NUFORC Sighting 110812

Occurred: 2014-06-28 22:30 Local
Reported: 2014-06-29 08:30 Pacific
Duration: 2 minutes
No of observers: 4

Location: Fort Erie (Canada), ON, Canada

Shape: Unknown
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object

Bright orange/yellow sphere moving like no man-made craft

My wife and I were about to go into the house at about 22:30h. A few steps ahead of me she called back me, "Honey, what's that?", fully expecting me to provide a comfortable and critical natural explanation for the large and very bright light in the sky. Now standing at the front of the house and facing North I see a very bright sphere of light that I first assume is either a very near and low-flying aircraft or a very large fireball coming straight at us.

I am an amateur astronomer and cosmology buff for over thirty years. I am critical nearly to the point of cynical, yet I find myself refusing to admit that what we saw was anything other than unfamiliar or not earthly technology.

Looking North from the Niagara River the object appeared about 5 degrees above Polaris and appeared to be getting closer as its size and brilliance increased. A very bright orange/yellow it was similar in size and somewhat in color to the street light on the road in front of our house before it stopped approaching (or increasing in size). It outshone the streetlight only seven meters away. Until that moment I was getting a little fearful that this may be a city killer asteroid coming straight at us. There was no sound and no trail behind it. It was headed straight at us or it wasn't a massive bolide at all. It appeared to slow or stop so the bolide question was answered.

I opened the door to the house and yelled for the children (ages 8 and 30) to rush outside. The object, now at its nearest, would no longer appear to be coming Southward toward us, but slip Westward at great speed, then stop, then slip on over some more, then stop. It did this about eight times before remaining stationary. The whole time it scintillated as the stars do above a moist sky. The four of us stood there with our eyes trained on it while it begin to shrink and dim in spurts as though it may have been moving away from us the way it had been moving to the West with the jerky movements. With each successive "pulse" it grew smaller and fainter. It didn't seem like it was moving away. It appeared more like it was just shrinking and fading.

I have no idea of how large or distant the object was. I'm no expert at scale. I can only relate the scale by saying the object at its most brightest and biggest was easily as large as my thumbnail with my arm outstretched in front of me. I spent some of the night and this morning looking for news of sightings over anywhere from Niagara Falls to Ottawa. I just can't seem to guess how far it was away.

The light surrounded the object. High humidity would have easily revealed beams of light from lamps as it did for every other passing aircraft that night and most nights. There were no beams, just a large, very bright scintillating light moving awkwardly through the sky.

As I told my wife before sleep, I was so excited to have witnessed the event. I didn't know what I invited my children to see. Did I call my little boy outside to witness the end of his life by an asteroid, or was this an alien craft and what were their intentions? It was all very exciting and terrifying at the same time. I have never felt like that before. Skeptics don't get much excitement.

All my life I have wanted to see a "UFO". Two weeks ago my wife and I and one of our sons observed a daytime object and actually had time to retrieve two sets of binoculars for further observation. I was unable to explain what I saw. It looked like a large building made of up compartments (cubes) or maybe like a bunch of buildings stuck together. It wasn't round anywhere. The Sun reflected brightly from only one small part at a time as it moved across the sky. The rest of it appeared a dark grey or black. Without binoculars it simply appeared to be a small ball of light as you would expect from sunlight reflected from a metallic object. It caught our attention in the first place because it was so high in the sky yet didn't appear to be moving (like all the rest of high-flying air traffic was doing). It did move large distances in quick moments somewhat like the ball of light last night. We lost track of it after each quick shot across some distance, then found it s! tationery ahead of the direction it seemed to go. We lost it for good the third time.

I told my son, "You are so fortunate to have witnessed such a thing. That could very well have been people from another world!". Wow! I never expected something like that to come out of this skeptic's mouth. My childhood dream of seeing a UFO is now fulfilled - twice in one month. Although my son (age 8) also has his own telescope and a very good knowledge of astronomy and cosmology, I don't think he entirely grasps the measure of what we witnessed together. I really don't know exactly what we saw, but I'm still sort of in a state of shock. I woke up still excited from last night's events. My wife and I can't stop remarking at how last night's viewing was the first time I did not have my cell phone with me. I could have recorded video...

Posted 2014-07-04

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