SIGHTING: CANYON, TX

Witness Testimony

"Brief but clear sighting of a noiseless lighted (3, reb, blue and white) object maneuvering and hovering.Ten-yr-old daughter and I were relaxing in hot tub, just off back porch. Sighting area: to immediate west, a medium sized metal tool shed, backed by elm trees; directly overhead, some limbs from those trees; immediately north and northeast, the two-story house's southern eaves; to southeast, a huge elm tree; to east, at least 60 feet away, neighbor's house. That left only a relatively small area of open sky visible almost directly above and to the west, framed by our house eaves, the elm tree, and the neighbor's house. A lighted object came into view from among the elm branches, headed at a fairly slow speed to the north. The object appeared to be quite high and displayed three separate lights in a triangular arrangement: red, blue, and white. If it had a "nose," the blue light was at the "front," with the red light on the west side and white on the east. No actual shape of the object could be discerned. The object moved northward for several seconds, then slowed to a complete stop, where it hovered for perhaps 10-15 seconds. Then it "turned" or arced to the east for a short distance and stopped again. (Blue light pointed eastward.) It hovered for perhaps 10-12 seconds, then appeared to "back up" a short distance, then stopped again. After a few seconds it moved slowly northward for a short distance, then stopped completely again. After another few seconds of hovering, it began to oscillate, or "rock" back and forth, but a shallow or short-distance arc, moving no more than three times its maximum width or diameter. It then moved to the northwest a very short distance, stopped and hovered again. Then, it began to move northward, visibly accelerting, but still only to a very slow speed. After a northward distance of perhaps 20 to 30 times its width (that is, between lights), the three lights coalesced into a single, brighter white light for only a second or two, then the light simply "went out" or disappeared while the object was accelerating northward. I am 60 years old, am an Air Force! veteran , and have loved aircraft and watched the skies all my life. In my opinion, this was not an airplane (hovering and backing up) or helicopter (too high), nor of course was it space junk, meteors, comets, balloons, birds, swamp gas. My daughter agrees with my descriptions and her descriptions of the object, its lights, and its movements concur with mine (with no prompting). My 16-yr-old daughter and her (moronic) boyfriend were in the front yard at the same time. It, too, is overshadowed by elms. When the object disappeared (before reaching the eave of our house), I ran into the house and grabbed a rifle with a 9X scope and went to the front yard -- time about 40 seconds. I scanned the sky and wasw only a rather bright star. Without prompting,I asked my daughter and boyfriend to scan the sky and tell me if they saw anything unusual. My daughter immediately pointed to a bright "star" to the east, moving very slowly eastward along the north eaves of the neighbor's house. To me, it looked like a single light, but she said it was "three lights," one red, one blue, and one "pale yellow." We all looked through the rifle scope and both kids, with ttenaged eyes, confirmed three lights, equidistance and of equal brightness. I could still see only one light, but I could detect that the object was moving slowly eastward. It quickly disappeared into elm branches in the next block. No other unusual lights could be seen anywhere. Lighting conditions: None in back yard to interfere with view; a single street light in the front yard, catacorner and to the northeast -- overshadowed by taller elms. No clouds whatever. No haze. Stars and planets sharply defined. The occasional airliner easy to see and identify. Length of sighting: back yard, about 1.5 minutes; front yard, perhaps 1 minute maximum. Still am not 100% sure the object seen from front yard moving east was the same object. Don't doubt my daughter's flat, immediate and unprompted statement that the object had three lights, but boyfriend could! have mi micked her (he's not too bright). Note: Amarillo is 18 miles north and is one of the places where the Osprey aircraft is made. However, I do not believe what we saw was an Osprey on stop-and-go maneuvers. For one thing, no sound whatever; for another, too high; for yet another, it backed up, and I don't think the Osprey can do that. Younger daughter is writing a report of her experience for one of her favorite teachers. She did not consult me for input. When I read her story, the details coincided almost exactly with my memories of the incident. She, however, thinks she saw a round or disc-shaped outlined with the 3 lights in a triangular arrangement on its "bottom." I do not see how she could have seen the object itself. Again, no sound, no contrails, no "tail" of any kind."