2020-01-02 - Mentor, OH - Cigar

NE Ohio Low Flying Blimp-like Sighting

Approximately two weeks ago (today is 1/16/2020) my wife and I were traveling East on Route 2 in Mentor, Ohio (Northeast Ohio near Lake Erie) after dark approximately 7 PM. As we passed by the 615 exit, we both noticed that on the south side of the highway, our right, there looked like what we both thought was a low flying blimp just above the tree line. I kept my eye on it for about 10 seconds, then said to her, “hey look at that blimp, I wonder why that’s in town there are no sporting events or reasons to be around.” What we saw appeared to be a wide bank of lights that was white in the middle and Green on one end, and Red on the other end like normal aircraft markings. If I had to estimate size, I would say 20 feet wide or larger. I thought it was a blimp because the whole light panel was quite bright, and the object was slow moving or stationary. I can’t say if it was moving, or if it looked like it was moving because we were, but it was clearly very wel! l lit and low visible through the top of the trees. As we got near the Heisley Road exit, right when we would’ve been under it, the lights just turned off and we couldn’t see it anymore. The windows were up so I don’t know if there was sound, but when the lights went off, it was just gone, not flying around with the lights off. I thought it was strange because in my mind if it was a blimp, or low flying known craft, there is no way it’d be legal to be flying with lights off. There are a few local airports but this was not a plane that was on its way to land with extra lights on. I was going to just write this off as weird, but I’ve been hearing about similar “drone” sightings going on around the country so I decided this was now worth reporting. One detail I remember is that when the lights turned off, it was similar to when you turn off football stadium lights off. You could see them dim out over a few seconds rather than just immediately disappearing like an LED.