SIGHTING: TOWNSEND, GEORGIA (UNITED STATES)
Witness Testimony
"I was standing outside of my house out front, in the driveway, right hand side behind my father's vehicle. i went out to smoke a cigarette. the sky was absolutely clear. there's virtually no artificial lights on our end of the street (or in the town) making it perfect to see all the stars. i was looking up at the sky as i do nearly every night on clear nights as it is really a great sight to behold. i was facing east. i was looking at the one constellation i really recognize right off the bat, orion. there were maybe 2 airplanes in the sky (blinking red/blue landing lights) i noticed a really bright star near betelgeuse, but up a little near orion's (elbow i guess you would call it?) i only know about betelguese because of the quirky name and i was curious about its flickering a few years back so i read about it one day going supernova. so this bright "star" is white. much brighter than the airplane lights here. it got a little brighter. still very bright white. i stared at it for about 5 minutes, about to take out my phone and open the star map app to see what its name was. as soon as i reached for my back pocket it suddenly zipped off to the left, looking exactly like a meteor or shooting star with light trail. my mind is trying to think of any excuse of what it could be and all i could wonder is do meteors drift that fast, or do helicopters turn their lights off, or did one overlay the other? we have a bombing range nearby but those helicopters fly a lot, usually low to the ground, and are loud enough to shake the house a bit with vibration. it was completely silent. suddenly what appeared to be that same light appeared to the left - it was just there. i felt like after it zipped away it was directed to the new position and just "turned on". it didn't blink. didn't fade in or shimmer. didn't really look like artificial light of any kind once again. it looked the same, like a larger star, very bright. this time i didn't reach for my phone. i counted seconds from the moment i saw it for some odd reason. 11 seconds. then it just "shut off". i counted 23 seconds and surprisingly there it was in the sky again! blinked on, no light trail. stayed on for about 7 seconds, blinked off again. i began to count seconds and continued for a bit, but it didn't come back on. i went with my dad to the grocery store in darien ga to get a gallon of oj for the morning. i told him about it on the way. my mother has seen unexplained lights in the sky back in the 80s or so, my father too when he was younger, so i wasn't afraid of ridicule. i asked why airplanes might totally turn off their lights, he said sometimes they do he thinks. we both used to work at the saint simon's airport (malcolm mckinnon) back in the 00's. we cleaned a lot of aircraft, and at night saw lots of plane lights. i told him this did not look like a plane light, it zipped away, blinked on in a new position, and once again before not returning. we entered the store (bi-lo). i got the oj, we waited at register 1, the cashier had us wait bc someone went out to their car to get money. that took about 3 mins before another younger cashier was ringing someone up at the express lane. that customer bought a glasses repair kit. we went to that register and got rung up, the cashier handed me the kit, and suddenly realized the guy in front of us forgot it. we went out to the parking lot. i saw the guy loading groceries in his car and told him he forgot his repair kit. he thanked me. we drove back to the house i pointed in the sky (by then the stars of course were up more) i pointed to where i saw each thing happen telling my dad about it. we talked for about 15 mins or so looking at all the stars again because it was so clear. we were facing south looking toward the brunswick ga direction and the light came back on. i said "dad! look! that's the light! that's the one!" he saw it. it blinked back off. my dad is a retired police officer, was in the army, worked security, and knew a good deal about planes. he could not identify this object. enclosed is a map of where i first saw the object and the direction it moved in. i swear all of the above information is absolutely true to how i remember it. i am willing to talk to, meet with or interact with a mufon or ga mufon representative as well."
