Ufology Research

Not sure how to contribute a sighting report, but here goes. I live in Plainfield IL, USA, which is under both the O'Hare and Midway airport traffic approach patterns. We also have many general aviation airports in our area. I have been a keen observer of aircraft since 1970 and spent 11 years on active duty in the USAF. I also spend many nights stargazing and have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of meteors and hundreds of satellite flyovers. I can distinguish the ISS from other satellites by sight. I have witnessed a fireball that lit up the ground and cast shadows on everything as it passed overhead. What I'm getting at is that I consider myself fairly knowledgeable and experienced with moving objects in the night sky. On 4 Sep 2011 at 22:59 Central Time, I was outside trying out some astrophotography with my new DSLR. I had just started a 30 second bulb exposure on a constellation directly overhead when I saw a bright object in the sky. It appeared at an azimuth of about 15 degrees east at about 30 degrees in elevation. It was headed in a southerly direction, and at first, I assumed the small object was a plane. Its trajectory and apparent speed gave me the impression that it might be a Cessna or other similar small plane flying along at around 1,000 feet in altitude. It was definitely not in any of the normal traffic patterns for O'Hare or Midway, which further bolstered my assumption that it was a small plane. As I watched it, I quickly realized it couldn't be a powered plane, at least not one at that altitude, because I would have heard it. Although I guess it's not impossible, I had never heard of gliders flying at night, and I had never seen a glider near my house in the nearly 12 years I have lived here. But it was moving across the sky too fast to be a satellite. So as I peered at it to see if I could see any navigation lights, three thoughts went through my head:

1. This thing has no flashing navigation lights whatsoever, just a single bright light.

2. Is it me, or is that single bright light turning orange and getting bigger?

3. How the hell do I abort the current bulb photograph I'm taking with my camera and get it to start a new one of this object RIGHT NOW?

As this thing moved silently across the sky, it was briefly obscured behind my chimney, but the whole time, it became larger and larger. At its peak, the angular diameter of this round glowing orange shape was roughly 10 arcminutes. It was definitely bright, but not painfully so. It left no trail behind it. When my camera eventually finished taking its shot, I quickly repositioned the tripod and fired off another shot. Due to the fact that I also had the 10-second self-timer engaged to minimize any shaking caused by pressing the trigger, the camera was unable to capture anything before the object flew behind the second story of my house. The resulting photo did, however, provide me with an accurate time stamp of the event. Anyway, as the camera was exposing its shot, I stepped back away from the house so I could continue to observe it. By now, the object had begun flickering, at some points even appearing to extinguish altogether for an instant before flickering back to its previous brightness. Over the next few seconds, its maximum intensity faded until it finally flickered out completely and disappeared. This happened at about 120 degrees azimuth and maybe 45 degrees elevation. Throughout its course, the object never changed direction. I estimate that it traversed this path in about 60 seconds, maybe slightly less.

That's it. That's what I saw. I was completely sober. My daughter just now informed me that she and my son saw a Chinese lantern in the neighborhood recently (not that night because they were both inside the house at the time). But it is possible that somebody in our neighborhood is making these things, which of course means that what I saw might have been a Chinese lantern.
 

Brian:

Thanks for this. I'm really just focusing on Canadian cases, but I wish the ones I get were as detailed and as lucid as yours.

I would recommend you post your sighting on either Peter davenport's site: www.nuforc.com or www.mufon.com