1999-09-11 - Nantahala National Forest, NC - Light

What we saw was a patch of illumination that was somewhat rectangular and vertical in orientation. It was approximately 30 degrees above the horizon in the Southeast. It was very luminous and when inspected w/ binoculars, it proved to have vertical lines that seemed to shimmer like sheer curtains when blowing in the breeze, or like the way you see fumes coming off of asphalt on a very hot day. My boyfriend who was there and saw it too, has seen Aroura Borealis in Northern Canada several times and that was the only thing that he could liken it to. The patch itself didn't move in the horizon, it remained stationary for at least an hour- an hour and 1/2. At times there were NO clouds near and we could see stars all around it and immediately next to it so it wasn't any upper atmospheric moisture that was illuminated by a ground light source, as I said, we were in the middle of the national forest. It didn't seem to have any particular color, other than illumination. At first we thought, at a glance, that it might be some anomoly of clouds illuminated by a new moon, but the moon NEVER appeared in the horizon, and there were NO clouds in that vicinity. In unusal circumstances there have been times that the Aroura Borealis has been sighted in this hemisphere, that is what drew us to the conclusion that we seeing it also. Perhps it was a NASA experiment, or, MAYBE, just maybe, life from another planet???