2002-01-09 - Cherry Valley, IL - Oval

I was driving home from work about 6:35 pm, going W. on State Street in Cherry Valley,(small town just east and a bit south of Rockford, IL.) and when I came to the stop sign at Mill Rd., I happened to look up at the sky and notice a bright, glowing, totally red craft moving across the sky, as if it's entire surface were lit up in darkish red neon.( The red was like that of a dark beaded glass strawberry.) It was flying high, at an altitude I'd expect to see planes, and it moved directly across as much of the sky as I could see in about a minute, heading south at first. When it was in front of me it started to veer off to the south west. At first, all I saw was the totally red oval light. After awhile it seemed to change position, and then what looked like 4 red, glowing "legs" became visible. It brought to mind some kind of bug, maybe even a crab, except that it had fewer legs. The way it flew reminded me of a helicopter. After turning the corner and heading north onto Mill Rd., I waited at the light for about a minute, still keeping the craft in sight. After turning left(west) onto Harrison Ave., I watched it for about another minute, until losing sight of it. It never made any sound that I could hear.

The total illumination of the body and legs, along with the fact that there were no white or green lights on the craft, made me wonder where it was from. After checking with MUFON, I learned others have seen "the spider" as well. This happened on the same night, a few minutes prior to the sighting of the famous "yellow lights" in Freeport, IL. Freeport is about 40 minutes west of where I was, straight up rte. 20. Route 20 is about 1 mile south of Harrison Ave., the road I was on.