SIGHTING: (OBSERVED FROM AIRPLANE), IN

Witness Testimony

"passenger on jet,watched 30 minutes,looked like search light shining on town after town but no helicopter or source of lightI was on an AA flight from Miami to Chicago. We were probably over Indiana. Out my window, I watched for a good 30 minutes what seemed like a spotlight/searchlight moving through town after town and forest after forest. It was as though a helicopter was searching for something yet the light was not constant in a straight beam. It was a very bright light and easy to spot. The light would slither around like a snake through the trees, across the ground, coming in and out of view. Or the light would make a circle—not a perfect circle but a disorganized shape, illuminating trees, buildings, bodies of water. When on water the light would spread out a lot, as one would expect. The size of the lit area would be about like the size of a football field or smaller. At times the light seemed low, like it went through the trees and not on top of them. It would disappear for a few seconds then reappear a few miles later (over and over-I’d see it for 5 seconds, disappear 5 seconds, reappear.) It was going at approximately the same speed as our jet because I was able to watch it for 30 minutes. It was not on the same course as our jet, for its location changed in relation to our jet’s path. But both our jet and the light were traveling generally north. I never saw a helicopter or any aircraft or any source of this spotlight. I could NOT see a beam coming from the sky but just the light hitting the earth. The light had nothing to do with our jet. Once we turned west in our approach for landing, we headed in a different direction as this light source. And then when our plane was over Lake Michigan (just before descent), our plane did not create any light below us on the water--verifying to me that our jet had no relationship to this light thing I saw. (Left Miami International at 7:45PM Eastern and landed at O'Hare at 9:50PM Central.) I am a 40 year old female, kindergarten teacher, married with 3 kids, and live in western suburbs of Chicago."