NUFORC Sighting 34015

Occurred: 2003-12-18 18:25 Local
Reported: 2003-12-20 16:10 Pacific
Duration: 10-15 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Charlottesville, VA, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object

Spot of honey-colored light, spherical- barely 3x larger than stars-seen from car

Driving north on 29, about 10 minutes past Charlottesville. I noticed the stars were out (it was cloudy earlier) and very visible- Among them I could clearly see a spherical shape- not just a starlike point of light, maybe at most three times bigger than the stars around it- softly glowing a honey color. It was almost at the zenith, but just in front of us. It seemed to hover, but it was moving amongst the constellations, so that ruled out it being a star or planet.

After about 10 or so minutes (it felt like a very long time) during which the object had drifted off to the side (I watched it) the road became more winding and trees obscured my view.

I was wearing glasses, so my vision was 20/20. My roommate was driving, so she couldn't have seen it (looked up).

Posted 2004-01-17