2004-08-24 - Denver, CO - Cylinder

Extremely bright small cylinder almost stationary in clouds abo e Denver.

Because of two other sightings in and around Denver, I'd like to mention the following event.

I stepped outside the two-story building in which I work to take a break and checkthe weather.

I was standing in the shadow cast by the two-story building just soouth of the one I work in. (A narrow parking lot separates the builidngs).

When I looked up into an area of the sky a little west and maybe north of where the sun was, behind the building, I saw a definite cylinder or elongated white light. It was in or surrounded by some brown hazy clouds with no defiinition. This bright white cyllinder appeared to be a plane, except that it was not moving along as it should, if it were a plane. It repeatedly disappeared and reappeared as if it might have been in this small patch of brownish haze. Outside this hazy area were small clouds with some brilliant highlights as they reflected the nearby sun.

Not sure if during the observation period the light might have drifted sligthly southward, toward the edge of the roof which blocked my view of the sun. but it seemed to be in basically one place, which caught my attention because the smaller clearly defined clouds, unlike the slight haze, were moving northward while the light seemed to be in the same spot or slightly drifting the other way from the spot where I tried to place my initial observation.

After maybe a minute the cylindrical light finally disappeared and did not reappear and a small cloud just to the west brightened intensely from the sunlight and this bright cloud started to burn my eyes so I looked away.

Possibly the cylinder was a balloon, if they can resemble the oblong "tailhook" type of years ago. It's bright illuminationn was similar to the nearby small clouds. The bright light definitely contrasted with the kind of haze in the area where it was located. Its reappearing and disappearance would be consistent with passing through the haze, if the haze had varying thickness.

But the object appeared to be a solid because it held its definite, narrow, small cylindrical shape each time it reappeared, unlike the clouds which were larger, more round and constantly shifting shape with wisps as clouds do.

i did not contact the local FAA, as suggested when I posted s multi-person sighting over Denver a year or two ago because the FAA person I spoke too was a little rude and obviously did not want ot be bothered with questions about wind speed, cloud elevations at the time of interest.

I merely post this in case someone else happened to see this unusual bright, slender object that was above and slightly south of overhead (5 or 10 degrees) and a little west of the sun at 3:30 p.m. when viewed from Downtown Denver, about four blocks west of Broadway.

I add the sky not covered by clouds or this patch of haze surrounding the cylinder was a deep and vivid blue on this particular afternoon. And, thinking back, I add that the hazy kind of light brownish-gray haze in the vicinity of the cylinder was different from the dominant blue sky and the bright clouds and wisps scattered around.