NUFORC Sighting 72804

Occurred: 2009-10-11 21:55 Local
Reported: 2009-10-11 20:56 Pacific
Duration: 3 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Madison, WI, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object

Amber orange light moving very slowly, dimming out, shooting away.

I was in my second story bedroom, when a bright light caught my eye. Our house is quite close to the local airport and is almost directly under a common flight path taken by incoming airplanes. It is therefore extremely common to observe planes with bright, white flight lights approaching from the south. For a number of reasons, however, this was different: 1. Even indoors with the windows closed, you can always hear approaching passenger planes. They are very loud, because they are very low. This object made no sound audible from inside the house.

2. The path taken by planes on their approach is completely predictable (essentially, they go over our neighbor's house to the east). This went over our neighbor's house to the west.

3. It was moving very slowly. Because it was a light in the sky, I feel it's hard to say how far up it was; it seemed like it wasn't much higher than 2 or 3 times the height of the tall, mature trees in our neighborhood. Could be wrong about the height. Regardless, it appeared to be making the progress of a car going around 5mph (if it was as close as it appeared).

4. The light was bright amberish orange, unlike the lights of the passenger jets that pass overhead ... bright white at first and then red and blue flashing lights as they get closer.

Because it looked odd, I went outside to our porch to get a better look. I found it in the sky again outside. I could still hear no sound. Again, it seemed strange because it was moving so slowly. Its path was completely straight and it moved from roughly south to north. I tried to film it with my cheap digital camera, but the camera was unable to pick up the small light. After a minute of observation, it had finally reached a point parallel with our house. Then, the light dimmed out completely. As I turned to go back inside, a speck of light shot very quickly upwards from the point where the light had dimmed.

This final observation, of sudden insanely fast movement, is what really spooked me. I've seen plenty of lights in the sky that have seemed odd, but I always felt that my impression could be a misinterpretation of something mundane. This event seemed truly weird.

Posted 2009-12-12