2013-01-25 - Austin, TX - Light

Small maneuverable craft w/ two blue-white lights over Austin, TX

At 11:15pm on the evening of January 25th, 2013, at least three people witnessed an unidentified object maneuvering at a very low altitude, estimated to vary between 50 and 150 feet, near the corner of Duval and 45th St. in Austin, Texas. We observed from an estimated distance of about a city block away, perhaps less. The sky was dark but overcast, no stars or moon were visible. No other aircraft were sighted during the occurrence. The object was most definitely mechanical, and intelligently controlled. My impression of the object's size was that it was equivalent to or somewhat smaller than a helicopter, but I am uncertain. The most significant physical feature was what appeared to be two blue-white lights in close proximity that seemed to quickly oscillate with yellow, looking like headlights. (Though they appeared as headlights, their apparent brightness remained relatively uniform despite three-dimensional maneuvering). Somewhat higher and slightly offse! t from these was a smaller periodically flashing red light, but this was only intermittently visible, due I believe to the face of the object that contained the flashing light being turned away as it maneuvered. Because of the lights' brightness and the dark of night, the actual shape of the object was difficult to make out. The object made no sound, of jets or propeller blades, and left no contrails.

The object's motion was most peculiar. It was capable of great dexterity and unpredictability, sudden acceleration and stops, hovering, and a very slow controlled vertical descent. It would shoot off very quickly in a straight line, stop on a dime, hover for about 30 seconds, then perform a very slow zigzag, stop and hover again for a period, then dip and weave off to another section of sky and repeat similar motions. At two points the object stopped in air, hovered, then very slowly descended vertically to disappear behind the roof edge of the apartment complex on the corner. It remained unseen from our vantage point for about 2 minutes, then unexpectedly came zipping back into view. For the entire period of observation, the object stayed within the same area, roughly a square city block. It did not appear to be following any conventional search pattern, but instead behaved very erratically.

I was waiting at the corner for a bus when I first noticed the object, noting it at first for the unusual brightness of the light and its low altitude. As I began to take photos with my phone (unfortunately, the camera is low-quality), a youth also waiting at the bus stop noticed and began to take video with his smart phone. As we continued to observe and document, marveling to each other and trying to identify the object, its motions became more and more bizarre, as described above. About 5 minutes into this, a resident of the apartment complex came by, noticed and commented on the strangeness of the object as well, but didn't stay for more than a moment. After about 15 minutes, the battery on my phone had gone out, and the object had disappeared beyond the roof's horizon for several minutes. As I traded contact info with the youth, the bus came; I got on and left.

I can confirm without reservation that the object I saw was neither a plane nor a helicopter of any type. I did observe a police helicopter performing a search later in the evening in a different part of town, and can report that the light patterns and motions of the two were absolutely dissimilar.

I am a 29-year-old college graduate, history major. I work in education, helping to build websites for educational curriculum. I am not an active UFO hunter, and have never seen anything like this before. I don't know the fellow taking the video or his background, but he appeared to be about 18, and was just as flabbergasted as I was. The woman who observed in passing was most likely a college student, as that area is very close to the University of Texas. I am still waiting for word from the youth, hoping that he will send me the video to forward along. Unfortunately, the photos I did manage to get on my phone are pretty low-resolution, but if you zoom in on the bright blue object in the center of most of them, you will see the basic shape of the twin lights I have described.