Oak Ridge, TN - Disk

Spotted 5 or 6 diffusely white-lit spheres arranged concentrically hovering overhead

UFO sighting Approximately 50 to 55 years ago when I was a pre-teen or early teen, I spotted a strange ‘happening’ in the night sky.

It was probably summer in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. My two sisters and I shared an upstairs bedroom. I looked out the open window, and turned my head and looked straight up. I don’t know why, maybe looking for stars.

I saw 5 or 6 lighted disks arranged concentrically. I don’t recall if the whole wheel of lights was circulating or not, but it stayed in the same position; directly overhead. I could only see the sky when looking directly overhead because of the tall trees everywhere else. The light from the ‘things’ was diffuse not sharply defined.

I don’t remember being alarmed, rather I thought it was fun, fascinating. I probably wondered if this could be experimental balloons? At least one of my sisters was in the room at the time. I am checking with them to see what they remember today.

I do remember someone mentioned they might be angels.

I don’t remember staying at the window for very long, so I didn’t see them move on.

Later in life, after meeting my husband, I mentioned this to him, but don’t think I felt comfortable telling anyone else due to the stigma attached to that.

The memory of the event is strong; always 5 or 6 orbs of light arranged in a circle, just hovering. Not sharply defined lights, but too perfect to be clouds. No way to tell how high up, but high enough that I was not alarmed in any way. Went to bed and slept well and didn’t think much about ‘it’.

I am reading the May 10 New Yorker article “The UFO Papers” by Lewis-Kraus, and I thought I would search for a way to report my sighting. I understand Congress will receive The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Papers this June. This is the reason I thought to look for a way to report my ‘thing’.

I am a 66 year old female. I graduated from The University of Tennessee with a degree in Plant and Soil Science. I never launched a career in that field, except to work as a lab assistant in Stuttgart, Germany for a 4 month practicum. I extended my work at the lab another 3 months after that, then toured Europe.

I worked for USAA for 10 years. USAA is a highly respected auto and property insurer. I met my husband at a ski area in Colorado, where he worked as a lift mechanic and I worked as a checker at the grocery store. We’ve been married for 35 years. He became an electrical engineer and I stopped working to become an artist and homemaker.

My father worked for Union Carbide, which later became The Atomic Energy Commission, and now The Dept. of Energy, at the Gasous Diffusion administration facility on the Oak Ridge Reservation. He was the internal auditor for the project. During the Cold War, he built a bomb shelter in our basement, as Oak Ridge was considered to be a target of attack by the Russians.

My mother worked in the Code Department for the US Army for a short period during WWII, and later after the war ended she was hired as a civilian to work in the Pentagon for The United Nations Assembly.