NUFORC Sighting 79010

Occurred: 2010-11-21 16:55 Local
Reported: 2010-11-21 20:18 Pacific
Duration: 6-7 minutes
No of observers: 3

Location: Meridian (west of), MS, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Changed Colo

Bright light during the late afternoon initially stationary, moves, then disappears, reappears a few minutes later.

First Sighting I was driving my 18 wheeler through Mississippi today, I was about 25 miles west of Meridian heading West on interstate 20, the sun was going down and had just dipped below the horizon, so it was still pretty much daylight. The sky was clear with just a few small wispy clouds. Looking through my windshield I noticed a bright light in the sky in front but slightly to the left, I pointed it out to my 12 year old son who was sitting in the passenger seat, saying to him “look at that star” and that it seemed unusual to see a star in daylight, not knowing too much about astronomy , I added that it was perhaps Venus which is why we can see it because I couldn’t see any other stars as I looked around the rest of the sky. As we looked at what by now I was convinced was Venus, a small wispy cloud moved across but the light was not obscured by the cloud, the cloud passed and the bright light was again in a cloudless part of the sky, a few seconds later I remarked to my son that the br! ight light appeared to be moving a little more to the left and also appeared to growing slightly dimmer, then it became quite obvious it was moving as it picked up speed very quickly moving upwards at a roughly 45 degree angle, it completely disappeared within a few seconds over the south western sky. All in all we had watched this thing for about 5-6 minutes, I noted the time that it disappeared, it was 4.55 pm central time.

Second Sighting My wife was also traveling in the truck but was in the sleeper listening to an audio book, I had considered disturbing her to look at the bright light when I first noticed it, but thinking I would be disturbing her for something as unremarkable as an ‘ early’ star or Venus I didn’t bother, it was only when my son and I realized that this thing was moving off at a high rate of speed that I finally called her, just too late for her see anything, in fact when I told her what we had just seen, I thought she might think we were imagining or exaggerating it. For approximately the next 10 minutes my Son and I discussed what we had seen with my wife, telling her several times that I had wished I had disturbed her so she could have seen it too. Then to my astonishment the light suddenly appeared again, this time all three of us watched it, but it only stayed stationary for about a minute, then started moving again, except this time it moved in the opposite direction ( south west to! south east) and in less than 10 seconds faded out of sight completely, it was almost as if someone turned out the light with a ‘dimmer’ switch! The only difference this time was that it didn’t look exactly the same kind of light a star at night has, this time it had a reddish hue to it, we think that this time because of the change in direction it may have been reflecting the sun, despite the sun being quite a way below the horizon by now.

I ought to add that I’m sure the object was very high in the sky, I don’t believe it was a plane because all the planes were leaving long contrails. Also, planes don’t really move that way. No flashing airplane lights either.

Posted 2011-01-05