SIGHTING: VIRDEN, IL
Witness Testimony
" I observed a dark gray winged shaped object traveling at a high rate of speed on October 26, 2014 at approx. 2:15 AM in Virden Illinois.I was out late on a Saturday night stargazing with my telescope and binoculars. I had just been viewing Messier objects such as M42 in Orion when I decided to give my left eye a break. I moved over to the table near my back door and stood there in my backyard just looking at the sky, hoping to see some meteors as it was morning. Then about 5 minutes of looking up something odd caught the corner of my eye, thinking it might be a meteor. I was standing, looking up, but facing west, where at the northwest part of the sky (near constellation Cygnus), high above the tree line I saw this dark gray winged looking object. There were no lights and it blends in well with the background sky. There was absolutely no sound, this thing was completely silent even after it was gone. I doubt anyone outside would have taken notice if they were not looking up at the sky. I could not estimate distance, elevation or speed other then the time it was visible. It moved from the northwest corner of ! sky to the south in longer than 4 seconds. I reached for my binoculars sitting on my table but before I could bring them up to my eyes, I lost the object after it was below the constellation Cetus heading towards Girard, IL. I can say the wing span when it past thru Cetus, was from the star Braten Kaitos to n-Cetus. This is about 10 degrees of sky.My first thoughts were of bewilderment. I don’t believe what I just saw. It was thinking of what it could have been. It could have been migrating geese. They do travel at night, but they move slower and often make audible quacks. This moved much faster than geese. I also don’t believe it was close to the ground, judging by the trees. It was much higher in the sky. What ever it was, didn’t want to be seen, because there were no lights and it was dark grey. It had a distinct shape; I wouldn’t call it a v-wing but more like crescent shaped wing. It could have been some sort of stealth aircraft that is not publicly know. Scott air force base is about 80 miles south of my location, but it’s not known to operate any test vehicles.I stayed out for another 20 minutes, hoping something would happen again or another vehicle would follow its same path. Nothing happened. During this time, I had many different emotions, from curiosity to fear. Fearful thoughts started take over and I decided to bring in all my equipment. I then began to look on the internet for similar witness accounts. I found this site and composed a report. I am hoping someone else in central Illinois may have been out late like me and saw the same thing.My background is former Navy, been around lots of naval aircraft. I have worked in the field of electronics for nearly 20 years. I am an amateur astronomer (hobby). I used to go to air shows at El Toro Marine Base before it was closed in the 1990s often in my youth in southern California. I have seen many different kinds of military aircraft including both the stealth fighter and stealth bomber flown at El Toro. As an amateur astronomy, I see plenty of high flying commercial and military flying over central Illinois at night. I also witness satellites such as the ISS to the random flare from an Iridium satellite. I have also seen loads of meteors and bolides in my times stargazing. "
