2009-05-10 - Newcastle, NSW (Australia) - Flash

Bright flash of light, seen metres above the ground moving in a straight line before taking off into the sky.

I am writing this report around a year after the incident. I still can’t get it out of my mind whilst the other witness has forgotten it even transpired. My father was driving me home, probably from our weekly grocery shop. We were less than a kilometre from home when it happened.

For context, it was 2019, and it was a bright clear-skied sunny afternoon, no later than 1700 I’d estimate if it was a weekday and there was a private airfield near the location where the incident occurred. However, the owners only flew this one old plane and the site, in general, was just worn down, so it’s not very relevant. I was a passenger in a car passing a park on the way home. I also didn’t have my glasses on. My eyesight is excellent, however, I just want to be transparent about this.

At first, I saw it in my peripheral vision, I turned my head to look just before it disappeared. My father, who had the best view from the side window and front windshield of the car asked me, “Did you see that?” and I replied “Yeah, what was it?” and he replied, “I don’t know.” Unfortunately, I didn’t ask him any more questions about it until a decent few months had past and he completely denied seeing the event at all when he was the one who had brought it up. I was so shocked at the time at what I had seen that I didn’t want to mention it lest I be seen as mad.

It was a bright light, completely bright like the sun. There was no metal that I could see, nothing reflective, it had a tail like a comet and shot from right to left. It flew off in an obtuse angle, around 130 degrees. It was only a few metres off the ground speeding so fast, the fastest thing I’ve ever seen. It was so fast if I blinked it would have been over and I would have missed it. If it had just gone straight I would have thought it was a beam of light or a reflection. It only lasted a few seconds but it was both the most beautiful yet most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

I’m still so stunned it happened to this day and in daylight too. It was a few metres away from the car and we were moving 50kms at the same time but I’ve never questioned what I saw though because it’s etched in my brain and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget. There wasn’t really anyone else around at the time, no one at the park where it occurred (above of) and the only other cars would have been going in the opposite direction at the time.

It looked to be at least a metre wide a half metre in height, that’s proportionally accurate but in relation to actual dimensions I’m not sure. The light came across my vision, right to left, then moved upwards, not straight up but it took no time to change its trajectory. After it began moving up in this direction, we turned into our street and could no longer see the park or the strange flash of light. It was probably oval-shaped but because of how fast it was moving it just looked like a bright yellow long light.