NUFORC Sighting 103029

Occurred: 2013-10-06 21:00 Local
Reported: 2013-10-07 10:58 Pacific
Duration: 3 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Steamboat Springs, CO, USA

Shape: Rectangle
Characteristics: Lights on object, Emitted other objects

Green and red craft that dropped a smaller white light

On Sunday evening, Oct. 6 at 9:00pm, my daughter and I were traveling west on Highway 40 over Rabbit Ears Pass on my way home to Steamboat Springs area from Denver. I had just rounded a corner into a straight-away near Buffalo Park Trail Road (there is a small dirt parking lot there that was empty) when I noticed two white lights straight ahead in the distance that I initially thought were Venus and another dimmer star to the lower left. All of a sudden the lower white light began to descend and disappeared behind a stand of tall pine trees. It had an erratic path of descent and seemed to wave back and forth rather than just fall straight down.

Just as the smaller white light disappeared, I saw the larger light that I thought was Venus begin to grow as it approached rather quickly. At this point I told my daughter to look up and she immediately saw the object as it sped towards us. The growing round white light developed a red border that transitioned in to a solid red red light. As the object approached, I noticed that there was also a blinking light behind it but am not sure if this blinking light was white or red. A very short bright green line had also appeared just below and to the immediate left of the solid red light. The object then slowed and swerved to the right (north) towards our truck. When the object was positioned just to the left in front of us, it dropped in elevation and began to slowly pass overhead.

As the object slowly moved above us, we could see that the short green line was actually a long flat bright rectangular strip. From the new overhead perspective, this strip extended just a bit in front of the solid red light and stretched quite a bit behind it. My daughter and I both remarked about how crisp and clear the green box angles were and how there was no glow given how bright the green light was. I have previously worked with low powered lasers (<100mW), and would say the green color was exactly at 532nm. There seemed to be some glow from the red light and flashing light in the rear, but we were unable to see any reflections on a craft body or wing/propeller parts--all we could see were the lights. Not sure if there was a sound.

Initially I was unsure of the object's size. As the object was flying towards us, I thought it might be something small like a drone or RC airplane/helicopter because it arrived so fast and its flight path had such quick but smooth directional changes. However, once it was above us, the object slowed considerably--almost to a hover, and we were able to see it clearly before passing underneath. I was traveling between 70-65 mph, so anything small should have zipped right over us. Once the object passed out of view above our windshield, we were unable to see it again out the back window or rearview mirrors. My daughter did not want to stop and get a better look.

I would love to know what your group might think this was, because I have never seen a solid object emit such a bright green light

Posted 2013-10-14

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