NUFORC Sighting 95206

Occurred: 2012-12-12 20:15 Local
Reported: 2012-12-13 07:28 Pacific
Duration: 15 to 20 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Laurelville, OH, USA

Shape: Unknown

Star like object traveling west to east at high speed suddenly makes an abrupt U-turn then turns north & vanishes.

Unusual Sighting: I’m reporting an unusual and unexplainable event that I witnessed the evening of December 12th, 2012. I went outside with my 2 dogs at approximately 8:15 to 8:20PM. I always enjoy looking at the early morning and nighttime sky. I live about 45 miles southeast of Columbus Ohio in the middle of nowhere, so there is very little light pollution from the city lights to ruin my beautiful view of the stars. It had rained for several days prior to this day so the cloud cover up until now had been constant.

I walked down the few steps from my deck on to the sidewalk. The dogs were out in the yard somewhere in the darkness doing what dogs do. I looked up and there was the beautiful star lit sky that I had missed for several days. I was looking up and westward, probably around 70 degrees off of the horizon, not straight up but still at a rather steep angle. As I was admiring what I had so terribly missed, I noticed that one of the ‘stars’ was moving. It was moving very quickly from a westerly direction towards the east. My first thought was that it must be the ISS (International Space Station). I know it can be viewed at certain times and saw it myself a few years ago when one of the local TV weathermen mentioned on his telecast when and where to look for it. The moving ‘star’ was just that………….about the same brightness as an average star in the nighttime sky and seemingly about the same size and distance away. It was moving very, very quickly and then I realized it couldn’t be ! the ISS because it wasn’t moving in an exact straight path but rather had a slight waver to it as it traveled. It also didn’t maintain the same constant speed but would slow down slightly and the speed back up again. I blinked my eyes a couple of times and thought to myself, "Am I really seeing what I think I’m seeing?"

I thought for a moment of running into the house to get my wife and have her see what I was seeing. But I was afraid that it may be gone by the time I was able to persuade her to see for herself. I continued to watch this peculiar ‘star’ when it suddenly made a very quick ‘U’ turn, turning to the south and then immediately back towards the west again. This ‘U’ turn took all of 2 seconds tops. I knew then it couldn’t be any kind of conventional aircraft. A jetliner has to make a prolonged swooping turn that would take many, many seconds. An asteroid or meteorite would not make any turn at all to the best of my knowledge. It was much too high to be a helicopter. I continued to watch this object as it was heading west again at a fast pace.

Suddenly, it made a 90 degree fight turn towards the north and traveled at the speed of a bullet until it was out of sight. This entire event that I witnessed was over a period of 15 to 20 seconds at the most. I continued to watch to see if ! it returned and went back outside several more times as the evening wore on but never saw it again.

There was no audible sound from the object. It had no blinking lights but rather just the same constant glow and color as the stars. I went into the house and told my wife what I had just witnessed. She looked at me as if I had three heads. I told her that I should report this to ‘somebody’………….the Sheriff, the Highway Patrol………the Columbus International Airport……but who? She Googled something on her i-Phone and came up with the National UFO Reporting Center. I called the listed phone number and left a message. I received a call back a short time later and spoke with Mr. Peter Davenport, the director. He said he was very interested in my sighting and asked me to document what I saw on their web-sight.

I am a 59 year old male. I’m a Design Supervisor for an engineering company in Columbus Ohio. We provide the design and engineering of protection and control systems for the local electric utility. I’ve been doing this work for over 40 years.

I’ve never witnessed a UFO before and quite frankly never thought I would.

Posted 2012-12-20