NUFORC Sighting 68826

Occurred: 2009-02-11 17:45 Local
Reported: 2009-02-20 16:58 Pacific
Duration: <2 minutes
No of observers: 0

Location: Cincinnati, OH, USA

Shape: Cylinder


Grey with slight sheen, right-circular cylinder with flat ends, aspect ratio 43, seen only in two photos.

On 2/11/09, there were storms with high straight line winds, up to 65 mph in some places, in the Cincinnati area. As the storms were moving out of my local area, I noticed some mammatous clouds, and went out to the entrance to our garage at about 5:45 pm, to take some photos of them. The garage faces a little south of due west. I was using a Nikon D80 with a zoom lens, Nikon model DX AFS Nikkor 18-135 mm 1:3.5-5.6G ED, with no filters. The clouds were coming straight towards the open garage, and there was a very light rain falling, so I was standing slightly inside the garage to minimize water drops on my lens. After taking some photos to the west, I stepped out of the garage and looked back to the east, where there was a faint rainbow, which I also photographed, along with some tall clouds to the south.

I noticed nothing unusual during the photo shoot, but when I went inside, downloaded the pictures to my computer and looked at them full-screen, the cylindrical object was evident in a picture taken facing due west. At first, I thought the object had been blown into the air by the strong winds, and only made jokes about its possibly being a UFO. I didn't remember ever having seen images of cylindrical UFOs. But after about a week, I got curious, and found numerous web sites with images of cylindrical UFOs, which is what I now believe the object in the photos was.

There was a second photo that showed probably the same object, less clearly. It was taken from the same position as the first, but facing southwest. The second photo was taken less than 2 minutes, but longer than 5 seconds after the first. The first photo was taken at 1/180 of a second, the second at 1/100 of a second. In the second image, the object appeared to be somewhat larger, but the lens was zoomed in slightly compared to the first.

I am not aware of any other potential observers of this object. I saw no objects first hand, only after displaying the photos on my computer.

I am a 65 year old, retired PhD physicist, having worked as a research physicist for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health from 1975 to 2003, and then as a US government contractor until 2006. I am active in community instrumental music groups and in amateur photography. I have never before seen a UFO, to my knowledge, certainly not an unlighted cylindrical one.

Posted 2009-03-19

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