2003-02-01 - Englewood, FL - Rectangle

giant, silent,completely black rectangle pursued by military jets over englewood Florida seen by amateur astronomer.

I am an amateur astronomer with over 20 years experience. I am not certain about the date, I believe it was a Sunday night about 10:45 It was during a 3 day cold snap. It was really cold out, super clear sky, I put bundled up, took my binoculars, I was standing on my back yard patio, I was just looking around the sky trying to decide what to look at. It was so cold that I knew I wasn't going to stay out long. I was facing east, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw motion in the sky, I then turned and looked right at the object that caught my eye. It was a gigantic black rectangle. It had no lights at all, it made no sound at all. It was a very quiet night. It actually looked like a giant rectangle had been cut out of the sky! It was blacker than the darkest black. It moved so perfectly, with no effort, it moved across the sky in the most perfect straight line, unlike anything we see moving through the air. A very educated guess of its speed...about 550 mph! , I went across my entire left to right field of view in about 12 seconds, The size is what makes this a truly life changing sighting. I estimate that the rectangle was about 1 whole mile in length by a half mile in height. It was above my horizon about approximately between 48 and 55 degrees elevation. I estimate its altitude to be about 1 mile, at a distance between 2.5 to 3.5 miles away at the most. As the rectangle was leaving my sight I walked around my house to watch it as it got further and further away until I couldn't see it anymore. I was almost in shock with feelings of total awe. Just then, 2 airforce or navy fighter looking jets came roaring across the sky, following the same path as the rectangle. The jets were going about the same speed , maybe a little faster than the rectangle, the jets were in that commonly seen formation near each other , one ahead of the other offset kinda diagonal. The jets were long, skinny looking, pointy, very loud. The jets were flying lower than most common airplanes that you see everyday. We! ll, I mu st have spent the next 3 hours staring up at the sky, called relatives that lived near by. I wrote down the time and date of course but lost that information . about 4 years after this event, I did a simulation with a friend that owns airplanes. I stood exactly where I was standing, my friends wife co pilot, texted me that they could see me as they were flying by me. I watched his plane fly by. He was at an altitude of 1 kilometer and at a distance to me of 1.5 kilometers. And he flew by at a speed of 100 kilometers per hour. With this information is how I think I have a pretty decent description of the size, speed, altitude, distance of the jets and the rectangle. Nothing else happened for the rest of the night. This was southwest Florida in a very quiet neighborhood, pristine sky that night. I would give anything to talk to the jet pilots or whoever sent them up. I welcome all that have seen anything similar.