NUFORC Sighting 70504

Occurred: 2009-06-14 23:35 Local
Reported: 2009-06-14 14:41 Pacific
Duration: 45 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Woodbury, MN, USA

Shape: Circle
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object

nightime, fuzzy circle (a bit brighter than a nightime cloud) with an intermittently flashing amber light beneath, moving quickly NNW.

The event occurred as I was on the north side of my home just gazing at the night sky directly to the east of my location. There were a few visible clouds in that direction but I would not be able to tell how high they were but they were not low clouds..perhaps a couple miles or more in altitude. As I was scanning the sky, I noticed an minimally bright object maybe a bit brighter than the clouds themselves against the night sky. It was moving perhaps 2-3 times or so as fast as satellites I’ve seen but in a north-northwesterly direction. I could not tell how big or how far away it was but it seemed to go behind a cloud (as it dimmed). The cloud seemed thick enough to obscure light though but I could still see the object. It seemed to be a perfectly circular shape about the brightness of a cloud with fuzzy, out-of-focus edges. It was about the size of a pencil eraser in an outstretched hand. It moved quickly, in my estimation and then slowed a bit and changed to a more west-north-west direction and then appeared to speed up and head North-northwest again and it went out of my line of sight over some houses. I had wondered if my vision was fuzzy initially but I changed my mind about that almost right after I saw the object because directly below the fuzzy circle (at a distance of about 1-1/2 to 2 diameters of the circle) was a small, intermittently flashing amber light. It did not seem to flash regularly and if I were to guess, each flash was between 1 second to 5 seconds apart. It seemed to be the same color of amber that I have only seen once before. After 9-11, the Twin Cities skies were devoid of all aircraft, of course, but I went to look at the quiet sky a day or two afterward and remember seeing the same color of amber light flying above us in the night sky. It was a couple F-16s patrolling the airspace around us. We never see F-16s in this area of Minnesota so when I saw that deep amber color and read that F-16s were in the area, I knew it was a special military beacon.

I heard no sound from whatever I saw. My first thought was that I would describe what I saw as a fuzzy white, circular balloon with an intermittently flashing amber light beneath it. I am curious if anyone else has seen something like this.

Posted 2009-08-05