2007-08-10 - Hancock, ME - Cigar

Elongated cigar shape, translucent or transparent, controlled flight, no fuselage

I was swimming at Hancock Point Dock, and after a swim, I laid down on the dock on my back. I had sunglasses on; these screened out UV and so I could see quite well. Clouds were at high altitude (cirrus), mostly blue sky and the clouds were scattered. I had been thinking that it would be a good time to spot and observe a UFO, which I am interested in generally. Previously at the dock, I had seen some somewhat unusual things including one craft which looked like a more angular Space Shuttle with no contrail at high altitude going southwest to northeast (that was in a previous month perhaps about May 2007, and it occurred just after the Space Shuttle was launched that day, so I assumed I may have seen the Space Shuttle although it seemed impossible to me at the time). Anyway on this day I was relaxed after swimming and saw a tubular shaped object. This looked like a translucent plastic tube, slightly tapered at both ends. It was proceeding from north to south at high altitude but below the cirrus clouds. I could see that because of its altitude, and because I could see it clearly, it must have been quite large, I would estimate about 30 feet wide or less. It looked like the general shape of straight across airplane wings, but was translucent looking similar to what a bubble or translucent plastic balloon, no color, and could see blue sky through it. Also, there was no fuselage or anything attached. The object moved much like airplane wings, not along its long axis but along the short axis for its direction of travel. It appeared quite stable in its motion and direction. I observed it for a minute or more; and although it did not seem to go behind any clouds, the object disappeared from view while it should have stayed in view. It did not look like any sort of "floater" or eye defect like that; it looked like a real object similar to a very high altitude balloon, and it did seem to slightly block out the upper cloud layer above it as it flew between me and the high cloud layer. It was defin! itely be low the cloud layer. Toward the end of the time when I was carefully watching this object, it seemed to waver slightly as if it was slightly shifted by wind, but this variation was very slight, and may have been a result of my own motion or even my imagination comparing the object's motion to the nearby cloud layer. This is really only the second time I felt I saw something unusual. In the early 1960s I saw a green fireball at night, silent, with green particles flying off it, but I had assumed at that time it was some sort of near Earth meteor and nothing very unusual-- (although that was the most phenomenal sighting of anything in my life-- with one friend (we were camping out, and my friend also saw that object). But that was huge; this translucent balloon looking thing was relatively tiny compared to that. There was no sound associated with the elongated balloon thing. One thing I would like to mention about it was that it did not seem random in its motion; rather, it stayed transverse to its flight path at all times as if it was controlled; a balloon would have moved end over end somewhat; this did not do that at all. As I said also it had no fuselage whatsoever, and seemed to have nothing at all other than the elongated translucent plastic looking material, slightly tapered at the ends but not pointed. I was wide awake at the time of the sighting, having just swum in very cold water, and I looked away several times and back at the object to test that it was really there.


((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. PD))