NUFORC Sighting 77713

Occurred: 2010-09-04 22:00 Local
Reported: 2010-09-08 18:34 Pacific
Duration: 2 minutes
No of observers: 50

Location: North Webster, IN, USA

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Lights on object

The following is a correction and addition to a report filed 3 days ago. I discovered I had the direction of travel of the craft incorrectly stated in the original report. (It was going EAST, not West.) I'm also adding the final paragraph which describes an corroboration from another location on the same night, only minutes after my sighting.

On Saturday nights, I sing onboard the historic Dixie, Indiana’s, oldest paddle-wheel tour boat on Webster Lake in North Webster, Indiana. Weather permitting, I perform on the top deck of the boat which is uncovered. We have a clear, unobstructed view up there of the night sky.

On 09-14-10 ((sic. 09-04-10)), the sky was mostly clear with a few light clouds here and there. The sky was a sea of stars and there was no moon. The day had been windy, but by our 9PM departure time, it was very calm on the lake.

At about 10 PM, we were emerging from a bay in the southeast corner of the 600-acre lake and were traveling west at about 5 miles per hour on the last leg of our tour. I was just finishing a song when the captain of the boat tapped me on the shoulder and pointed into the night sky directly above the boat, calling my attention to a very strange spectacle.

An object was flying very slowly in a due east direction above and to the port (left) side of our paddleboat. It was so strange, I called the attention of the passengers to this object. There were about 15 people on the upper deck, all of whom had a perfectly clear view of the object simply by looking up, and approximately 30 more on the lower, covered deck. Most of those on the lower deck went to the port-side windows to stare up at the object.

I’m not very good at estimating heights, but this object flew above the spotty clouds at what I thought was no more than a few thousand feet. The entire object appeared about the size of a dime held at arm’s length.

The leading edge of the object was a large, very bright red, glowing circular spot. Immediately behind that was a rectangular light (about 3 times as long as the spot) which was an even brighter, orange glow which scintillated and looked very much like an open flame. All I could see were the lights, neither of which pulsated or flickered other than the flame-like action of the orange "body." We could see no wings or visible superstructure. The craft was shaped like a fat, red-and-orange exclamation point travelling point-first. It left no smoke or vapor trail.

Some of the passengers said they thought it was a helicopter, a hang-glider, or an ultralight, so the captain stopped the boat and turned off the paddlewheel completely. We could hear no sound of any kind from the object even though it was almost directly overhead.

We had the object in sight for at least a minute, but no longer than 2 minutes. It continued due east, never changing its direction or rate of speed until it was out of sight of us (a mile or so east of the lake.) I finished my show, and had a talk with the captain. He said when he first saw it from the wheelhouse, he thought it was a missile, though he could not explain the large red, leading-edge light. Neither the captain nor I reported the incident. I don’t know if any of the passengers did.

Four days later, I started to tell this story to some people at a retirement home where I was performing and immediately one of the employees came out of her office and told me that her son saw the same object fly over the airport (and air force training base) in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, about 40 miles due east. I asked her to describe what he saw and his description was identical to mine.

Posted 2010-11-21

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