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"Do you see that?" "God, I do."
My wife and I
Fort Collins, Colorado / September 1st, 19969/1/96 SIGHTING
Around 9:30 pm, Sunday, September 1st, 1996, my wife and I were in our backyard watching the sky. This had become our custom following a previous sighting I had seen alone in early August, 1995. We live in Larimer County, Colorado, just south of the city limits of Fort Collins, approximately 2 miles from the foothills in front of Horsetooth Reservoir. We were positioned in such a way that our field of vision was to the south. The sky was so
clear that night that we remarked that the Milky Way was visible. There was no moon visible at that time, although about a hour later, there was a full moon.
For no apparent reason I looked over my right shoulder toward the NNW and saw clear skies. Suddenly appearing in my field of vision was an object moving at what I guessed to be at cloud height. There was no sound and the object moved fluidly toward the SSE, in the direction of Denver. The leading edge of the object seemed to be lit - possibly by the moon which had not yet risen but which may have been lighting the leading edge of the object from the east. Also for no apparent reason, my wife turned her head and looked over her shoulder toward the NNW. After having first noticed clear skies, the object suddenly appeared in her field of vision.
Just at the moment that I realized what I was seeing, I said to my wife, "Do you see that?" Before I could finish the sentence, she responded "God, I do." As we watched the object proceed toward the SSE, we had enough time to consider and reconsider what the object might be. The object moved with the fluidity of a bird riding a thermal, but there was no evidence of any wing movement or a change in course that a thermal would create. The object was much too large to be a bird - at arms length it would take a baseball sized object to obscure its visibility. The shape was reminiscent of the Batman symbol with a curving leading edge that almost made a half circle with a point in the center rear. The object appeared to be more oval than round, wide rather than long, and the center point was less than half the radius of the implied oval shape.
The object remained in our field of vision for 30-45 seconds, long enough to pick up, set, and focus a camera. (The prints came back black.) There was enough time for the internal dialog of considering, "Yes, I really see this - Yes, its really there" to take place more than 4 or 5 times as we watched the object track directly overhead. It then disappeared as suddenly as it appeared. Our field of vision was such that we should have been able to track its movement longer than the object was visible.
The object seen in the earlier sighting in August, 1995, was similar in size, height and flight path with the direction of travel being the reverse course, SSE to NNW. The leading edge was illuminated by 4 rectangular blocks of light and the previously mentioned rear center point was not noticed. The object also appeared and disappeared in the same sudden fashion at approximately the same positions in the sky.
We would be interested in knowing if anyone else had observed this or similarly shaped sightings. If so, please e-mail us at: timeless@frii.com
