I never have told anyone about this because of the illegal nature of what we were doing when the event occured.
Given the anonymous nature of your reporting requirements, and the fact I just found your site, I figured what the heck because I have dwelled on the issue for some time and just need to get it out. Plus I'm at work wasting time reading your case files, and I do have one to tell.
Myself and my friend were 21 at the time, in his Ford Escort parked just outside the city of Idaho Falls, ID, near the High-C waterpark about a quarter mile from a railroad bridge. It is called Zombie Bridge by the locals. It is fairly isolated, with only a few homes dispersed over about two square miles.
The car was parked facing approx. northwest along the road, steep hillside to the left, creek to the right. Not sure if road is paved now, but in those days it was graded gravel only. If you head the opposite direction from the car's orientation, there is a sharp right turn about fifty meters behind where we were parked. We were being naughty at the time, in that we were ((alleged minor infraction deleted)) (hence my reticence about disclosing the incident), just sitting there in his car in the dark, ((deleted)). Only other sound were the multitudes of crickets out and about.
We decided to leave as we both had to work in the morning. I get out to relieve myself in the bushes by the creek and when returning to the car, saw an erratic light. Best way to describe it was akin to when someone flicks a still-lit cigarette butt in the dark. Erratic in movement, orange, and very dim in apparent magnitude.
It came from the direction in front of the car, over the car, decended just like if it was falling, and then it looked like it "bounced" on the ground about forty meters behind the car. Never made a sound.
I thought someone was nearby and had actually flicked a cigarette butt at first, and looked around. Realized it would take some pretty impressive cigarette butt flicking to launch one forty meters or so, and no one was around, so I got in the car somewhat perplexed at what I'd seen.
My friend had seen it too, and queried me what it was, and I replied that I didn't know. He also noted the crickets had stopped chirping, and I noticed that as well when he said it, which was eerie. We both looked in the rearview mirrors, and noticed the "cigarette butt," or at least its glow, was shining on the road behind us although the source was obscured by the intervening hill beyond the right turn.
The source must have been on the hill itself, and not airborne judging by the angle the glow was hitting the road. By the size of the glow on the road (about ten meters visible diameter), we realized it wasn't a cigarette butt either, and we both got a little bit of a shiver.
I tell my friend it might be a good idea to go, and he heartily agrees, we both are a little scared at this point. He fires up the Escort, and we promptly flip out. See, the car started fine, but every electronic device in his car that can make noise, his radar detector, his pager, and his stereo, all are making a pulsed high pitched and very loud noise. Sounded almost like when a CD player malfunctions in your stereo, like a pulsed digital noise.
We turn the volume down on the stereo, nothing happens. We turn the stereo off, nothing happens...unplugged the cig lighter power to the radar detector, nothing happens. Speakers in these devices seemed to be working off of pure inductance in their voice coils without any amplification from their supporting electronics.
I swear we both we're going to fill our pants we took off out of there so fast.
After about ten seconds of frenzied driving, the EM effects ceased, and his equipment began behaving normally. Never bothered to see if the glow we had seen was behind us or what, too scared while speeding away.
Never reported it to the cops or other authorities, would have just gotten a ticket for smoking dope.
Have reflected on this numerous times with my friend, don't believe it was anything "E.T.ish" or whatever. Sometimes I wonder if we got hit with a beam from a JointSTARS or some other military aircraft in the region. That could potentially explain the inductance in the speakers, which have a much lower threshold of resistance to outside EM effects then say the car's ignition system. But I have no clue what that oversized mystery cigarette butt was.
Just totally weird night.
((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. We do not know what a JOINTSTARS aircraft is, but it seems to us that the metal body of the car would have served as a Faraday Cage, and therefore would have shielded all, or most, of the electronic equipment in the car, particularly the radio, which probably was shielded by the metal in the dashboard, and the metal of the hood and the firewall. PD))
Given the anonymous nature of your reporting requirements, and the fact I just found your site, I figured what the heck because I have dwelled on the issue for some time and just need to get it out. Plus I'm at work wasting time reading your case files, and I do have one to tell.
Myself and my friend were 21 at the time, in his Ford Escort parked just outside the city of Idaho Falls, ID, near the High-C waterpark about a quarter mile from a railroad bridge. It is called Zombie Bridge by the locals. It is fairly isolated, with only a few homes dispersed over about two square miles.
The car was parked facing approx. northwest along the road, steep hillside to the left, creek to the right. Not sure if road is paved now, but in those days it was graded gravel only. If you head the opposite direction from the car's orientation, there is a sharp right turn about fifty meters behind where we were parked. We were being naughty at the time, in that we were ((alleged minor infraction deleted)) (hence my reticence about disclosing the incident), just sitting there in his car in the dark, ((deleted)). Only other sound were the multitudes of crickets out and about.
We decided to leave as we both had to work in the morning. I get out to relieve myself in the bushes by the creek and when returning to the car, saw an erratic light. Best way to describe it was akin to when someone flicks a still-lit cigarette butt in the dark. Erratic in movement, orange, and very dim in apparent magnitude.
It came from the direction in front of the car, over the car, decended just like if it was falling, and then it looked like it "bounced" on the ground about forty meters behind the car. Never made a sound.
I thought someone was nearby and had actually flicked a cigarette butt at first, and looked around. Realized it would take some pretty impressive cigarette butt flicking to launch one forty meters or so, and no one was around, so I got in the car somewhat perplexed at what I'd seen.
My friend had seen it too, and queried me what it was, and I replied that I didn't know. He also noted the crickets had stopped chirping, and I noticed that as well when he said it, which was eerie. We both looked in the rearview mirrors, and noticed the "cigarette butt," or at least its glow, was shining on the road behind us although the source was obscured by the intervening hill beyond the right turn.
The source must have been on the hill itself, and not airborne judging by the angle the glow was hitting the road. By the size of the glow on the road (about ten meters visible diameter), we realized it wasn't a cigarette butt either, and we both got a little bit of a shiver.
I tell my friend it might be a good idea to go, and he heartily agrees, we both are a little scared at this point. He fires up the Escort, and we promptly flip out. See, the car started fine, but every electronic device in his car that can make noise, his radar detector, his pager, and his stereo, all are making a pulsed high pitched and very loud noise. Sounded almost like when a CD player malfunctions in your stereo, like a pulsed digital noise.
We turn the volume down on the stereo, nothing happens. We turn the stereo off, nothing happens...unplugged the cig lighter power to the radar detector, nothing happens. Speakers in these devices seemed to be working off of pure inductance in their voice coils without any amplification from their supporting electronics.
I swear we both we're going to fill our pants we took off out of there so fast.
After about ten seconds of frenzied driving, the EM effects ceased, and his equipment began behaving normally. Never bothered to see if the glow we had seen was behind us or what, too scared while speeding away.
Never reported it to the cops or other authorities, would have just gotten a ticket for smoking dope.
Have reflected on this numerous times with my friend, don't believe it was anything "E.T.ish" or whatever. Sometimes I wonder if we got hit with a beam from a JointSTARS or some other military aircraft in the region. That could potentially explain the inductance in the speakers, which have a much lower threshold of resistance to outside EM effects then say the car's ignition system. But I have no clue what that oversized mystery cigarette butt was.
Just totally weird night.
((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. We do not know what a JOINTSTARS aircraft is, but it seems to us that the metal body of the car would have served as a Faraday Cage, and therefore would have shielded all, or most, of the electronic equipment in the car, particularly the radio, which probably was shielded by the metal in the dashboard, and the metal of the hood and the firewall. PD))
No
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
Off
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
Idaho Falls
USA
1 minute
1 minute
43.51
-111.97
light
ID
Occurred : 5/12/1996 02:00 (Entered as : 05/12/1996 2:00) Reported: 5/25/2005 4:31:34 PM 16:31 Posted: 5/28/2005 Location: Idaho Falls, ID Shape: Light Duration: 1 minute Characteristics: There were lights on the object, The object landed, There were electrical or magnetic effects
I never have told anyone about this because of the illegal nature of what we were doing when the event occured. Given the anonymous nat