SIGHTING: ASHEBORO, NORTH CAROLINA (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"On the evening of June 15, 2016 we had just experienced a severe thunderstorm with lots of lightning and rain. The ISS was supposed to be visible in my area at 9:41 pm. The storm had ended and I went outside with my Luna Optics night vision camera/recorder... hoping the sky would be clearing and the ISS viewable. The sky was still total overcast, but I turned on my night vision camera (with the infrared light turned on), hoping maybe to see the ISS thru the cloud layer. The clouds were so dense I could not see stars or the ISS, but as I moved the monocular camera around, I was surprised to see this bright, oval object in the northern sky. I would estimate it was maybe 60 degrees above the horizon. It appeared much larger than points of light I had been used to seeing. My camera was at 5X magnification, but can zoom to 20X. Even at 5X it seemed to be as large as the moon would be at 1st quarter phase. I was very excited at what I was seeing. It hovered in one place, tilted to the right at maybe a 75-80 degree angle. I tried to get a sharp focus, but due to seeing it thru the clouds, it always appeared a bit fuzzy. After several minutes it had slowly descended (from my perspective) and was near the top of the trees in my yard. I was excited to see this, because that proved to me that it was moving in space. It then ascended back to its original position for maybe one minute, then descended again... this time going so low in the sky that it dipped behind the tree. I was still able to see it thru the thin branches at the top of the tree... but then it went lower and I lost site of it completely. I kept searching the sky to see if it would ascend again, but after a few minutes, I quit filming. In the video, you can see occasional insects darting across the screen. Any time I use the infrared light, insects show up streaking across my view. As I was observing the object, I tried turning off the infrared light to see if I could see it at all... but nothing was visible unless that light was switched on. Prior to this sighting, all I had seen and captured on video were satellites and planes crossing the night sky. I went out again last night, hoping to see the glowing disc again, but only saw one satellite. This whole experience was quite exhilarating."