Stellar Thoughts

Encounters of the Strange Kind

In my last article where I interviewed bugbait, we briefly talked about the strange sighting he had back in the early 90s. He is one of the many people I've met throughout the years with an interesting story to tell. Seeing that almost everybody who is interested in the subject of UFOs seems to have had at least one sighting, it becomes clear that most people who are researching this topic have a reason to do so. You don't get into Ufology simply because you've seen a sci-fi movie or because you've watched a UFO documentary on the television. In some instances this might be the case, but it's mostly because of a kind of sighting or encounter people have had which compelled them to take a closer look at this phenomena. Although Ufology seems to have many crazy-appearing people, it's mostly normal people who are in this field. It's just that the mainstream media often presents nutters and kooks to the public to ridicule the subject--or simply for entertainment reasons.

Here are some of the stories people have told me which I feel are quite extraordinary. In order to protect their privacy they'll be called "Witness A", "Witness B", etc. I've known these people for years and know that they're honest. It's the fact that they're so down-to-Earth which adds to their credibility, no matter how crazy their story might sound. It makes you wonder what they might have seen. An interesting detail I'd like to point out is that some of those witnesses are seen by many people (mostly the "true believers") as skeptics or debunkers.

Witness A

My husband and I had a sighting the week of 9/11. We were living in Mesa, Arizona. We were out in the backyard about 9:00pm with our three dogs. We were talking about how strange it was to have no air traffic, as it was grounded that week. We were looking up at the sky when two lights flew around the sky above us. There was no object or sounds--just the lights. They were at the altitude of helicopters rather than airplanes. They swooped around above us and were pretty close. I ran to put the dogs in the backdoor as my husband continued to watch the lights fly around the valley sky in a big circular loop. I turned back as the lights made one more loop over our heads then took off like something out of Star Trek. They disappeared into the west.

Illustration of the lights 'Witness A' saw.

We also had a sighting in July of 2001, two months before the 9/11 sighting at our new home. I joked to my husband that I was going outside to see if I could spot any UFOs. He teased me back, then we both walked outside. It was about 9:00 in the evening because we went to bed around 10:00pm. We lived in an apartment complex in Mesa, AZ. The units were two stories tall with about 8 apartments each. We were looking between the building behind us and the next building to the left, or east. The main entrance to the apartment complex was to our left. They always tied balloons to the sign to attract attention.




As we stood there, my husband pointed to the sky just left of the building behind us. I looked and saw five or six white round opaque circles moving from left to right at second-story level. I thought the balloons must have come loose, then I realized that they were perfectly round and in a straight line. They were moving at a slow steady speed with no sound whatsoever. My husband asked what it was. I ran down the walkway to an open area on the west side of the building where the lights passed but I couldn't see anything. I walked back up to my husband where he was standing in front of the apartment door. We said something like, "Well, that was strange!", and went inside. They looked like the photos of the Lubbock Lights. [1]  We couldn't see any craft--only those lights going from left to right towards Phoenix.



Witness B

When reading this report, please keep in mind that I am not one who believes they have without a doubt seen something extraterrestrial.  This particular sighting is of a craft that I found to be unusual.

The triangular craft sighting occurred two nights in a row in January of 2007, as I was driving home from work. My view of the object was through my car windows while driving through Burlington, Lexington, and Woburn in Massachusetts. The time was between 6:30 and 7pm. Both nights were slight overcast, and I remember my car windows being a bit hazy with the weather conditions.

I first spotted three white lights through the dark tree line. I got the impression they were connected to each other, as they appeared to move in unison in a way that suggested my perspective was changing in relation to a fixed arrangement of lights. As I drove further, I could see a fourth white light in the linear spread of lights. Finally, as my point of view improved, I could see a blinking red light hanging below the others. I was passing a small farm when I had the best view of the lights, which were now clearly attached to a gray metal triangular object or craft.

The sky was hazy and dark blue-gray, and through the haze the object looked a bit ghostly. It appeared to have a lot of detailed "piping" and structural details, resembling outdoor concert staging. Each tip of the triangle had a white light, with the shortest edge of the triangle having an additional white light in the center of that edge. The blinking red light was located on the central underside, closer to the rear. The red light appeared to be mounted on a hanging framework of metal piping.

Overall, the object reminded me of a Star Destroyer from Star Wars. It was impressively large, and looked to be hovering and still. It was hard to estimate the size or altitude, but I'm guessing it was around 500-1000 feet long, at an altitude of 1000-2000 feet. Both nights I had my best view of the object in the same location. Hanscom AFB is nearby in Bedford, and it seems likely the craft had something to do with that base. Shortly after my sighting, I made the image below to capture what I remember.

'Witness B' made this illustration of the object shortly after the sighting.

I was very surprised to see the craft again a second night. The following day, a coworker told me of UFO sightings reported in the local newspaper. I don't know the specifics of the newspaper article. I thought that it might be related to what I saw since my sighting was in an area where a lot of people might notice an unusual craft.

When I first saw the lights I was curious, and when I got a better view of the object, I felt a little bit of disbelief, as if maybe I was misinterpreting what I was seeing. I cranked my neck around to my left as it started to get out of my field of view, and it looked like it was just hanging there in the sky. I was a little in awe of it, because it was unusual and interesting looking. Because I've had an interest in these types of things most of my life, I wondered if it might be not of this world, or a type of secret military craft like the rumored TR-3B. It had the triangular shape, but there were differences from drawings I've seen online. The center white light on what I assumed was the back edge, is one difference. There was also a lot more surface detail.

This map shows the route 'Witness B' drove that night, showing where he/she had the best and last view of the object.

It was in the same location both nights. I don't have two distinct memories of the two nights, but I remember at the time being surprised and telling people it happened two nights in a row. The memories are probably so similar that they blended together.



Witness C

I think it was around 1980 when I saw a large dark orb hovering over a house in our neighborhood. It was already quite dark outside as I looked through the window. Nobody seemed to have been outdoors at the time. It was early in the evening, around 7 pm, so I assume it must have been in the autumn--maybe November. As I looked down the street I noticed this large round object slowly moving over a house. It was dark-gray metallic and it had tiny yellow lights on it. It was as tall as a two-story building. I immediately knew that I had just witnessed something extraordinary so I ran to the living room where my mom and dad were watching television. I told them to look out the window to see the object I had seen.

Illustration of the object 'Witness C' saw.

My parents didn't seem to be interested at all and didn't take their eyes off the tube. I pressed on and told them that the object was large and round. My father said that it was just the moon, but of course I knew it wasn't the moon since I knew what that looked like. After realizing they weren't going to check it out I went back to my room to keep watching the sphere, but it wasn't there anymore. It might have simply moved farther away and gone out of sight--maybe going behind a house (which is actually hard to imagine since it moved so slowly). If it would have just been a balloon it couldn't have moved that fast; I hadn't spent very much time trying to convince my parents--maybe thirty seconds--and it wasn't windy outside. It should have still been visible, but it was gone.


Since that time I hadn't thought much about the incident until one day a couple of years ago when I was chatting with an online buddy. Knowing that he was a hobby UFO-researcher, I mentioned that sighting. To my surprise, he showed me a report from the 50s where a large dark orb had been seen in broad daylight over a ball field where some students had just played a game. He happened to be one of the witnesses. I showed him an illustration of a dark orb that I'd found on the Internet which somewhat resembled the object I'd seen. He confirmed that what he and his friends saw back then looked quite similar. So possibly, the same object has been witnessed several decades apart in two different locations.

[1] The Lubbock Lights-case:
Lubbock Lights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/lubbock51.htm