1979-10-10 - Poughkeepsie, NY - Chevron

1/4 moon-like, its 'chord' or flat side parallel to horizon, bright orange-red glow, completely silent, no features.

My wife & I were returning home from a late Sunday doubles tennis match at our local indoor club (Cross-Court Inc) near midnight on New Hackensack Road in the town of Poughkeepsie, NY, proceeding W, with no other cars on the road at that time since on a Sunday night almost everything is closed in the town.

I then noticed in the SW direction that a fairly bright and large '1/4 moon' was visible, but was kind of 'odd-looking' in that it was featureless and had a bright orange-red 'glow' in a very overcast sky with no stars visible at all that night. It just didn't look right at all; so I pulled my car off the road along the road's shoulder to look at the object further. We even got out of the car and crossed the road near a field to look at it further.

Then all of a sudden, the '1/4 moon' began to rotate itself slowly so that its flat part was then completely aligned up with the horizon. The object then started to move slowly across the sky from the SW to SE, and in complete silence.

At this point my wife and I truly began to feel scared and at risk and decided that we ought to return to our car. Furthermore we agreed that if it looked like the object was about to head in our direction, that we would quickly get out of there and make a run for it!!! However, the object completely stopped in the sky and then began to retreat from us, faster, and faster and faster, until it reduced its size to a pinpoint of light and then eventually disappeared.

I contacted the local police, the state police, and the local airport to report the incident but they had no corroborating evidence. Finally I contacted Mr. Hyneck (who was the Air Force Blue Book director at that time) who gave us forms to fill out and mail in to him. My wife and I indepedently filled out the forms and then compared our observations. We both, as common eye-witnesses of this same event, described the event independently and found that our descriptions, regarding the facts and details, were also in perfect agreement with each other.

Interestingly enough, a check on the position of the moon on the next night showed that the moon was located in the NW, NOT in the original SW location of the object when first observed. And this time also the moon looked its normal self.

We never again ever saw such a sighting as the above. In the past, as a Ph.D. scientist, I had always treated news on UFO sightings as mere illusions, mistakened observations, overly eager people, or plain hysteria, or combination of all of the above. After this eye-witness sighting above, seen together with my wife right by my side (which also remains fresh in our memories after all of these years), I am now NOT so skeptical or cynical about ufos's; and also have no logical explanation whatsoever regarding the event ..... other then that it occurred exactly as related above.

((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that date of sighting is approximate. PD))