NUFORC Sighting 126266

Occurred: 1989-06-30 19:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2016-03-08 13:52 Pacific
Duration: multi
No of observers: 2

Location: Bloomington, IL, USA

Shape: Unknown
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aircraft nearby

In 1989, I was 14 years old and lived in Bloomington, IL, at that time with a population of around 60k people. I lived in a regular neighborhood, not in a rural area. My best friend and I were relatively interested in UFO's as he had noticed a few strange occurrences in the skies over his home, which was about 1 1/2 from mine. Sadly, he passed away in 2015.

His memories of what he had seen stoked my interest as well, so I began to spend the evening hours outside as much as possible, to have a look. I don't recall snow on the ground, but I can't say that it was all that warm, either.

One night, my sister was also outside (1 year younger) with me, while I looked at the stars. I don't know which stars I would have thought they were at the time, but I noticed them because they seemed quite a bit brighter than the others. They were not "close" to us at all, as far as I could tell, just "bright stars".

Well, while I was looking and pointing to them, each star made a half-arc, for lack of a better term, until they were level with each other, then sped away from each other in opposite directions across the sky. I was excited to say the least, and ran inside to tell my parents.

In the ensuing week or two, while I was still spending a lot of time outside, I watched an airforce jet fly wildly all over my part of the city...as if chasing something (at that time, I believe the only base of any size in Illinois was Chanute), and this was also confirmed by my friend, who had watched the jet from his home. A few nights later, I heard a deep rumble ! that seemed to take its time getting to us...I figured it was a helicopter. By the time I went into the front yard, the house was shaking, and a dozen military helicopters, in formation, passed over my house...really almost exactly over my house, heading in the direction of my friend's neighborhood, roughly.

I think this was really the lead-up to what eventually occurred a few nights later. I hadn't quite given up on "watching" when I could. On this night, it was dark already, as it was during the other activity. I was sitting on the front porch steps, and could hear what I can only compare to a distressed, grinding engine, not something I would think was in good working order. I didn't think too much of it until the sound got louder and stranger. I walked down the front sidewalk and saw, through some trees, "red lights" that seemed to be in the same location the noise was. The strange thing (as if this isn't strange enough) is how slowly it was moving. I had time to run in the front door, grab my father, and run to the back door. As we did so, it moved just off the top of a tall tree in our back yard. It had red lights around the perimeter, and I don't recall that they were blinking, I believe they were solid. The deep engine/grinding continued. As it passed! over head, we could not make out any shape whatsoever...what ever it was, it was just black. No outlines, no reflections, nothing. If I had to guess a size after all of these years, I would say 30 or 40 feet in diameter. Strangely, I don't really recall the lights as being part of a "circular" object either. They seemed to be irregular.

While my father (a Marine) shouted for my mother (a Marine), I watched is travel slowly in the same direction, which took it deeper into neighborhoods adjacent to mine. I would have a hard time believing we were the only ones to see it.

I will make an observation though. I've given this a lot of thought since this happened. It almost seems as though one is looking in a direction, or at a group of stars, or in the right place at the right time, more than coincidentally. It just seems like a stretch to look at some random cluster of stars on a random night, and have what followed, follow. I wonder if you have had similar observations.






NUFORC Note:

Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD


Posted 2016-03-11

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