1999-07-26 - Chicago, IL - Disk

Slow moving, then rapid moving to out of view disc shapes object in night sky

My friend and I were sitting in my car talking about things. I was looking out of the drivers side window as my friend kept talking. I was looking out west. Midway airport was just south east of us, so planes come in to land. There was a tree a couple of blocks down and I thought it was just a black plastic garbage back attached to the tree blowing in the wind or something. It was a black shiny object. It started to drift away from the tree (to the left) very slowly. That's when I noticed it was really far away, not part of the tree or a plastic bag. It was drifting in a perfect straight line to the left looking like this shape: \ My friend saw me staring out there, and just as he looked at it, it lit up. The lights seems to be in a spinning motion. The object moved down a little bit, then all of a sudden is "zig-zagged" VERY quickly and zoomed behind the tree out of sight. It had to have been many miles away because it was no where near the actual tree, just out of view. My friend and I got out of the car and were trying to come up with an explaination. Minutes later, 5-6 aircraft went in towards the area where the object had "disappeared" behind the tree out of our view (I see aircraft and helicopters both FAR away and upclose since I live next to the airport!). I had never seen anything like it and I am very skeptical of UFO sightings. This was my first. I was thinking that maybe it was a military test or something. I could hardly sleep last night thinking about it. The way the lights pulsed together making a rotation effect....and the way it was just drifting so slow and then moved VERY fast from such a great distance. I thought I was crazy, but my friend explained it to the me same way I saw it....rotating lights....zig-zag and GONE at a high rate of speed.