The Sighting
Recently I've been finding the need to record different events in my life that I don't want to forget. This is one that I'm not sure that I'll ever forget, but wanted to record it because it's one of the coolest things I've ever witnessed. I saw a UFO, yes an Unidentified Flying Object in the sky. They are now known as UAPs, Unidentified Arial Phenomena, but back when I saw it they used UFO.
I'm going to start off by talking about the most common items confused for a UAP. This is something I did after seeing the one almost twenty years ago. It allowed me to do what I could to try to debunk what I saw.
Most people might see a questionable bright light in the sky. They aren't sure if it's a plane, helicopter, or a UAP, (Unidentified Arial Phenomena). In most cases we have to assume it's not.
The most common items confused for UAPs are aircraft, such as air planes, drones, and military aircraft. Military aircraft are confused often times due many of then not being the traditional aircraft shape. Shooting stars are the second most common sighting confused for a UAP. The third would be the international space station and satellites.
When it comes to air planes and drones there are a couple things you need to try to look for. The main item would be blinking lights. This applies to all aircraft including drones. The only ones that may not have any, or at least get the okay to turn them off, would be military aircraft. That is what would make it hard in the case of trying to confirm what you're seeing is a UAP. The only other way is if you can see it close enough if it has wings, or if you can hear it. UAPs tend to be quite silent in reports.
If you gaze upon the night sky enough, eventually you will see a shooting star, aka a meteorite entering the earth's atmosphere. They usually show as a quick streak of light and then they are gone. Some people have confused this beautiful phenomena for UAPs also, thinking the light was an alien ship streaking through the sky.
The international space station makes the most sense for it being confused for a UAP. I've done it myself. It shows off as this bright light in the sky moving quick enough to go from horizon to horizon in just a few minutes. It's one of the brightest things in the sky at times, so it can be easy to notice when you happen to be looking at the sky at the right time. The path of the space station and satellites will not zigzag. They will maintain a constant path from horizon to horizon. Another way to confirm if it's at least the space station is to use a sky viewing app, like SkyView Lite on the iPhone to check out what it might be. These are really cool apps if you're into astronomy.
I had gone through all of these, and more, to figure out what I saw that night. I was unable to debunk it. At this point you're probably begging me to tell you what I saw- here's what happened.
It was a cool summer night in the small town of Marcy, New York around the year of 2006. This town was mostly forest and farmland. The populated areas were more dense in the business district and gradually less dense as you moved more farther away from the cityscape. On this night I found myself at my best friend's house, as I did most nights at the time. His name was Joe.
Joe lived in a log cabin home build by his father with a decently long drive that lead to the street. The front yard has a line of trees about fifty feet tall that bordered the property line. The house was located partly up a hill where it flattens out for a small stretch before starting to incline again. There is an open field for several acres across the street.
On that night, the sky was free of clouds. The moon was bright enough where I could see a good distance over the landscape. Joe and I used to just talk about random things as I was leaving- sometime a movie we watched, a game we played, or something stupid, or creative. Don Johnson as Crockett from Miami Vice clearly has an aura of awesomeness that will knock down light poles if he gets too close. Yes that was a literal conversation we've had on several occasions.
After we realized we were talking for thirty or so minutes standing by his front door, I decide it's time I finally get home and sleep. I had to be up early the next day. We said "see ya tomorrow," and I head over to my car that's parked in their turnaround part of the driveway. I hopped in, started the car, and backed up out of the spot. But as I put the car into drive, I see an object with amber colored lights slowly floating just above the trees down the hill. It was heading in my direction. I pulled my car up towards the end of the driveway and opened my window to poke my head out for a better view.
As it got closer, I could see that it was something that I've never witnessed before in my life. Something out of a science fiction story. The UAP was rectangular in shape, but with rounded out sides. The best ratio for the shape I can surmise would be something around 2×4×6. It looked to be made of a dark grey metal that reminded me of how the Borg ships exterior texture looks from Star Trek. It had static amber lights in different spots on it. It slowly drifted over my head just above the trees. Imagine a wooden block in that ratio, look, and texture, with rounded out sides. It was larger than a 2002 Honda Civic. None of the lights were blinking and it seemed to move with intent, not with the wind like a blimp would.
One thing I noticed as it drifted off north west of me over the neighbor's house, was that it was completely silent. The only sound was my idling 2002 Honda Civic.
I found myself so curious about this object in the sky that I attempted to follow it. I proceeded to drive out of the driveway taking a left up the hill and watched it for as long as I could before I lost sight of it about a minute later.
Afterwards I had the realization that no one would believe me. Why didn't I yell for Joe to come outside? If he saw it, at least I could talk to someone about it, and have a shared the experience. Heck, he would have said, "let's see if we can find it again and get another look!" The reality is that this never occurred to me. I was so focused on not missing what I was looking at, that I didn't think about the idea of calling anyone outside to take a look.
When I got home, I saw my dad was still up, so I asked him about military drones, and what they looked like. Dad was a veteran, having previously been in the Army. He felt like a good source of that kind of information. He told me that they basically just looked like small planes. What I saw definitely didn't look like a plane, so that was ruled out.
In a situation like this, where you see something that you just can't explain, it makes you want to understand what you saw even more. The next day I went into a deep dive on UFOs, trying to see if I could find anything remotely describing what I saw. The closest thing was that people saw rectangular UFOs but that's really it. It's surprising how little information is out there that describes these crafts in detail.
Later in the day, I went over to Joe's house, I was stoked about telling him what I saw the night before, but I was concerned he wouldn't believe me. As soon as I walk in, him and his dad are in their kitchen, and his dad says to me, "Hey Alex, did you see that UFO last night?" There it was, someone else who could confirm the same thing that I saw the night before. I was ecstatic and blurted out, "Holy shit, you saw it too?"
It turns out he saw it when it was further down the hill. He was driving on a small road that bisects the street where they live, slightly south east, maybe a quarter mile or so away. He had stopped his truck when he saw it, peeked out his window, and noticed how silent it was too. It had flown pretty much just over his head also.
Once we exchanged stories, confirming with each other that we both really saw the same thing, that is when Joe had the need to express his frustration with me. "Dude! Why didn't you yell for me to come and see?!" I had no excuse other than, it just didn't occur to me, I was so focused on the UFO, it just didn't occur to me until later. I didn't want to miss a moment, or take my eyes off of it.
All I could tell Joe was, "I'm sorry… it really just didn't occur to me in the moment. I wish I had though."
To this day, I haven't spoken much about when I saw the UAP that night. I still wonder if I saw an alien craft, something from another dimension, or a top secret government test craft with new technology. The Sci-Fi geek in me wants to believe it's alien in nature. It adds that fantastical element to a moment in my life that I will always remember.
