traveled quickly across the sky then “stopped in mid-air” over what appeared to be the ensign peak area between Bountiful and SLC. This startled me and I said, “What the heck is that?”. No falling star here as the light then moved back north east over North Salt Lake and made a slow wide circling pattern as if it were going to land. At this point my wife said, “Maybe it’s a helicopter going to land”. The light then traveled west quickly across the interstate and suddenly maneuvered straight up for about 300-500 feet over I-215 just south of the Legacy interchange. After that it traveled south towards the 7th north exit in west SLC desending at a high rate and disappeared from our site.

I am a private pilot and aware of natural speeds and maneuvers a “normal” plane or helicopter would make, but this to me seemed to fast and erratic in behavior. My wife thought she could see blinking lights around the main light. I could not see position lights only the white/yellow light it emitted from all angles. Besides, this is controlled airspace, would Salt Lake Center allow this kind of evasive maneuvering? I was curious to hear if anyone else saw what we witnessed so I called an FAA flight briefer and he gave me the number to this reporting site.



Posted 2009-03-19

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