2005-09-14 - Vincennes, IN - Changing

Night sighting of shape changing object sighted over Vinncennes IN, by experienced balloon pilot.

At 10:45 on Wednesday, September 14th 2005, my friend Silas and I had finished running on the track at Vinncennes University in Knox County, Indiana. Before I go farther, I should mention that I have a private pilot's liscense for hot air balloons. Thus I have a very good idea of distances and sizes as they relate to airborne objects. I am familiar with the airspace around the University. We were laying on the pole vault mat, looking upward, facing the westward sky, and at approximately 10:45 pm (22:45) a large, cigar shaped object descended from the cloud cover. The broad side of the object was parallel to the ground, and what could be considered the nose was at approximately 80 degrees to the direction of travel. Flying no more than 1000 feet agl directly over us, I could tell because the ceiling that night was 2500 ft, and flew directly over us. We were perfectly aligned to see it, as it flew between the moon, (~3 days before a full moon) and our position. As it flew over us, I estimated it to be about 300 ft. long. There was a faint purple aura around the margins, and it appeared to spin clockwise at moderate speed. It appeared to be constructed from some sort of metal, and gave the impression of a brownish color. Moving to the east at roughly 75 mph, soundlessly, it passed over us and came to a complete stop. At that point, it changed shape into what looked to be a boomerang. At this point, it moved to the north, back to the west, hovered, would move to the south, then southwest, stop , hover and move again. It appeared to be doing some sort of manoeuver. Finally, it changed shape one more time and became a cube-like structure, it began moving to the east again very rapidly. I was extremely disturbed by this image. It then disappeared behind a building, and we pursued it on foot, but when we moved behind the building it had completely disappeared.

Vincennes University and surrounding is a MOA, and there are scheduled dogfights with F-16 fighters regularly. I know what these occurences look like. This was not one of them. I notified the FAA, and was informed that the MOA just hours before was scheduled to be shutdown for dogfighting for the night. At the last second, the dogfights were cancelled and the F-16s were grounded. Not more than 1-2 hours after the figure had disappeared, the MOA was active again with airborne F-16s engaging in dogfights.

Other people were present during the sighting, at least 200 yds away, but had no concrete view of the craft because the angle between the moon and the craft was wrong.