Ex-Army Man Spots Rapidly Moving Spherical Object
June 23rd 2005
Description (In Witness's Own Words):
I live in Sharpstown, a residential community located in the southwestern side of Houston, Texas. On Thursday, June 23rd 2005 at approximately 6:45 pm I noticed a very bright object in the southern sky traveling north/northwest at a very high rate of speed. I normally do not look up at the sky, but I happen to be watching a cardinal perched on a telephone wire in my backyard. I was wading in my swimming pool at the time and as I watched this bird, I noticed a very tiny, round, ball shaped object that looked like a typical star in illumination, but not as distinct because it was still daylight. The object was very tiny to the naked eye, no larger than the head of a shirt pin. Owing to its size, I presumed the object to be flying at a very high altitude, much higher than typical passenger jets that fly at 35,000 feet. The speed of the object I judged to be three to four times faster than passenger jets flying at this altitude. Usually when a passenger jet flies overhead at 35,000 feet or more you can watch them for a couple of minutes before they move out of your visual range. In the first twenty seconds I watched this object I presumed it would move out of my visual range in less than one minute. At thirty seconds it changed to a westerly directions, still maintaining its velocity and illumination. I lost sight of the object after 50 seconds as it faded into the brightness of the sun in the western sky. I experienced a similar event in 1965 when I saw a similar object while living in the City of Orange, near Santa Ana in Southern California. This event was reported in "The Register" newspaper. At thetime, my father, a West Point graduate, was a lead aerospace engineer at North American working on Gemini space vehicle projects for NASA.
Investigator's Notes: Given the credentials of the witness this is an interesting report. The witness provided good details so I have only asked a few more questions in a follow-up email message. I asked the witness if any contrails were noted from the object or from conventional aircraft in the area. He responded that the object did emit contrails nor did any regular aircraft. (The objective was to evaluate differences between the unknown aircraft and conventional aircraft. The air mass was likely too dry for contrails to form.) I have not found any other sightings in this area in other UFO databases, but sometimes a lag of several weeks occurs before sightings are investigated and posted. I will be checking databases in the next few weeks for sightings in this area. With the current amount of data I consider this sighting to be unidentified.
Date of Sighting: June 23, 2005
Time of Sighting: 6:45 PM
Date Reported: June 23, 2005
Location of Sighting: Sharpstown, Texas (SW Houston, Texas)
Latitude: 29.7002 Degrees N
Longitude: 95.53827 Degrees W
Number of Witnesses: One
Number Interviewed: One
Weather: Generally Clear With Few Clouds 6,000 & 25,000 Feet
Astronomical: Sunset 8:24 PM CDT
originally posted @ www.ufosnw.com
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