NUFORC Sighting 12254

Occurred: 1960-02-01 22:15 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2000-03-12 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 3 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: St. Paul, MN, USA

Shape: Cigar
Characteristics: Lights on object

A cigar-shaped UFO glided down towards the earth at a 45 degree angle, but was lost in the ground clutter.

It was February, 1960 when my friend LB and I had stopped at a local dairy store on Grand Avenue, bought our candy and chatted with the owner, and left when it closed at 10:00pm. We walked over to the vocational school next to our old grade school, and stood talking about aviation and rockets and anything interesting. There had been an F-84 parked in front of the vocational school for a few years. The school had removed the jet engine and taken it inside to be used in training jet engine mechanics. The plane remained out front as an advertisement for the school. Eventually, someone must have gotten nervous about the possibility that a kid might hurt himself on it, so it was towed away. So that's where LB and I liked to stand and talk: it was near the F-84 - or at least, where it now USED to be... It was now around 10:15pm. LB and I had been talking and trying to keep warm for about 15 minutes. The conversation felt like it was winding down, which was fine with me: it must have been around 20 degrees outside. Suddenly, while LB was saying something, I saw an unbelievable sight. It's fantastic - but I swear I saw it. A huge, cigar-shaped, wingless, engineless, noiseless lighted craft appeared from behind something - I think it was an apartment house - and quietly and swiftly glided down an imaginary slope as if it were on invisible railroad tracks. Each end was tapered and blunted - like the lit end of a fresh cigar. It was silvery in color, and had 8 to 10 round portholes with white light coming out of them. I did not see anyone or anything inside the ship. It was roughly in front of me and to my left - behind LB - and seemed very close: perhaps less than a block away. I was absolutely stunned. It was huge, it was bright, it was close, and it was moving closer. I thought it was going to land or crash. I was nearly speechless and momentarily afraid to move. My left arm shot out past LB's shoulder and I yelled, "LOOK!!!". LB has always been noted for his quick reactions, but for some unknown reason he reacted slowly on this occasion. He started to turn to his left (the wrong way), then changed his mind and turned slowly to his right (towards where I was pointing). By the time he was fully turned, the ship had disappeared behind ground clutter - houses, trees, bushes, etc. I yelled, "It should reappear over there!", pointing and running towards where I thought it might reappear. But it never emerged. It was apparently gone forever. While I was trembling and out of breath, LB was calm, collected, and slightly puzzled and bemused. Did LB - the world's greatest skeptic - believe me? Certainly not. He didn't think I was lying - he knew I wouldn't lie to him, but he thought that perhaps I'd seen an optical illusion caused by the newly installed mercury street light, a hundred or more feet away. But, as to practicality, I've seen billions and billions of mercury street lights, yard lights and playground lights, and not once have I thought I saw a silvery, cigar-shaped UFO come gliding out of the night in their vicinity - EXCEPT for that one time. Science, to be science, must be repeatable. LB's theory is not repeatable, nor can it be science. I saw what I saw - so far, once and only once in my lifetime.

Posted 2000-03-16