SIGHTING: PRESQUE ISLE, MAINE (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"On a clear early December evening my next door neighbor and I set out on a snowmobile ride around the local airport. We left approx. 1830, crossing the local fairgrounds out onto the side of the east/west (unplowed) runway. We traveled west towards the intersection of the north/south runway, and then followed the n/s runway northly to a cutoff that leads to the dam of Hansen Lake. We crossed the dam and went up the hillside, ending up on an abandoned section of road (unplowed), and followed it out crossing the Griffen Ridge Road. Here we parked across from the road in a potato field.We had been there about fifteen minutes talking about school and the lights of the city of Presque Isle. The airport was dark, the runway lights at that time were turned on by the Houlton Flight Service Station in advance of a departing or arriving aircraft. (Note: I grew up at the airport and surrounding navigational stations because my father was the local NavAids tech. for the Fed Aviation Agency from 1962 until 1976)and there was only one home across the road next to the "trail" we used to get into the field.I was looking to my right, towards the south end of Presque Isle, where US route 1 enters town. At this time a series of lights in the shape of a cigar appeared out of nowhere, over a point between the University of Maine at Presque Isle and the Fairmount Cemetary. The lights moved across the sky from the southeast (our right) to the the northwest (our left). The lights passed over the trees across the road from our field, passing over a mobile home and continued untill reaching the road (trail) that we used to reach our location. It was at this time that the lights stopped, appearing to hover, (or maybe rotate) and then move north up the trail disappearing behind the trees. We waited about thirty minutes, trying to figure another way home. We decided that passing over that trail was the only way back so we retraced our path home with no events. Arriving home my neighbor's mother said that she was outside looking in that direction at about the same time and saw strange lights moving in the same direction as our lights.When I got home I asked my father to check with the Flight Service Station and see if any aircraft were in the area at the time. FSS reported that there were no active aircraft in the area, or any request for the runway lights at the Presque Isle Airport to be turned on that night. There was no moon that night and the sky was clear with unlimited visiblity. From the vantage point on the side of Creasy/Griffin Ridge, all of Presque Isle was visible, in fact one would be able to see into Canada."