2009-04-01 - Gainesville, FL - Changing

One fiery ball that grew into a crescent shape, then an apparent battle between 2 jets and a small craft.

On the night in question, I was hiking on the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail, a greenway that runs south of Gainesville east towards Hawthorne. I don't remember the exact date or time unfortunately at this point, but I do remember the sighting occured at the tail end of dusk, when stars were beginning to pop into the sky. As I was climbing a hill on the trail, I looked up to see some of the stars and planets coming out. This was almost directly east, as the trail in that section runs that way. As I glanced at some directly in front of me and straight down the trail, I noticed what appeared to be an explosion in the sky, in my peripheral vision, about 10-20 degrees to my right. The moon was in the sky, I think about 3/4 full, and it was a further ten or so degrees to the right. The object I saw was about a quarter of the moons diameter, I would reckon. The object, or the explosion, seemed to grow, or shift, at first, but then held a circular shape for about 5-10! seconds. After this time, "wings" seemed to grow or appear out of the top and bottom, again seemingly on fire, with many colors and stange flashes continuing within the "fire." The wings formed with the original ball a crescent shape. If I had to guess its size, based on the distance I think it was from me, I would say 300-500 feet in length, from wing tip to wing tip. I don't quite remember exactly how the explosion/object/craft disappeared, just that it seemed to quite quickly. This particular object I saw in the sky for about twenty seconds in totality.

After the above object disappeared, I saw a second event about one or two seconds after, and about three degrees to the left in the sky. Two lights, which seemed to be obvious jets of human design, were flying quite fast in what I would consider to be combat manuevers. Working seemingly in concert they both were performing roll after roll, never stopping turning, and seemingly at full speed. The distance from me to them was great enough that I could not hear them, but despite the many turns, they were moving left across my vision, that is north, at a good clip. As I watched them in wonder, for as I said I noticed them first directly after and adjacent to the strange object above, I noticed a much smaller light, so small I didn't see it at first. This light appeared to be a tiny craft, and it was flying in between the two jets, seemingly dodging or fighting with them. For all intents and purposes, it appeared what I was watching was a battle. This battle continued and ran, as! I said above, left and north across my vision. I was only halfway up a hill while watching all this, and the craft, all three of them, slipped behind some trees. I ran the rest of the way up the hill to try to see the encounter, but I never saw anything strange again that night, or since.


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