2013-02-20 - Sarasota, FL - Light

Unexplained light in night sky changes color before disappearing.

Earlier this year I had a sighting of an aerial object from my house was mthat aybe not so incredible, but unexplained nonetheless. This sighting took place at approximately 9pm from my home in Sarasota, Florida.

I was outside on my deck talking on the phone with a friend when I spotted an unusaul white light in the night sky at just about a 45 degree angle traveling at a slow, steady speed, at what looked like a linear path approaching me from the South in a North or Northeast heading. This light was about the size of a pencil eraser or around 3x the size of the brightest star Sirius, but not as brilliant. I asked my friend if he could see anything and he confirmed he did. He was about 12 miles Northwest of me in the neighboring town of Bradenton. He was further from the object than I was and it would have been lower in the horizon from his point of view, but he still had an unobstructed view since the land here is completely flat.

He was excited like myself, and urged me to bring out my telescope to have a closer look. I wanted to but I did not want to miss anything, and I was afraid the object would have disappeared by the time I set up my telescope (about 2 minutes time in a hurry). Both of us agreed this was not a Satellite, much too large and traveling too slow at what appeared to be an altitude of 10,000 ft. or so, definitetly not orbital. I also ruled out a helicopter because there was no sound. I still had not ruled out a possible large aircraft on approach to Sarasota/ Bradenton airport. It was not far off the appoach path commercial jet airliners take, and so I thought it might be the nose and wing lights appearing as one light head on, as they often do. As the light traveled east of me and I was looking at it from the side, this now seemed unlikely. In addition, there were no red and green navigation lights, and again there was no sound.

After 3-4 minutes of this white light traveling in the sky, it suddenly changed to a red color! The best way I could describe it was the white light was extinguished and turned to a more subduded deep red color. It appeared to continue to travel in the same direction and speed. This lasted for maybe 5-10 seconds and then it disappeared all together. I immediately asked my friend to describe what he saw, and he collaborated what I just witnessed. We couldn't believe it! I continued to scan the skies for several more minutes, but saw nothing further.

Summing this up, I witnessed a large white-lighted object for a duration of approximately 4 minutes, traveling in the night sky at a slow rate of speed, then suddenly turning red before disappearing. The light was always steady, not strobed. Impossible to make out a shape of the object behind the light. There was no sound.

I consider myself a competent sky observer, having a pretty good knowledge of aircraft and the night skies. I'm 44 years of age and this is the first and only time I have ever observed a light in the sky that I could not explain to my satisfaction. This event happened earlier this year in February and apologize for submitting this late, but I thought it worthwhile. At the time of this sighting, I did in fact check the online submitted UFO reports and local newspaper to see if this strange light had been reported by anyone else here in Sarasota area, but I did not find anything.


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