SIGHTING: ZACHARY, LA
Witness Testimony
"On September 2, 2009, my wife and I were sitting out on the back patio as we do every night. It was around 9:30 pm, a little later than our usual time. The moon was almost full and very bright, the skies were perfectly clear and very low humidity for us here in Louisiana. Jupiter was bright and almost parallel at the time we were looking up.We were about to give up and go inside when I caught a glimpse of something that I first thought was a shooting star. I quickly pointed at it and told the wife to look before it faded away. But, it did not fade away. I then though it was one of the plentiful White Cranes we have here in Louisiana, but I quickly realized it was not flapping any wings.My wife and I started asking each other what is that? The object appeared to be a large wing shape and white, and had sort of a faint glow as if light was reflecting off of it. It was moving at a very fast speed, coming from the east headed directly west. It did not very the speed, or waiver off of its direct course. We were able to view it until it just faded in the west sky. We were both stunned at what we just saw.We love to star gaze and watch for meteors and satellites, and I'm an avid NASA site watcher and I always know when the ISS or Shuttle are in viewing range, and we watch it every chance we have. But this was so different.As we stood there reflecting on what just happened, we started re-playing it out loud to each other, trying to make a logical explanation of what it could have been, either a plan, a bird, whatever, but we were completely puzzled and amazed..Here are some details that we recalled and discussed that really made this sighting even more mysterious to us. When it first appeared over the house it was already visible. The moon was very bright so if it was a low flying object it would not have been reflecting the moon light from the bottom, which made it appear to be glowing from within itself. It was not a bird because the wings never moved, it was moving very fast (faster moving than the ISS sightings) and it never fluttered or altered from its direct line of flight. It made absolutely no sound. There were no white, red, green, or blinking lights on it. We live in the flight pattern to the airport just 10 miles away, so we are very familiar with what aircraft looks like on its approach. When it faded from view, it was some where around 10 to 15 degrees above the horizon in the west sky, and I know from my many years of keeping up with the ISS, it would never be moving from east to west. Also, if it would have been a ! low flying object, it would have disappeared due to obstructions such as houses in the neighbor hood or the trees in the woods just west of us.So, since after nearly 50 years of looking at the skies, and since this was the first time I ever saw anything I could not apply logic to, I felt I needed to write this down, share it, and hope to find out if anyone else saw it, or anything similar to it. I would love it if someone could explain what it was."
