Date:
December 26, 2003
Location: Huntington, Indiana, United States
"The
object, seen from just north of the city Police Station,
came out of the northwest to the steeple of a near by
Catholic Church, then shot straight back north. It didn't
make any noise, and it remained in their sight for less
than a minute. But it was big described as the size of
a hot air balloon or a backyard trampoline and low enough
that one officer thought it was going to get hung up on
the steeple of the church."
Hypothetical
recreation of sighting.
Photo
of newspaper article on incident.
Source:
MUFON of Indiana
An
off-duty Huntington officer was warming up his car when
he saw it first. He radioed for an extra set of eyes;
he got two. Two fellow officers looked skyward and saw
it, too. All three are Huntington law officers, guys who
have seen just about everything. But this time, they didn't
know what they were seeing. They're hoping someone else
might have been looking toward the sky shortly after 2:30
p.m. Friday, Dec. 26, and can at least compare notes,
if not provide an explanation. The object, seen from just
north of the city Police Station, came out of the northwest
to the steeple of a near-by Catholic Church, then shot
straight back north. It didn't make any noise, and it
remained in their sight for less than a minute. But it
was big, described as the size of a hot air balloon or
a backyard trampoline and low enough that one officer
thought it was going to get hung up on the steeple of
the church.
Normally,
such an object passing over the city would have lit up
emergency lines. But this one didn't. No one called 911;
no one called city or county dispatch; and no one called
the State Police. The three officers may have been the
only ones to see it. And for a few days, they didn't say
anything about it. "We thought people would think
we were crazy," one said. But now, curiosity
has the best of them. Did anyone else see it? And what
was it?
The
officer making the original sighting had finished his
shift at 2:30 p.m. the day after Christmas and was warming
up his car, parked across police station. He was sitting
in the car, facing north. "It came from a long
ways off," he said, describing the sighting a
week later. "First, it looked like a parachute
that you can steer, black and curved, but there was nobody
in it. It started rolling, a slow roll, and turned upside
down. Then it looked like a giant set of bird wings. It
did more rolls, and turned into an oblong circle that
was orange. It wasn't any kind of flying machine that
I can think of, and it's not like a '50s flying saucer.
It was that big, but it didn't have a hump in the middle."
The
second officer who answered the call said his first impression
was that it was "a tire" in the sky, but that
made no sense. The first officer said the object changed
shape three or four times. It moved in a straight line,
tumbling as it moved, and made no noise.
The
third officer to verify the sighting had just walked out
the stations backdoor, heard the radio traffic and looked
up. "It was so big, within no time at all I spotted
it," he said. "When I first saw it, it
was going in a flat plane, hovering, moving slowly right
toward the church. It would glide, rotate the wide way
around, and stay at one level, then it stopped, began
moving in a circular motion, and turned bright orange.
It went flat again, and hovered over the steeple".
The
officers believe the object turned orange when it reflected
the sunlight, like a compact mirror would if you twirled
it. It appeared to be moving along at treetop level, no
higher than the roof of the church. It disappeared from
the first officers view after it went behind the church
steeple, but the other two officers who had slightly different
vantage points said it went behind the steeple and moved
directly north. The second and third officers were 30
to 35 feet apart. The agreed the sighting lasted 30-45
seconds.
Other
statements included the object was completely circular,
dome shaped. "I can't imagine how it could possibly
be anything I could relate to. The object would stop and
then spin slowly, a maneuver no known aircraft can accomplish.
I was never really afraid, just in total amazement."
The
pastor of the Catholic Church, said he didn't see anything
unusual that afternoon, and hasn't received any phone
calls from anyone who did. "That's the first I've
heard of it," he said Friday.
Managers
at the Huntington Municipal Airport and Fort Wayne's Smith
Field said there were no records of any out-of-the-ordinary
craft making either a takeoff or landings.
Investigator:
Roger Sugden ASD-North/CI
Thanks to Huntington Herald Press
Investigators
Comments: The description of the object's movement is
not unreported in the annals of UFO sightings. It's pretty
common that such an reported object comes over, stops
and hovers. This is not the first time a tumbling motion
has been reported, and then it moves off. The size and
movement of the object have eliminated most common possibilities.
Investigation still in process.
Source:
http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case483.htm