SIGHTING: CAMDEN, ALABAMA (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"Two witnesses, myself, *(Wit's name deleted--SGonzalez/CMS) and co-worker **(Wit's name deleted--SGonzalez/CMS). We were in a pickup truck, driving into a cattle pasture to assist in tagging and weighing a new born calf. The pasture is in a very rural area of Alabama, just off of Cobb's Landing Road, which runs east-west from US Hwy 28, between Camden and Miller's Ferry in Wicox County. We were facing east/south-east. There is no airport in that direction untill the Montgomery Airport about 80-90 miles east/north-east. Nothing but small towns, pine woods and the Alabama River. The small Camden airport about 10 miles to our South.I saw what appeared to be a white cattle egret fly up from the tree line at the far edge of the pasture. What caught my attention was that it was solitary, egrets are usually in flocks; that it wasn't flapping it's wings as it rose, it's body position stayed fixed; and that it ascended at a steady 40-45 degree angle. I watched it a second or two and pointed it out to **(Name deleted--CMS/sg) when it continued to ascend at a steady slope. Egrets will usually fly up a few feet, level out and glide back down to the field. This was well above the tree top level of the distant trees, probably 300-400 yards (1/4 mile). Before **(Name deleted--CMS/sg) could locate it, while I was pointing it out, it dissappeared... vanished. I was describing what I had just seen to **(Name deleted--CMS/sg) when it re-appeared, higher in the sky and to the left of where I had last seen it. It had been ascending from our left to right, going South. I had watched it for 5-10 seconds before it vanished, and it re-appeared in about the same length of time, still ascending at the same trajectory. I again pointed it out to **(Name deleted--CMS/sg) as it climbed higher into the sky and moved farther southward. It was still brlliant white and didn't seem to be diminishing in size in spite of the distance it was travelling. **(Name deleted--CMS/sg) still wasn't able to locate it before it dissappeared a second time, then re-appeared again, higher and back to left of it's last position. The object repeated this sequence a total of five times. **(Name deleted--CMS/sg) spotted it on it's fourth and fifth appearances. I interpretted this trajectory to be a spiralling ascent that carried it upward and southward at about a 45 degree angle. It seemed to be visible to us only along a portion of it's spiral, possibly due to light reflection from it's surface, and then vanished when the surface angle changed. On it's fifth appearance it entered the scattered clouds and we lost it. It did not seem to be smaller when it entered the clouds than it was when I first saw it, which makes me think that it was farther away initially than I had at first thought, possibly even miles away, and that it was much larger than a cattle egret. We heard no sound, it left no trail. It did appear bird shaped, with a fixed wing position. This was during Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait, and I thought that a possible explanation would be a stealth aircraft painted camoglage and we saw it only because we happened to be at the correct angle to catch a reflexion. The area around Miller's Ferry is used as a training area by the Air National Guard out of Montgomery. The reason I'm reporting this is because it certainly did appear to rise from the field or from the trees beyond the field... we did not see it fly into that location. It rose from that location as if it had been there some time, and I can think of no location a plane could have taken off from in that direction.If each acending appearance lasted 5 seconds, then the entire sighting lasted at most a minute. I guess-tomate the clouds to have been 10,000-15,000 feet at least? - possibly higher? A direct ascent to 2 miles with 2 mile downrange at a 45 degree ascent would be a distance of 2.8 miles. The spiral added more distance - depending on how tight the spiral was, another mile? Say 4 miles in 1.5 minutes, that's about 240 mph. A 3 mile climb with 3 mile downrange gives about 360 mph. If the circles of the spiral were large, the distance covered could have been as much as 12 miles, a speed of 720 mph.From our perspective it appeared to ascend in a straight line, but it must have been a spiral, it's the only way I can explain its dissappearance and re-appearance higher and back to the left. Neither it's speed, angle of ascent, or size seemed to change during the sighting. A third co-worker already in the field whom we immediately joined had not noticed the object and was completely unaware of it. "