2008-08-22 - Westlake, LA - Unknown

Daylight sighting of very large and bright starlike object moves then disappears after 40 min. observation

As it has been my new custom for the past three months to spend my evenings laying in my backyard pool relaxing, birdwatching, and watching the sunset on every clear sky evening possible; I was doing the same yesterday (08/22/2008).

While sky gazing at 7:15 PM yesterday, I noticed a very bright object in the sky due South of my residence in Westlake, LA at the 3 o’clock position in the sky. The object looked similar to a star, except it appeared to be about ten times larger and brighter than any star or planet that I have ever witnessed in my many years of sky watching. It should be noted that sunset this evening was at 7:46 PM and normally stars would not start to appear until about 30 minutes after sunset. (This “star” was out about an hour early with the sun still shining brightly). I watched the object for several minutes and it appeared to be stationary. I then went into the house and got my binoculars to have a better look at it and still it appeared to look only like a extremely large star. However, due to the size of the object and the way it appeared in the sky I would say that the object appeared to be high in the sky but not beyond the atmosphere.

At 7:30 PM, I called my wife out of the house to witness the unusual day light “star”.

I continued to watch the “star” until 7:55 PM (a total of 40 minutes) and to the eye it appeared stationary, but apparently it was slowly moving to the West as it was now clearly located directly South West (a 45 degree change in direction), but still at the 3 o’clock position in the sky. At this point, the very bright clearly seen “star” got fuzzy and appeared to be starting to pull apart and quickly faded away against the cloudless sky. About a minute after the “star” faded away, an Air Force B-52 flew directly over my house at a low altitude flying South Westerly and flew exactly past the last position of the large daylight “star” that had just faded away. I had called my wife back out of the house to witness that the “star” was now gone, as the B-52 aircraft passed overhead. It should be noted that this is first time that I have ever witnessed a B-52 in flight since leaving the military in 1982. I believe that the closest active military air base to my home in 200 miles to the North in Shreveport, LA and any military aircraft in our area is somewhat rare.

I remained outside to document the time that readily recognized “normal” stars start to appear with the first dim star appearing at 8:00 PM and the second at 8:15 PM. The extremely large and bright daylight “star” that faded away against a clear sky never reappeared in the sky by the time I ended my watch at 10:00 PM last night.

For the record, this is my second UFO report filed with the NUFORC. The first and more spectacular event occurred near Kinder, LA in May 1977.