1999-10-17 - Charlotte, NC - Cigar

Cigar shaped craft seen over my home town being chased by a formation of fighter pilots.

I have no outstanding credentials that might account for what i saw but here it is. One sunny clear afternoon in Charlotte, North Carolina, I was driving in my car. I was on my way home from my ex-girlfriend's house. She lives in a town close to Charlotte. So I'm traveling on the outskirts of Charlotte on a rural road. There are farms and fields all around. I'm driving along and I notice a formation of what appear to be F-16 fighter pilots. It's not everyday you see a squadron over a populated area. And at such a low altitude. I'm no pilot, but i would have guessed their altitude to be approximately 5000 feet. Anyway, i'm watching these pilots fly off to the west and out of my view. I drive a few more miles down the road, thinking of what they could possibly be doing out of charlotte and then i see them again. Only this time they're flying back from the west heading east. By this time I'm thinking, "Hey wouldn't it be cool if there was a UFO in the area." Well by now I'm getting really close to my neighborhood (about 3 miles). I approach the crest of this hill and on my way down the other side of the hill, I look a few miles down the road. There it was. I huge cigar-shaped craft. This craft resembled the fuselage of a regular passenger aircraft but it was much bigger and longer than your average airplane. At first i thought i was seeing things, thinking that it may be a blimp, but this was no blimp. Blimps are oblonged shaped, looking much like an egg in shape. So now I'm about 2 miles from my neighborhood. Keep in mind this is a very populated area of south Charlotte. At this point I'm driving like moron trying to avoid an accident while watching this craft.. I watch it ( at first it was motionless) but it starts to head east very slowly. i watch it until it disappears over the into the trees. I continue driving, trying to look for it as i approach the aboretum (a.k.a. a very large shpping area). I turn right onto Highway 51 in the direction the craft disappeared to and i was thinking, "Okay, I'm goi! ng to se e it again." But to my reluctance i did not. Finally I get to my neighborhood. I immediately called my ex to tell her what i saw. After i told her about it she said she saw those fighter pilots for a while flying over her town of Monroe, NC. Now I'm stading outside, talking to her on the phone. Suddenly i hear what sounds like thunder(even louder). I look up to see an F-16 doing an intense maneuver directly over my neighborhood. I waited 5 more minutes to see it again. But i never did see the cigar shaped craft again that day. Later that night, I talked to some of my friends. After i told them what had happened they said that earlier in the day some people had called a one of the local rock stations to and were reporting UFOS over Charlotte. To this day I wonder about UFOS and after what I saw would like to know what the military was doing over the skies of my town.