NUFORC Sighting 11726

Occurred: 1998-10-15 22:35 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2000-01-19 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 1-2 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Port Washington, WI, USA

Shape: Triangle
Characteristics: Lights on object

Craft a cross between Triangle/Chevron/Arrowhead/Diamond; clear, starry night; witnessed what I believe to be: quiet, low humming craft with 2 bright banks of lights, approximately 500-1000ft above ground, seemingly about

I did not report this experience before, because I did not think anyone except my spouse would believe me. I am a pragmatist, based in our known realities of scientifically proven facts, but what I saw was most tangibly real...even my dog stopped and looked up at this item. I decided to report this today after reading about the police in southern Illinois who gave descriptions very similar to my own. At age 47, on or about the 15th of October, 1998, (may have been 10/10-10/27), I took our Cairn Terrier outside for her last "potty break" between 10:31 and 10:37 pm. My spouse had gone to bed just minutes earlier. It was a very mild, clear, star-filled evening. As I stood looking at the beauty of the stars, facing a slight northwesterly direction, an enormous flying craft appeared--almost as if it had been 'Star Wars-like uncloaked'. I was immediately struck by it's seeming closeness to the earth, it's relative silence, and it's almost COMICAL display of two huge single-row banks of lights on either side of it's triangularish front---it looked almost exactly like the row of lights on police cars in these colors: red, clear and blue. My next thought was: "well, if this is a secret USA project, they sure want to be seen!". It was close enough for me to wonder if those inside would wave at me. As this object approached, I choose to stay and watch what would probably be a once-in-a-lifetime experience instead of getting a witness. As this seemingly slow and quiet craft approached our property, I tried to gauge it based upon a 40-50 ft. tall pine tree in the next yard. My mind was trying to move fast to get a size estimate. With it's unusual shape, it was difficult. Nor do I possess the advanced physics/mathematical skills to measure items based upon horizon/angle, etc. To me: this item was rather symmetrical, i.e., width from widest point-to-widest-point appeared to be 150-200 feet; front-to-rear, perhaps 200-250 ft, based upon it's distance from the pine tree's top and width of view it took up in my line of vision. Our city block is approximately 250 feet long, and each lot facing our street is 150 feet deep. I believe this object, if on the ground, would have just about filled the property space of one-half of our entire block--perhaps more. I remember won! dering why anything so huge would risk flying this low so near to 4 electric company smoke stacks located on the waterfront of our city. Description: first impression: a triangle. When I was directly underneath it, my next impression was: pentagon with a flair; my last impression: pentagon with enough of a flair to be considered an arrowhead. Rear of craft as it was flying SE, away from me over Lake Michigan: flat rear/slight sides to main body, just like the back end of an arrowhead. Other descriptive items: as it passed over me, I thought I detected some type of circles on the bottom of the craft; the bottom of the craft was the darkest part of my visual experience. As the craft first came toward me, I was fascinated by the banks of lights--what appeared to be rather halogenic red/clear/blue....but then I noticed that there was a beacon light on the top of the portruding "cabin". This craft DEFINITELY had a curved cabin with either windows or perhaps black reflective surfaces. However, this cabin was NOT sharp-angled like the stealth bomber type. This cabin seemed proportionate to the rest of the object, i.e., it was not a small bump in the middle of a disk. This craft was not a "thick" craft...at least it did not appear so to me from the front/bottom/rear views I had of it as it almost silently cruised toward/over/away from me. Behavior of Craft: seemingly "slow cruising"; it did a flat bank from it's more southerly direction of travel to a southeasterly direction and it did this RIGHT over my head, i.e.,our street runs perpendicular to lake michigan on a slight NE/SW angle, so when I was watching this craft go directly away from me after it passed overhead, it had to be traveling in a slight southeasterly direction over Lake Michigan (I believe a straight-line shot across Lake Michigan would have placed it in Indiana/Ohio eventually?--it did the bank directly over my head; at no time did this object exude any type of exhaust/exhaust noise--only a low humming. We experience many helicopters flying overhead here. If one takes a typical Flight-For-Life type helicopter on a scale of 1 to 10 for noise, with the helicopter's noise being a "10", then this craft, many times the helicopter's size, was barely a "1 to 2" in noise level. At one point, it felt as though I could almost reach out and touch, it! seemed so close to me. Other Characteristics: Nothing struck me as it being "out of this world wierd" except it's enormous size and quiet functioning, and two bizarre banks of "cop car gumball" lights. This object seemed to have a dull body surface in a darker color, i.e., it was not silver/white/red/blue/green/purple/orange, etc. It was, perhaps gray/brown/black.

Posted 2000-01-22