2002-04-15 - Peerless Park, MO

Here is a brief account of a UFO sighting we had just before 1:00 p.m. on Monday, April 15, 2002:

After having spent an additional night stopover in Springfield, Missouri, we were on our way back to the St. Louis area from the annual Ozark UFO Conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We we’re
travelling eastbound on the downhill portion of I-44, with “Forest 44” on the right and Lone Elk County Park on the left, a mile or two west of Peerless Park in southwest St. Louis County, Missouri. The sky was clear blue and cloudless, with a fair wind.

My wife was driving our car. She was looking upward through the car windshield and said to me, “Look out your passenger-side window and tell me what you see.” All I could see out the passenger window was the close-in trees…which is what I told her.

She said that she saw a large (as big as a silver dollar held at arm’s length), round object that was dark gray with a silver reflective edge. (The sun was slightly behind and to the right of our travel path at that point.) She also said that she expected whatever it was to pass right over or in front of the car – from right to left – and that I should watch the other side of the road (while she negotiated the interstate highway traffic) to see if I could see anything.

Only a few seconds later, we were on the flat portion of I-44 with a break in the trees on the left/north side of the highway. I immediately spotted a highly reflective, glaringly silver, object seemingly “hovering” in the distance. The object was oblong – about an inch long at arm’s length – and very thick. It was much thicker (at least two or three times) than the fuselage of an airplane. It had no appendages, or wings, at all.

Since we we’re travelling at highway speed in the car, the object may have been moving at an equal pace in relation to the speed of the car. However, I did not detect any movement on the object’s part in relation to the ground. But, the object was well above the background scenery -- between 20- to 30-degrees in elevation, with clear blue sky all around it -- so there was no easy reference point.

I only caught sight of the object for 2 or 3 seconds before an additional clump of trees obscured it from view. It was only another couple of seconds before we passed that final clump of trees and the object was suddenly no where to be seen! It was not seen again. (Since she was paying attention to traffic, my wife was not able to look over in time to see the object that I saw on the north side of the highway.)