NUFORC Sighting 17713

Occurred: 1995-07-29 21:24 Local
Reported: 2001-05-21 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 00:11
No of observers: 2

Location: Alicante (Spain), , Spain

Shape: Circle

Small bright disk seen from Alicante, Spain, July 1995

Here's a "ufo" sighting from our vacation in Spain:

On the night of 29 July 1995 (date and times local) my wife and I were walking on the ocean promenade beside the Melia hotel in Alicante (38.343N , 0.480W by my Garmin 40 GPS set). At 21:24 I noticed a small, bright, diffuse disc in the sky over the ocean seaward of a point of land up the coast from us. I estimated its elevation with my hand, finding that the disc was just over the tip of my middle finger when my outstretched hand was held vertically at arm's length with the heel of
the palm placed on the sealevel horizon: roughly 18 cm at 60 cm distance, or ~.3 radian or ~17-18 degrees.

The disc was circular, quite bright and pearly white, with no trace of color that we could see. I'd estimate its total brightness as equal to Venus at its brightest; the sky was still fairly light, and no stars
were visible. The object was definitely extended rather than point-like. At a guess, it was three resolution-units across: perhaps 6 arc minutes, or a small but significant fraction of the width of the full
moon. No internal detail was noticeable, but there seemed to be some limb darkening.

Thinking that the object might be a balloon (many years ago I saw a Skyhook balloon just before sunset, and the appearance was somewhat similar), I stood against a light pole and observed its position relative to another pole. No movement was perceptible over a period of a few minutes. We then approached a Spanish family sitting on a bench on the promenade and asked if they knew what the object was. They didn't, but said that they had been watching it for a while and it hadn't seemed to move. (Nobody around seemed to be more than mildly curious about the object)

We watched for a few more minutes until approximately 21:35, during which time the object didn't move or change appearance, and then returned to our room in the Melia. I got my compass from the suitcase, went onto the balcony, and tried to locate the object. By that time, 21:42, at the approximate location of the object (as estimated from its azimuth relative to the point of land mentioned above and elevation measured by the hand-at-arms-length method) there was a bright star-like object redder, fainter, and more point-like than the object we had been watching. The magnetic bearing read off the compass (which was likely affected to some extent by the steel structure of the hotel) was due east to within a couple of degrees. My wife, who was helping me make this measurement, was doubtful that the object I was sighting on was the one seen earlier, due to its considerably different appearance.

NUFORC Note:

Witness describes self as a former technical intelligence analyst. PD

Posted 2001-08-05