1996-05-12 - Sewanee, TN - Sphere

Saw a perfect silver, metalic sphere move with unnatural physics in a crystal clear, afternoon sky.

I am a female, raised in TN, who at the time of this sighting was about 26 years old. While friends and family members have had very vivid UFO sightings, this is only one of two sightings for me, but this was the most vivid experience that I have ever had. I have never heard of anyone seeing an object like this until I read about something eerily similar tonight on your web page (sighting dated March 23, 2004), so I thought that I should maybe share this. I can not remember the exact date, but I clearly remember that it was between 13:30 and 14:00 hours. I was traveling down a long, straight road that usually has frequent activity, like plenty of birds, squirrels, cars, deer, wind, etc. It was a lovely, crystal clear afternoon and my windows were down. Halfway along, I realized that there was total stillness - no breeze, animals, cars, nothing. I slowed the car from around 55 mph to about 20 mph and began actively looking for signs of life. There was NO movement except an airplane very high in the sky until I noticed, in a separate part of the sky, an absolutely perfect, shiny, smooth, seamless, metalic silver sphere at an undiscernable altitude. I slowed down even more and tried very hard to evaluate what as going on here. My mind kept trying to make it something, like how the mind will fill in the gaps for a cartoon strip without conscious effort. I calmed myself and tried to just take pure data. I couldn't pull over because there were no shoulders, but I used the tree horizons to establish a spacial context for myself and the flying object. That was when I began to see the true peculiarity of this object. Fundamentally, it was flying in a straight line, maybe a very slight curve, from west to east. But what I saw was a display of confounding physics - the object appeared to be going very, very slowly but it was gaining sky-ground quickly. I tried hard to determine if it was jumping, coming in and out, but no - it practically looked stationary, but it would have suddenly moved a good sized distance. I feel almost unable to describe how strange this was, how clear but confusing. This unnatural physics disturbed me more than it's unfamiliar and very captivating shine and shape. I kept my eye on it. When I arrived at a spot where I could pull over, I stopped the car, still watching it, slowly opened my door, kept watching, got out slowly (still no birds, cars, or even a breeze), had it with my naked eye for about 3 seconds and then it vanished. Just there then gone. I continued to watch the sky for about 1 minute and then there were two cars, birds started flying, and then I realized I could hear all the usual, daytime sounds where before there only had been that very still, stifled silence. Life came back into action. Everything went normal. The stillness and silence lifted like a frickin' blanket pulled off. I felt worried that I had lost time, so I checked when I arrived at the library. I don't think I lost any time, but if I did, it was 15-20 minutes at most.

For me, what was most striking was the crystal clear day, the seeming simplicity of the shape, and the bizaare accompanying stillness and silence, like time had stopped. What confounded me and convinced me that the entire event was a UFO sighting was the peculiar and unexplainable physics of the object's non-motion/motion across the sky. I felt remarkably clear-headed and calm for the remainder of the day, which I also found a bit bizaare. Why I'm reporting it now is because I just read, for the first time, that someone else saw perfect, shiny spheres on a crystal clear (exact words!) afternoon. This struck me. Same shape, same conditions. So I wanted to add my experience.

Thank you for collecting the data.


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