NUFORC Sighting 32454

Occurred: 2003-07-15 14:00 Local
Reported: 2003-10-19 20:58 Pacific
Duration: 5 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Gurnee, IL, USA

Shape: Cylinder
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

Slow moving "rod?" in a crystal clear sky

I own a business at a local mall, and at around 2:00 in the afternoon I went outside to retrieve some inventory from my car. It was a nice day, and I casually looked up at the cloudless sky as I was at my car, and noticed a weird craft a few hundred feet in the air. I initially thought it may have been a rod. But from what I have heard, rods are extremely fast, and this thing was just slowly coasting through the sky. I could cleary see the shape, and it was cylindrical, with what appeared to be two small fins at the very end. There was absolutely no sound, and definitely a complete absence of what could be wings. It was white in color and I saw no lights. But in the daytime I probably wouldn't be able to see them anyway. I watched this object as it approached me, flew directly overhead, and gradually veered off making a slight curve until I could no longer see it. It took about five minutes from the time I initially saw this thing before it faded out of view. A plane could never move that slow. But don't get me wrong, there is no doubt in my mind that this thing was not a plane. As I stated before, there were no wings. I do not want to speculate about what it may have been, so I figured I would report it to you, and you can compare it to other reports you may have received. Also, as I walked back into the mall a few minutes after I could no longer see the object, I noticed a helicopter flying in the same general dircetion as the object I saw. I could clearly see every aspect of the helicopter, and hear the sound of its engines and rotors. It may have been unrelated, but was interesting nonetheless.

Posted 2003-10-31