NUFORC Sighting 135745

Occurred: 2017-08-13 00:30 Local
Reported: 2017-08-16 17:22 Pacific
Duration: 15 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Rosston, IN, USA

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Lights on object

Over the course of 15 seconds a shape appeared from nothing, became bright, and then dimmed to invisibility.

I'm a 59-year old male pharmaceutical scientist, living just north of Indianapolis, Indiana. My daughter is 20 years old and is a student at Ball State University, living at home this summer.

On Saturday August 12 we drove about 10 miles north of our house to get away away from city lights and watch the Perseid meteor shower. We ended up in Rosston, on East 100 North about a mile east of US 421. It's a gravel road. We arrived about 10:30 pm and set up chairs on the south side of the road, facing north.

Over the next 2 hours we saw about 2 dozen shooting stars. At about 12:30 am (Sunday, August 13) I noticed a faint point of light to the north of us, about 60 degrees up from the northern horizon, traveling slowly south. It was white and didn't blink. I was watching it trying to think of what it might be when my daughter pointed it out to me, so she'd noticed it independently. After watching it for another 20-30 seconds, a strange thing happened. An image began to appear over it. It went from invisible to brightly lit over the course of about 5 seconds, was at full brightness for about 5 seconds, and then faded back to invisibility over the course of about 5 seconds. When I could no longer see the image, I could still see the faint dot which continued to travel slowly south.

The image that appeared was shaped like a traditional 4-sided kite, but with the top and bottom truncated. I could clearly see the left and right borders, but couldn't see a border on the top or bottom. The left and right borders were brightly lit with white light along their edges, and the area between the borders was illuminated with white light, but not as brightly. The light filling the area of the shape stayed within the area, it didn't appear to bleed beyond its imputed borders on the top or bottom. The left and right sides were mirror images of each other, making this symmetrical and giving me the impression of an orderly structure to the object. If you hold your hand out to arm's length and put your thumb and forefinger about half and inch apart, that's how big the image looked to me.

My daughter saw it a little differently. She also saw the object appear and get brighter, stay at maximum brightness, and then fade, and for the same length of time. However, she didn't see the structure I did, which surprised me because I saw it clearly. In addition, after the object was no longer visible and I'd just lost track of the faint white dot that started this story, she suddenly got agitated and started describing to me what she was seeing. As she describes it, about 30 seconds after the lighted object had faded to nothingness and she was watching the faint white light, she saw a second dot of light suddenly appear next to it, and then saw 2 more dots suddenly appear above the first 2. They then started undulating up and down, the upper row and lower row moving toward each other and then away from each other, but along a path that she described as part of an arc. The movement wasn't vertical, it was angled. She saw this for 15-20 seconds, and then they disa! ppeared. As it was happening she was pointing to where she was looking as she described it, but I couldn't see it.

We left just after that, mainly because this incident had scared her and she wanted to get out of there.

Posted 2017-08-17