1993-10-29 - Unionville, MI - Fireball

2 shimmering fireballs hovering in the sky before they flew away

Just north of Unionville, Michigan, there is a wildlife management area named Fish Point. My dad had gone there hunting since he was a kid and same with me. Around October 29, 1993 (I remember it was a Friday of that year and was pretty warm out that evening so it was after opening day of duck season but before it got cold) my dad and I got to the campgrounds at 43.697031, 83.526229. It was dark probably after 8 pm. Just one other person was there, he was a friend of my dad’s and he was sleeping in his camper already.

The moon was mostly full, and since we are in the midle of nowhere it was like a large spotlight in the sky. My dad and I walk to the top of the observation tower which is a wooden platform about 25 feet in the air. We look to the east and you could see a bonfire at the end of a road about a mile off. I looked to the west out towards the direction of Saginaw Bay, which is part of Lake Huron. I see what I first thought was a fire but it was in the air over the treeline which was about 1.25 miles off in a west by northwest direction.

I asked my dad what it was and he said, “Well that’s got to be a bonfire reflecting off a cloud or mist” I don’t remember any clouds in the air and certainly none that low to the ground. The shape was almost teardrop, the color was white with hints of yellow, the image flickered and the top wasn’t a straight line, so it had sort of an appearnce of a bonfire, but unlike the other fire we could see, this one was in the air, seemed quite large (this is based on the treeline near the shore and what looked like its position over it, best guess it was perhaps just offshore, any further off shore and the angle we wouldn’t allow us to see.) Also unlike the bonfire we could see, which was orange and yellow flames, this was mainly white.

I looked back at the bonfire and saw it’s size grew then shrank as whoever was there put stuff it. The floating flame stayed the same size.

My dad went to our trailer and got binoculars and came back up to the observation tower. Looking at it it just looked like a flame but couldn’t make out much detail. We watched it a few minutes when i saw it had moved every so slightly to the north. I could tell this based on the treeline which was esailly visible with the moonlight. I asked my dad if it was reflection from a fire on the beach how could it have moved and stayed same size? He went down and woke his friend up in his camper saying “I don’t want to wake you be we got a UFO out here.” My dad’s friend came up to the tower and we watched it a few more minutes when in a blink of an eye there was a second flame light next to it, this one was much smaller, perhaps it couldve been same size but further out over the water. We talked how none of us saw it.

My dad speculated it could be helicopters looking for a lost boater (there is a Coast Guard station at Bay City). But there were no searchlights, there were no red and green navigation lights, and they didnt move like they were searching. There was no sound of engines we could hear. The lights looked to shimmer and nothing like a steady manmade light.

After perhaps 10-15 minutes since we saw the first light, the two started to move along the shore to the north then went straight out over the water of Saginaw Bay, as they went away from us their speed increased dramatically and were out of sight in about five seconds.

I spent a lot of times outside in the military, or hunting, or camping, and I’ve never seen anything like that. I know what helicopters and planes look like at night and that wasn’t it. In 1993 there were no drones. Unfortunately there were no camera phones either.