NUFORC Sighting 38968

Occurred: 2004-07-04 16:45 Local
Reported: 2004-08-30 10:49 Pacific
Duration: 10-15 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Charlotte, NC, USA

Shape: Chevron
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

A near miss?

At 16:45 hours, I was sitting by the pool at the Autumn Park Apartments in Charlotte, NC, watching a De Havilland Dash 8 banking on a final approach to the Charlotte Douglas Airport, I observed a chevron shaped craft that looked at my vantage point to almost collide with the Dash 8. It seemed to come out of nowhere. It flew into my field of vision so quickly that it took me a second to focus on it. At first I thought the black chevron was a turkey vulture, but soon realized that it was flying too fast and dead straight, SW to NE. We were facing NE. My wife has a compass on her key chain. The object was flying with a purpose. It made no noise. It took my wife awhile to see the object and by that time it was a black dot in the sky, heading in to the horizon. She thought it had to be a military or business jet because of the speed and the manner it was flying, but what I saw was too small and not shaped like any aircraft I know of and I can identify any type plane flying. The Dash 8 was about an inch long in the sky with my hand outstretched and my fingers apart. The object was about 1/8 to a ¼ inch. It never deviated from its flight path and it seemed to me that it passed very close to the Dash 8. The sky was partly cloudy with two different cloud decks. The object and the airliner were both below the lowest cloud deck. I do not know the altitude the planes fly at that point from the airport. The distance is 12.5 miles due SW. The turbo props fly at a lower altitude than the jets.

Posted 2004-09-01