When you see something unusual in the sky, it captures your attention like nothing else. It is at once exciting, scary, exhilarating, dreadful, and awe-inspiring. No matter what you're doing at the time, you focus all your attention on the thing in the sky. You point to it, chase it, shout at others to look at it, and, if you're lucky, fumble for a camera to take a picture of it. You keep asking those around you, "Is it real? Am I really seeing this? Do you see it?" You list logical things it could be: an airplane, a weather balloon, an optical illusion, a military aircraft, a cloud, a reflection, a glare. You frantically snap picture after picture, hoping that just one will be clear enough to show what you are seeing.
As conditions deteriorate--the light or weather changes, the thing in the sky disappears--you are left with a searing memory of something that you still aren't quite sure really took place. You strain to pinpoint details you normally take for granted--what time is it, what day is it, where am I?
And then, if you're REALLY lucky, you remember that there is a way to report such things, and you find the number, and you call the number, and the person on the other end of the line doesn't think you're a crackpot, but calmly and expertly tells you to collect written reports from everyone in your party who witnessed the thing in the sky and send them to the reporting agency.
Then the person on the other end of the line beseeches you to alert the media because reports of this same phenomenon have been coming in from other parts of the country. You promptly seek out your local newspaper and television news outlets, which, you quickly discover, have all been taken over by giant media conglomerates that provide no way to reach a live reporter to report news items of local interest, only a "Contact Us" link on their websites with a dropdown list of general questions or comments from which to choose, none of which includes "I think I saw a FREAKING UFO!"
So you go to your blog, which has an international audience, tell your story, and hope that those who read it also won't think you're a crackpot.
Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2013
7:30 p.m. ET
My husband, son and I were traveling south in our car on Keystone Avenue in Indianapolis, Indiana. The sky was perfectly clear and very light, though the sun was setting. We turned west onto 38th Street, a six-lane-wide street with a clear view of the sky nearly down to the horizon.
As soon as we were on 38th Street, we saw four lights in the western sky in front of us. Each light was round, orange, and approximately four to five times the size of Venus, which was also visible in the western sky. Their position in the sky appeared to be approximately 15 to 20 degrees to the right of Venus. The lights were arranged in a straight vertical line, like a column. The lights were the same distance from each other, but as we continued to watch them, the two bottom lights moved laterally to the left away from the two upper lights while still holding their position relative to each other, one on top of the other. Then the two bottom lights moved back beneath the top lights, still keeping the same distance between each other. Then the bottom lights seemed to sink toward the horizon while the top lights seemed to move upwards in the opposite direction. We continued to drive west on 38th Street while my son and I took photos with our phone cameras. Suddenly, all four lights seemed to flatten out, changing in an instant from round, star-like orbs to flat, horizontal streaks. This happened so quickly that there was no discernible process of change--the forms just appeared different, though the new shapes were the same orangish color and retained their positions relative to each other. We drove off 38th Street into the 100 Acre Arts Park of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and stopped the car in an effort to see better, but by then the sky had darkened and the flat, horizontal streaks faded rapidly.
As we scanned the sky for the shapes, we then saw two streaks of white moving rapidly across the sky in the same path as the shapes. As the white streaks continued moving, we saw that they were contrails from airplanes. We could see the dark forms and the blinking red and white lights of the planes as they flew overhead.
I Googled "UFO reporting" on my phone and found the number for the National UFO Reporting Center. I called and reported what we had seen and am submitting our separate reports of the sighting as instructed.
My husband, son and I all witnessed this sight together, and we agreed that it was unlike anything any of us had ever seen before.
Submitted by L.
On Tuesday October 8, 2013, my wife, stepson, and I were traveling west on 38th street in Indianapolis, Indiana. When we approached 38th and Fall Creek, I looked in the clear Western Sky. It was approximately 7:30 p.m. and that's when I noticed four lights in the sky.
They were in a vertical formation, with what I would guess from the ground looked like they had about 100 to 200 yards between them. We began following these lights. Two of these lights smoothly and suddenly began to float in a horizontal pattern and headed southwest. As the sun set, the lights became more difficult to see, almost as if they were cloaked by the sunlight.
We followed the lights to the 100 Acre grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It was there that my wife called the National UFO Center, and we were told that a similar phone call had been made only moments before from Pennsylvania, and the caller had reported seeing these lights in the Western sky.
Submitted by K.
It all started as my mom, stepdad, and I were driving home from my grandmother’s house.
We were all having a jolly old time in the car, discussing various subjects like school, politics, and dreams. As we were heading close to the road that leads to my stepdad’s house, my mom suddenly jumped up and shouted “LOOK, UP IN THE SKY!” I thought she was crazy until I put my glasses on and saw four orange-ish lights floating in unison. After I saw them, my stepdad finally noticed them as well. Right after we acknowledged their existence, two of the bottom-most lights began to fly left horizontally. It was then that we realized that these HAD to have been UFOs.
We started following the lights but to no avail. The closer we drove to the lights, the darker the sky became, and eventually the two remaining lights disappeared on the horizon. We stopped near the Indianapolis Museum of Art to look up, but still nothing could be seen. It was then that my mom called in the UFO hotline and reported our findings. What intrigued me the most is how the operator mentioned someone in Pennsylvania reporting the exact same sighting as us mere minutes before we called in.
Submitted by A.
Mr. Peter Davenport
National UFO Reporting Center
http://ufocenter.com/
Dear Mr. Davenport,
Attached is the clearest photo we have of the sighting we reported on the National UFO Reporting Center website. It was taken by my son from the back seat of the car. The visor on the passenger side is visible in the upper right quadrant of the photo, and three of the four spheres of light are visible in the center between the bottom left side of the visor and the nearest set of power lines stretching across the street. Also visible are spots and debris on the windshield.
Thank you for speaking with me on the phone and instructing me about how to file this report. I hope it is sufficient. Please feel free to contact me any time if you need further information.
Sincerely,
[Greek Goddess]