SIGHTING: OTTER TAIL, MINNESOTA (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"I was walking down my parents driveway with my older brother to get on the school bus, the drive is approximately one quarter of a mile long and the bus picked us up a little after 7 in the morning. Over the years I have been careful not to speculate as to what I saw too much for fear of tainting the memory of the event. I have several events that I can not explain but this event is the only in which I witnessed something unexplainable to me. As I said my older brother and I were walking down the drive to the bus when one of us noticed an object hovering in a small woods approximately 500 yards from us across and down the road. At this time I cannot with 100% certainty say which one of us saw the object first but I am about 80% sure it was my brother. please understand this was a long time ago and I have tried to focus on the more important details of the event over the years. I believe my brother said something to the effect of "do you see that?" I said "Yea that's the sun" he said "no that way is west" or something to that effect and I looked to the east and saw the sun just beginning to rise. A more appropriate direction for the object would be NW. we then speculated that it was the moon but after looking around the sky for a few seconds we spotted the moon more or less directly above us. This whole dialogue took about 45 seconds to a minute, during that time I was looking at the sun rising and trying to find the moon so I cannot say what the object was doing but I can say that it was in roughly the same place as when I was first alerted to it. The object was approximately 18 to 22 feet in diameter and looked like the sun rising or the moon when it's orange. I came to that estimate by judging its size to the trees it was in. I say in because I could see trees in front of and behind the object quite clearly. The object hovered for about 20 to 30 seconds and then began to move though the trees from left to right. it covered about 150 yards at what I would call a pretty slow pace all the while I could still clearly see trees behind of and in front of the object. It's travel took 45 seconds to a minute and covered about two thirds of the woods, then it disappeared instantly. No fading or anything it was just gone. I really didn't have an emotional response to the event, I was more perplexed as to what it was I was seeing. I do have to say that I had this feeling like it belonged there, like it was normal. My brother and I have talked about it several times over the years and has both of us stumped. I would like to add that I am an open minded skeptic and would need to explore every possible natural explanation before I would even begin to think it was anything but. Thank you for your time"