NUFORC Sighting 54547

Occurred: 1977-08-15 03:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2007-01-06 22:52 Pacific
Duration: 45-120 min
No of observers: 2

Location: Plymouth, IN, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Electrical or magnetic effects

Very bright light; the light seemed maganetically attached to our plane; followed us on the ground.

My husband, who was an IFR pilot, and myself owned our own airplane; at this particular time it was a Cessena 175. We had spent many hours in our planes and on this particular occasion we were getting ready to go to Colorado; my husband wanted to see if we would need oxygen at (not certain of the exact altitude) 12-13 thousand feet. (I have his log book at our home in Indiana and I'm at our home in Florida as I write this; this will give the exact date and possibly the altitude)

We drove our ElCamino from South Bend to Plymouth, where our plane was hangered, about 2:00 am, did our pre-flight noticing nothing out of the ordinary. He needed night flying and also time "under the hood" for his IFR rating; so he decided to kill a few birds at one time. (It's been so long since this happened and my husband would not allow me to talk about it while he was alive; but I'll try to get as close to what the distances are as I can remember)

He was going to do a 5 or 10 mile precision turn up to the 12 or 13 thousand mark and I was his "spotter". The 5 or 10 mile precision turn means that you keep making circles around a central point and climb so many feet per minute. My job was to keep quiet and watch for any traffic. The night was clear as a bell and there was no traffic at SBN who we had filed our flight plan with.

We started our climb and the sky was empty; no traffic any direction. About 20 minutes into the climb I noticed traffic at 1:00 o'clock. I looked up again and the same traffic was at 1:00o'clock. This happened the third time and I said to myself (because he had told me to keep completely quiet so he could concentrate); this cannot be happening because we are making a CIRCLE and the traffic is in EXACTLY the same spot.

It came a little closer from the first time I noticed it till the exercise was finished; but not much.

It only appeared as a light coming straight towards the plane.

It seemed too far away the whole time that I never feared of it hitting us.

I felt like they or someone knew exactly what I was thinking.

I felt that it was magnetically "glued" to the plane because it NEVER moved an inch.

I kept scooting around to make double certain that it wasn't a reflection of light from any place in the plane; it was not a reflection. I even put both hands up to the glass and looked at it like that.

When we finally were within 1000 feet of out goal my husband asked me to light a cigarette for him; at that time I finally said, "We have something at one o'clock".

He said, "Congratulations, it has been there since 3 thousand feet".

My husband had gotten the Bronze Star in WW2 and was never one who would become excitable; this is an important aspect in this event.

I asked him to call SBN to see if we had traffic and he wouldn't do it; finally I coaxed him into it and they replied to us that not only did we not have traffic that he hadn't seen any in our area all night.

We broke formation and headed for the airport and it came with us for two or three minutes and when we signaled for the lights to come on in the airport it changed position to dropping behind us; it had followed us down as we lost altitude.

As we were landing it kept getting closer and closer to us; as we touched down it kept very still about 300 feet from us. We pulled up to the hanger door; jumped out, even left the charts in the plane, quickly put the plane in, we did it so fast we broke the taillight from the top of the tail.

There was absolutely no noise coming from the bright light and we were close enough to have heard any noise from it.

Jumped in the El Camino and drove as fast as we could to the highway; he started to turn north towards home and I screamed "No don't go that way it's deserted; go toward town". He turned south and by the time we came into downtown Plymouth we were going almost 100 mph. He said "Where ((three words deleted)) are the police when you need them?" Trees had kept us from being able to see the "light" because they are all along on both sides of the street.

I was able to see that it was following us until we went under the trees.

I couldn't get him to go inside the police station and he wouldn't let me go in. He refused to report it to the FAA and made me promise not to talk about it. He said he didn't want anyone thinking he was nuts. He died Jan of 05.

To this day I have a spooky feeling if I go near there; and will not go at night.

NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. PD

Posted 2007-02-01