1974-05-15 - Jackson, MS - Unknown

I was followed at close range by an object with 3 very bright lights near Jackson, Miss.

On about the 15th of May '74 I was visiting a friend who lived in Lexington, Miss. His cousin was also visiting from Los Angeles. She was taking a late night flight back to L.A. and we took her to the Jackson airport to catch her plane. After we left the airport we drove back to Lexington. We were only a couple of miles or so from the airport when we noticed 3 very bright lights far ahead of us just above tree level. They were so bright that we couldn't see what was behind them. The lights were arranged like the landing lights on a 727, with equal spacing between them, but the center was a few feet higher than the outer two. They were very bright white, like the color of halogen lights. I thought it must be a jet coming into the airport, but they were only a bit above tree level, which puzzled me. My friend, Bill, and I were both puzzled when after a few minutes of driving toward the lights they hadn't moved. We came to a rural intersection where the road we were on "T'd" into a larger, divided highway. We stopped at the stop sign at the intersection and just sat there for a few minutes trying to figure what they were. At this point, the lights were directly in front of us, shining directly at us, and they were so bright that we couldn't see what they were mounted on. We were away from any town and there were no other cars or streelights. We eventually decided to continue on back to Lexington, and to do so we had to turn left onto the divided road. We pulled across the highway and median (which was paved at that point so you could turn left onto the divided road) and stopped on the highway shoulder. The lights were on my right (I was the passenger) and I stared at them out my window, still puzzling about what they could be. We were neither drunk nor stoned, the windows in the car were rolled down, and the radio was off. There was no sound except the idling car engine. Bill took his foot off the brake and let the car idle down the shoulder. At that point, the lights rotated very slowly and with such pr! ecision of movement I've never seen. There was no sound. The lights rotated so that they were pointing directly at the car, and as precisely as they had rotated to stay pointing at the car, they now travelled beside us at the same elevation they had been and not more than about 300 feet away from us. They travelled alongside the car at the same speed we were moving, still idling down the shoulder. I have never been as scared as I was then, because it was clear to me that this craft, which we still couldn't see because of the intensity of the lights shining directly at us was following us. I urged Bill to "floor" the car and get the hell out of there, because it was so obvious that this thing was intentionally flying next to us and had responded to our movement. I had no idea what might happen next, but I was so scared that all I wanted to do was flee. Bill eventually accelerated gradually and pulled off the shoulder into the right most lane. The lights still stayed beside us. After a couple of minutes of this the car picked up speed. The lights ceased flying beside us but rotated again so that they always pointed toward the car. Then their altitude decreased and they crossed over the highway at very low altitude, maybe 20-30 feet above the roadway, went directly over the trees on the opposite side of the road and went straight down into the trees and disappeared. At this point, I got my courage up and asked Bill to turn the car around and go back. We came to a crossover in the median, did a U-turn and headed back. We got all the way to the intersection where we had turned originally, but never saw them again. We turned around again and headed toward Lexington. When we eventually came to a gas station that was open we pulled in so I could use the pay phone to call the Jackson Airport FAA. My father worked in radar for the FAA in Texas, and he had told me that they sometimes received calls about sightings but usually just blew them off, so I was prepared for what the controller I spoke with said, which was "oh it ! was prob ably a helicopter or something." However, I knew it wasn't any kind of aircraft I'd ever seen because of the incredible precision with which the lights moved and the total silence. I have told some friends and family about this, but I've never reported it because I didn't know who to tell. Last night I heard the 21st century radio program where a gentleman told about his sighting in 1936 in Alaska. This inspired me to dig out an old journal where I had written about this. I got your website from the radio show and I decided to tell this story. I've never had another experience like this, although I've promised myself that if I ever was priveleged to have another I wouldn't panic and try to get away.