NUFORC Sighting 142165

Occurred: 2018-07-09 04:15 Local
Reported: 2018-07-09 08:20 Pacific
Duration: 45 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Flatwoods, WV, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Changed Colo

Observed Start-shaped object over Flatwoods, WV

Flatwoods, West Virginia. At approximately 4:15 am this morning, I happened to be looking out my bedroom window admiring the clarity of the early morning sky. No clouds in sight, so visibility was crystal clear. Because the sky was unusually clear, I was looking to see if I could locate the brightest star that was showing. One star caught my eye as it was a somewhat brighter than the surrounding stars. It was early morning and as such, my eyes weren’t focusing just then. I thought at first that this star was simply twinkling hints of blue and red mixed in with white.

After a few minutes of mindlessly watching this star, I start to notice what I thought was movement. At first, I thought it was just my imagination, but I couldn’t take my eyes off from it. I reached for my glasses and once I had them on I could see that indeed this star was moving ever so slightly.

I understand that the atmosphere can make stars appear to shimmer, so I didn’t become excited. After approximately 10 minutes of my continual star gazing, I noticed that this same star was beginning to move about more. The best way I can describe its movement is comparing it to a gnat flying about. This was not flying like an airplane and I considered that perhaps it was a helicopter, however I quickly ruled this out because there is no way a helicopter could make those kinds of maneuvers without crashing to the ground.

I woke my wife up and asked her to confirm what I was seeing, and she observed this object as well. I decided to step outside to see if there was any sound, but I didn’t hear anything unusual. I took this opportunity to take in more of the sky to see if there were any more of the objects around. There were no others in my area of sight. We live in the mountains and there are lots of trees.

I was looking NNE and I will approximate the object was at about 30 – 35 degrees above the horizon. I really have no accurate way of estimating the altitude. I was watching the object through a large gap between trees in my yard and continued to do so until the object was no longer in line of sight. This entire time was approximately 45 minutes. I concluded that the object was basically stationary over one area of the sky and due to the rotation of the earth, my view of the object became obstructed by the trees.

I am very interested to see if there are any other reports about this incident.

Posted 2018-07-13