NUFORC Sighting 62074

Occurred: 2008-03-06 00:00 Local
Reported: 2008-03-06 14:07 Pacific
Duration: 15 min
No of observers: 1

Location: Springfield, VA, USA

Shape: Diamond
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object

12:15 AM March 6, 2008 I was driving back home from my brother’s apartment in Alexandria, VA right around midnight when I saw this object. I was driving west on the Fairfax County Parkway into Springfield where my parents live when I noticed an unusually bright air plane about 35 degrees from the horizon in the west/north-west region of the sky. Living in Springfield I am located between two major airports; Washington International, and Dulles. Seeing many air planes in the Northern Virginia sky is extremely common, air traffic is quite busy in this area. However, at night air planes have a distinct brightness and have flashing lights on the wings to identify commercial air craft, and are not hard to determine. The craft I saw was about four to five times brighter than the other air planes in the sky and had a golden white light emitting from all sides. I did not see any blinking lights that resembled the lights on regular air planes. There were commercial airplanes flying in other parts of the sky during the sighting so I could tell that this craft appeared quite different.

Continuing my route home, I noticed that I was getting much closer to the object. It appeared to have been flying close to the Fairfax County Parkway. I also remember that I couldn’t take my eyes off it, it seemed too bright and was moving way to slow and just seemed out of place. It was approximately 5 minutes after initially spotting it that I got close enough to it that I could see that it was not a helicopter. It was also silent; I couldn’t hear any engine sounds of any kind. It seemed to have been flying over the neighborhood near Hunt Valley elementary school before I saw it slowly cross over the Fairfax County Parkway.

I drove right underneath the craft as it crossed over the road right by the Sunoco gas station located on the Gambrill road exit ramp. When I was approaching the craft just before driving directly underneath it I could tell that this object was about 250-300 feet off the ground and was moving at maybe 50-100 mph. I remember stretching my neck out of my window to get a closer look at it when it silently floated across the parkway, and over the neighborhood on the other side. While looking at the craft from underneath, it looked like a diamond shape but with an elongated front point. I could not see any wings, granted it was dark out, but I was able to see that the whole craft had a white-ish yellow glow with two yellow point lights close together that did not blink on the underside. I would estimate from the distance it looked in the air, that the size of this object was anywhere between 70 to 90 feet long and about 20 feet wide. After it crossed over the parkway, I kept turning my head back and saw it fly barely over the tree line bordering that neighborhood. I tried to keep my eye on it as I was just about home. When I turned off the parkway onto the Hooes road exit I could still see it barely above the trees, and still so bright. I lost sight of it as I turned into my neighborhood across the bridge from the fire station. I would say that I lost sight of it as it was somewhere above the Newington Forest area. This object seemed to be flying too low and too slow to be passenger airliner or single passenger plane.

Posted 2008-03-31