2008-12-14 - Gainesville, VA - Disk

I wanted to report an interesting sighting that occurred at 13:00 hours(1:00pm) on December 14 2008 in the towns of Gainesville/Haymarket Virginia, which is outside of Washington DC.

I am a Meteorologist and amateur astronomer with many years of trained observation of the day and night time sky.

I've added the 11:00am-2:00pm hourly weather report for the day the sighting occurred (1:00pm) and the Astronomical data for December 14 2008.

1:52 PM, Sun 14 December 2008 47° 28° 48% 30.45in 10mi 25000ft S13mph 0mph Broken Clouds 12:52 PM, Sun 14 December 2008 46° 27° 47% 30.45in 10mi 25000ft S13mph 0mph Broken Clouds 11:52 AM, Sun 14 December 2008 45° 25° 46% 30.5in 10mi 25000ft S17mph 24mph Broken Clouds 10:52 AM, Sun 14 December 2008 42° 28° 58% 30.53in 10mi 12000ft S13mph 0mph Broken Clouds Astronomical Data for December 14, 2008: Rise: Set: Actual Time: 7:19 AM EST 4:47 PM EST Civil Twilight: 6:49 AM EST 5:17 PM EST Nautical Twilight: 6:15 AM EST 5:50 PM EST Astronomical Twilight: 5:43 AM EST 6:22 PM EST Moon: 7:08 PM EST (12/14) 9:22 AM EST (12/14) Length Of Visible Light: 10h 27m Length of Day: 9h 28m Waning Gibbous, 94% Moon Illumination Sighting Report: I set out to walk my dog just as the 1:00 football games were beginning. As I walked into my backyard I was looking at the long contrails extending north to south across the deep blue sky.

I soon noticed a lower flying aircraft flying from the northeast to the southwest. As I watched the aircraft I soon noticed a small white object following close behind it. Stunned at first, I starred at the object trying to figure out what this object could be. After a few seconds of observation I noticed the object was white in color and disk or orb like in appearance.

While I watched the white disk it started swinging back and forth behind the airplane in a left to right type fashion. I wondered at first if I was seeing a big white bird, I quickly realized this was definitely not the case. As I watched the object swing left to right it all a sudden dove or dropped straight down and flew underneath the airplane for a few seconds, it then swung just under the plane to the left side and amazingly completely circled the airplane and then again trailed behind it.

I was absolutely amazed at what I was seeing, it was at this point I thought to myself, do I have time to run inside and grab my camera. I hesitated at first thinking the object would be gone by the time I got back. Than I thought, I have to try because know one will believe me if I don't get a picture-so off I went running. I grabbed the camera, ran back outside and was just able to take a short video as the object disappeared over Haymarket toward the Bull Run mountains.

I have tried to consider other explanations for this object but have been mostly unable to do so. The only possibility could be a in flight refuel for the air combats that are deployed to protect Washington DC airspace. I don't think this is much of a possibility since the aircraft the object was following was not military but a passenger plane. The white disk I saw was also not a conventional military aircraft. There wasn't any wings visible on the craft and the craft was more disk/orb like in appearance.

I wanted to report this sighting to you in hopes that someone else in my area may have also seen this remarkable ariel display.

I Thank You.