1979-09-17 - Mobile, AL - Rectangle

Rectangular object motionless in the sky over the Gulf of Mexico for 4 to 5 mintues which shot off straight up and was gone in less than a second.

This information came from my ex-husband one night when we were sharing quirky things from our teenage years. He said that one night about a week after Hurricane Frederick hit Mobile, Alabama, he saw a bizarre-looking object hanging motionless in the southern sky just before the sun went down. He had gone outside to feed his dog and the object caught his eye because it was so bright, it seemed to be lit from within. It had a row of lights horizontally across the center of every color which were alternately blinking ("chasing" was the word he used). He said he stood stock still for 4 to 5 minutes watching it and it neither got larger nor smaller nor moved at all. He said it suddenly turned, made a kind of funny loop in the air, and shot off straight up faster than any man-made object could possibly have moved and was gone in less than a second toward the zenith. He said that just as he lost sight of it, he heard jet air crafts and saw two (what he thought must have been Air Force) jets flying toward the spot where the rectangular object had been hovering. Further observations: my ex said the rectangular object really looked like a flying mobile home made of silver with a string of Christmas lights wrapped around it. He said he was looking due South at it which he said would have situated it in the Gulf of Mexico. He estimated that it was about 10 miles away and he said he felt all weird and creepy when he realized how big it must have been for him to see it so clearly from so far away. He said it was about the size of his entire thumb from tip to hand at arm's length (he has a big thumb--he's 6'9"!). My ex is a man of little imagination and less verbal ability and so his story struck me with it's clarity and I was stunned by his recitation of the facts. His discomfiture was obvious and we had been married for 5 years without him ever mentioning it. In September, 1979, when this occurred, he was seventeen years old. He's a licensed electrician now. I found this site while researching Whitley Strieber whom I had seen on a Fox News hour-long special on UFO's and, after deliberation, decided to report my ex's experience.