1998-03-31 - Baraboo, WI - Light

a yellow-orange light that zipped or zig-zagged, apparently a mile or two away on the southeastern horizon.

I am an associate editor at FATE magazine, and was investigating a report of a recurring UFO sighting in Baraboo. I met the witness, a Baraboo resident, on both March 31 and April 5, and we had sightings on both mornings, which were shared by one friend of mine on March 31 and two different friends on April 5. I will enter data on the more interesting April 5 incident in a separate posting to come. I have written about my experience in the forthcoming June issue of FATE, but wanted to place the information here since I am not getting a response from members of Wisconsin MUFON after three weeks since contacting them. This is apparently a _recurring_ incident. At 4:45 a.m. CST on March 31, I met the witness. I was training my binoculars on the southeastern horizon (an area known as the Baraboo Bluffs, in the vicinity of several radio and microwave towers) when I saw a orange-yellowish light soar a few degrees across the horizon. My friend, viewing with the naked eye, said she saw it zig-zag. I had the impression of an old-fashioned orange computer cursor that leaves a trail as it glides across a blank screen. It was bright, anomalous, very short-lived, and not easy to explain. We then runined any further opportunity to observe the light by driving off in the wrong direction, after which it was too bright and too foggy for us to see anything more. We concluded that the sighting may have been a UFO or other kind of anomalous ground-light activity. I returned to Baraboo on April 5 with two other friends. We discovered then that at least part of what our witness was describing, observing, and photographing was nothing more than good old planet Venus, in the southeastern sky. Disappointed, we waited around for a few hours and prepared to leave. But once again, while I was training my binoculars high in the southern sky on Venus (at 8:10 a.m. CDT), my friends and I had another strange sighting. This time, a bright white light seemed to emerge from behind the center of a thin cloud, a few degrees "below" Venus. It was tens of thousands of feet high. It "swooped" below the cloud (from our perspective) and seemed to leave a bright light impression or reflection before vanishing. I had the impression of the shape of a powerfully lit electric moth. Again, this was seen by myself, two friends, and the Baraboo witness. The whole thing seemed to resemble an extremely odd entrail from a plane, and I have not been able to look into this yet, but (1) we saw no physical craft, and (2) we agreed that it motion was far too anomalous, especially since it was 8 a.m. on a Sunday, and supposedly recurring. I believe there is some basis in truth for what the Baraboo witness has been reporting, but fact and fallacy have been difficult to separate. The Baraboo witness may report his extensive sightings soon by phone, but I personally can offer these two reports which were shared by a number of my friends, and seem to be consistent with most of the witness's claims. Since this is apparently a recurring event, I personally recommend that somebody with more resources investigates. I am available for more information.