1999-10-17 - Jacksonville, FL - Chevron

Gray Chevron maneuvers and hovers above NFL game

This event actually occurred in 1999 during an NFL football game I attended with my brother. In the second half of the game I noticed a few individuals seated a couple rows in front of us were looking upward and pointing. When I looked up I saw nothing initially and then spotted a gray boomerang or chevron shaped object high above our heads. The object spun horizontally on the axis of it's left "wing" for a some seconds and then became stationary. It remained motionless for a time and then slowly turned vertically with it's edge facing downward, front or back edge I couldn't discern. The object took the form of a straight line showing a flat profile with no apparent fuselage or cockpit. These maneuvers took place over a three minute period and the motions were very slow but deliberate.

I was raised in a neighborhood that is in the flight path of NAS Jax and that has afforded me the opportunity to observe various types of military and civilian aircraft from blimps and balloons to C130 transports and P-3s. Given my familiarity with aircraft this object was utterly foreign to me. The skies were cloudy that day and the color of the object was somewhat darker than the gray clouds. There were no features that could be seen with the naked eye or with binoculars and no external or internal light sources. Since it was overcast it couldn't be determined if the object had any reflective properties.

There was a breeze in the stadium but whether there was any upper level winds I couldn't say. I couldn't judge with any accuracy the altitude of the object but the banner planes and the helicopter circling the stadium at approximately 700 feet didn't seem to notice the object. For some reason I had the impression that the object was slowly rising and thought it may have been debris from the banner planes, perhaps a letter L that had detached and was caught in an updraft. However the seemingly rigid structure it displayed when turning and spinning discounted that idea.

I should mention that my brother was also observing the object with the naked eye and with binoculars and he perceived that the object was ribbon-like and pliant.

This was completely counter to what I saw and I suspect that he wanted me to dismiss the object just as everyone around us had. Most of the fans in our area had not noticed the object and those who had spotted it initially now ignored it and were caught up in the game. I continued to observe the object for a full fifteen minutes during which time the object resumed a horizontal stationary position over the stadium with the chevron pointed north. After several minutes it slowly began to move in a northerly direction. As it progressed I noticed a commercial jet heading northwest, presumably departing from JIA. I guessed that the jet was still climbing and had not yet reached a cruising altitude of 32,000 feet. I guesstimated that it may have been at perhaps 26,000 to 28,000 feet and tried to determine the altitude of the object in relation to the plane. At one point I lost the object in the gray clouds and I believe it entered the clouds rather than was camouflaged against them.

The plane however remained in view and didn't pass into any cloud cover. If the object did go into a cloud bank that would seem to indicate that it was at a higher altitude than the plane. The two were many miles apart and didn't pass very close to one another but I could determine that at their respective positions that the object was larger than the commercial plane passing nearby. I can't begin to imagine the dimensions of the object if my interpretation was correct. The object held it's course and eventually I lost it in the clouds. There was no mention of it in any evening newscasts.

((NUFORC Note: There must have been many witnesses to this event. We would welcome reports from any other witnesses to this event. PD))