SIGHTING: DICKENS, TX

Witness Testimony

"Small football-shaped object travels silently over neighborhood in Dickens, Texas.I went outside when I realized that I had forgotten a blanket on our clothes line. Since our neighbor's dogs were barking I decided to wait outside long enough to see what was disturbing them. At this point, I was not certain what direction the dogs were barking, and if they might be barking at me or something else. I sat down on the ground so the dogs could not see me. When the dogs stopped barking, I continued to listen for about three more minutes. When I heard nothing unusual, I decided to go back inside the house. As I started to sit up, I noticed a strange brown-gold light (football-shaped) off to my right (north) side. There is no light source in this area so I wondered where the light had come from. Each property lot is 150 feet wide and the object was above the south quarter of the third lot to the north. I was in the north half of the first lot to the south, and there was one full lot between us---so the object approximately 300 feet to the north of me. The object appeared to be moving at an approximate height of about 25-30 feet above the ground. It was above the roofline of the furthest neighbor's house north, yet still under the treetops of the trees located in the lot to the west and north-west. The trees, a mixture of mesquites and elm, range in height from approximately 6-50 or so feet tall. The object traveled very slowly, and without any sound, from east to the west. The brown-gold light appeared to be some form of contained light source, as thought the light was reflecting inside a semi-transparent barrier with very little exterior illumination. The object did not light up the neighboring houses, the sky above it, or the ground below it. The light from my vantage point, appeared to be about half the size of a football held at arms length of 30 inches. [My closest night time “guestimation” is that the object was under ten feet in diameter.] The object continued to travel horizontally and did fluctuate in height, speed, or direction of travel. I watched the light for approximately 5 seconds before it blinked out. As it blinked out, from light to totally dark, I noticed a slightly yellowish colored light at the east (back) side of the object like an arc of electricity sparking in a line from the middle south (left) side to the middle north (right) side. There was still no sound. I continued to watch to see if the object had continued to travel along the same path but it never passed in front of the trees to the west or north-west. Since it was dark outside and lightly overcast, I was not able to determine if the object had ascended up and out of my line of sight, or if it was still in the same spot and just not visible in the dark. Shortly before sighting this object, it sprinkled a few drops of rain and several bits of sleet. I had reached out to catch a piece of sleet to see how dense the ice was and to my surprise I drew back pieces of a reddish-orange particle that looked like tiny dried tree buds. The objects were not cold to the touch nor were they moist. They were crisp when rolled between the fingers and brittle. I was unable to see if there were similar objects falling further into the yard. We were due to receive scattered rain showers mixed with sleet and snow some time after midnight. There was no lightening in the area during this incident and there was no perceptible electricity in the air. It was partly cloudy and had sprinkled earlier but there was no precipitation at the time of the incident. There was a light wind from the ENE at about 6 mph. The temperature was 44 degrees F and we were expecting a night time low of 32 degrees. The humidity was 49% with a dew point of 25 degrees and a barometric pressure of 30.26 inches steady with a visibility of 10.0 miles. As an end note: The neighbors dogs to the west had been barking as though agitated for nearly a quarter hour before this incident. My dog went outside with me and she usually ingnores the neighbor's dogs, but she appeared to watch to see what the neighboring dogs were barking at. My dog normally likes to romp in the dark and pick up sticks to encourage me to chase her but she never left my side. She never appeared fearful or agitated but she did not hesitate to come back inside the house with me."