NUFORC Sighting 81785

Occurred: 1969-12-25 21:38 Local
Reported: 2011-06-15 14:11 Pacific
Duration: 90-120 sec
No of observers: 2

Location: Rogersville, AL, USA

Shape:
Characteristics: Lights on object, Left a trail

single laser-like red light traced numerous straight-line and angular 'waypoints' in Christmas night sky

On the crisp, cold Christmaas night of December 25, 1969, I was a 12 year old boy who had received my first substantial telescope as my main Christmas present, still pretextually delivered down my chimney by Santa Claus himself. I was in the back yard of our home in Rogersville, Tennessee, with my father, an ex-Marine Corps fighter pilot Captain and dive bomber who served 4 1/2 years in WWII in the Pacific theatre, surviving the Battle of Midway. Dad had become an attorney after the War and still was always curious about, and knew alot about the stars and constellations. He was helping me get used to focusing the telescope and learning about some of the major stars and biggest consellations.

At approximately 9:30 pm or so, as my father was peering through the telescope searching for Cygnus, he suddenly snapped away from the telescope and stood straight up rigid. He was nornmally a very reserved, almost stoic man of unflappable nature, but he scared me when he raised his voice and started pointing at the sky, telling me to "Look!*** Look!*** What in the world is that??!!"

He was wearing his old set of "Stellar" binoculars around his neck and raised them hurriedly to get a closer visual on what I could plainly see with my naked eye was an intense red point of light that moved across the entire sky in a zip-flash, stopped momentarily, zip-flashed away in a another straight line direction to a different point on the opposite end of the sky, remain there a moment and then zipped off straight to yet another opposing several points in the sky. It finally left the last position we saw it stop at for a second and then zipped off and vanished. The light was relatively tiny, but shown as brightly in that star-filled Christmas night as a red laser pointer on a black chalkboard in an unlit classroom.

In modern-techno hindsight, the pattern the light followed would suggest it was intentionally, purposefully and confidently moving with deliberation to predetermined and precise points in the sky while mapping and recording waypoints in what one could reasonably assume was some form of GPS system.

My father had never shown me animated and unrestrained excitement/concern over an event like that before, as he did that Christmas night. In fact, he was so impressed with what we had seen that he felt the duty as a former Marine Pilot to pick up the phone and call directly to the Pentagon in Washington, DC that Christmas night to report, describe, time and date the event. I remember he had to go through several different people until he got to someone who would take the information, and I know this personally because I sat right beside him and overheard him as he spoke to whoever was on the other line, whose voice(s) I could also faintly hear through the receiver.

Again, I remember it so vividly also because it was the first time in my life I ever had heard my father identify himself as "former Marine Corps Captain******* with the *****Unit, Naval Fleet**** Pacific Command" and proceeded to give them his specific official military number he still repeated from memory. That! fact alone impressed me as much as anything. Likewise, when he hung up, Dad said he was glad he called, but had been told that apparently a number of other people had been calling and reporting the same thing, although he had been assured by the Pentagon Official that if they ever determined what it was, that "they would certainly inform him {Captain****]of their findings." That call or following letter was never made or sent, as one would now expect.

I've always wondered throughout my life if a FOIA request would ever produce official records of that memorable sighting and subsequent phone call to the Pentagon by my now long-dead Marine Corps dive bomber Dad (along with all the other callers, too.) The realist in me says that if those records even existed, it would take a literal Act of Congress to get them produced and released, if even then.

NUFORC Note:

We have spoken via telephone with the source of this report, and we consider him to be an exceptionally reliable, and capable, witness. He submitted another report for a sighting of peculiar orange lights off the east coast of Pawleys Island, SC, an event witnessed on June 08, 2011. PD

Posted 2011-06-20