1999-09-07 - St. Petersburg, FL - Cigar

something strange in the sky

At approximately 5:10 a.m. on Tuesday Sept.7,I was working in St. Petersburg, Fl. I looked out of the dock door between the trailer and the top of the door. I saw something I did not recognize. I told my co-worker to "look at that." He asked me what I was looking at. We both moved one door south and looked out. Traveling from north to south was an object that I only could describe as a glass cigar tube with smoke in it and three equally spaced blue lights. It was not foggy that night. The moon was clearly visible. We watched this for approx. 20-30 seconds. There was no sound at all. We are 1/2 mile from St. Pete/Clearwater airport where the Coast Guard fly C1-30's out of. When they come in, it rattles our building. There was no sound. I first saw it when I was facing west. It traveled south approx. 70-80 degrees and disappeared. I then went to the east side of the dock and went out on the apron to see if I could see it. I saw nothing. I could not tell altitude or size or speed. We were listening to 970WFLA. Approx. 20 minutes after we saw this, the station said they were swamped with call of lights in the sky. I do not know exactly what I saw, but I know that the news explanation that night of a Russian rocket booster traveling at 17,000 mph did NOT satisfy my curiosity.