NUFORC Sighting 109322

Occurred: 2014-05-10 23:28 Local
Reported: 2014-05-10 21:31 Pacific
Duration: <1 minute
No of observers: 2

Location: Westlake, OH, USA

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

Translucent craft with intermittent orange/red light.

The incident I’m reporting occured at approximately 11:28 pm, Westlake, Ohio, May 10, 2014.

I noticed outside of my window an orange/red circular light approaching, traveling at 30 degrees NE (heading towards Lake Erie, which is about 3 miles from here) somewhat low on the horizon. It caught my eye because this is not a typical path for planes or other aircraft, plus it was relatively bright. The light had flashing that was uncharacteristic of a plane (growing bright and brighter, then dimming) and at some moments the light would go dark.

My husband and I went outside to get a better look, and suddenly the light (or craft) vanished for about 2 to 3 seconds. The light reappeared, then we noticed what I can only describe as a small ball of light “falling” off the bigger one, for about one second. This smaller light was also orange/red and left a slight trail. After this, again, NO lights at all for about one second. We lost sight of anything, then suddenly we saw what appeared to be an unlit craft. It seemed as if, in order, the light was turned off, the craft went invisible, then appeared but was a translucent/opaque whitish colored oval. It was almost directly overhead at this point, and lower than the altitude of what a plane would be, but definitely higher than the altitude at which a helicopter would travel. The shape seemed to be an oblong, oval shape that sort of tapered at the front. My husband describes it as an obscure oval. It’s hard to estimate how large it was, but if we were able to determine ! a shape, then that alone should give an idea that it was fairly big. There was absolutely NO noise associated with it, so I can say with certainty this was NOT an airplane or copter. At the altitude it was traveling, we would have heard engine noise for sure. I’m not a good judge of speed, but it seemed to be traveling somewhat faster than a commercial plane.

At this point it went over my building and I attempted track it by running outside (I’m on the third floor so this took time) but by then, whatever we saw was gone. Neither my husband nor myself have ever seen any unidentifiable aircraft before.

I am an occasional night skywatcher and I know space weather when I see it, and what we saw was not anything like meteorites or typical space weather at all.

Posted 2014-06-04