In his two decades of UFO research, David Marler, director of the Illinois State MUFON division, has never encountered an incident like the one that occurred in the early morning of January 5, 2000, when a huge UFO, the flight path of which took only two miles from Scott Air Force Base, several police officers were tracking.
The first to notice an unusual object in the sky is Melvern Knoll, the owner of an indoor mini-golf course located in the town of Highland, which is located about 40 km from St. Louis. In the off-season, Knoll uses his truck to deliver goods at any time of the day or night.
On Wednesday, January 5, at about 4 am, returning home from another trip, he decided to test his mini golf. I parked the truck at the back door to the building and, getting out of the car, noticed a "bright star" in the northeast, but paid no attention to it. Only later, on the way back, he saw her again and, this time, stopped and looked closely.
The Bright Star moved towards him, and after a few minutes Knoll realized that the white light was only part of a large rectangular object, several stories high, with rows of bright rectangular windows and many dim red lights on the bottom.
For five minutes, while the object continued to move from northeast to southwest at an altitude of about 150 meters, Knoll did not hear a single sound. For some time he saw "windows" at the stern of the object and glowing lights running along the edges.
Knoll quickly drove his pickup truck to the city police station. He was sure that no one would believe him, but nevertheless asked the police officer on duty to contact colleagues from a neighboring city who could confirm his observations.
The attendant turned out to be a reasonable person, he listened to Noll and contacted the police station in the city of Lebnon. Police officer Ed Barton took the call at around 4:10 a.m. and was skeptical. However, when he was assured that this was not a prank, he traveled to the north side of town along Madison Street. About halfway in the northeastern sky, he saw sparkling white lights that were so bright and shiny that he thought they were emitting rays of light.
“I see a very bright white light east of the city. The object appears to be moving east of Summerfield. It constantly changes color. I'll go there and take a look. It doesn't look like an aircraft. It's not a moon or a star,”Ed Barton told the Highland attendant. “Can you contact Scott AFB and ask if they have anyone in the area?”
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Ed decided to go a little faster, he turned left onto East Highway 50, climbed the hill and saw that the object, which looked like a long cigar-shaped UFO, was moving towards a nearby town.
The officer stopped his car on the side of the road, turned off all lights in the car and even the radio, trying to hear any sound from the object. But I never heard anything. When the UFO approached, it turned out that it was a massive narrow triangle, which was more than 20 meters long and about 10 meters wide. Bright lights shone in each corner of the triangle, and a red light blinked in the center, closer to the base.
At that moment, when the UFO was already 30 meters away, Barton contacted the central control by radio and reported his location and the observed UFO. The object, illuminated by white lights and colored luminous stripes, which had previously been moving very slowly, suddenly sharply increased its speed and headed towards the Shiloh settlement, located 12 km to the southwest.
"If the Shiloh officer looks up, he can see him right now."
“I see something, but I don’t know what the hell it is…” David Martin, a police officer from Shiloh, took over the observation of the mysterious object. According to his readings, the UFO was shaped like a wide triangle or arrow with red and green lights at the stern. The policeman slowly followed the object, but as soon as he stopped at the side of the road and got out of the car, he increased his speed and disappeared in a westerly direction.
Duty Officer Craig Stevens of the nearby town of Milstadt, having heard conversations on the radio, went to the east of the city. At 4:29 am Stevens contacted his dispatcher: “I can see this object too. It's huge,”and added that the UFO is V-shaped and slowly receding in a northwest direction. There were white lights on the left and right sides of this object, as well as in the center of the back, and one red one at the bottom. The rear of the UFO seemed to be slightly sunk.
A police officer from the village of Dupot, about five minutes after Craig Stevens' report, observed a multitude of lights moving at high altitude to the northeast. The officer said that he would not have noticed them if he had not heard about them on the radio. He watched the object through binoculars, but could only see a pile of lights: white lights at the ends and red lights in the middle. Due to the great distance and height, he could not determine either size or shape.
When analyzing this incident, it is immediately apparent that there are significant differences in the description of the object. Knoll speaks of a large rectangular object, and fifteen minutes later Officer Burton reports an elongated triangle. Other cops see a wide triangle. Besides the differences in shape, there are also radical differences in the lighting configuration of the object.
Perhaps this is due to the point of view from which eyewitnesses observed the UFO. Some of them stood still, others were at the wheel, and Barton's officer generally looked at the object from different distances and angles.
Or maybe there were several different objects in the sky that night? This could explain different descriptions. However, it should be borne in mind that the terrain in this area is quite flat and on a clear night, which was the night of January 5, everything was visible at a glance. And if there were several objects in the sky with so many bright lights, then eyewitnesses would definitely see them.
In addition, the timing of the reports from the police coincided with the flight of only one object, which was moving from city to city. However, there is a third possible explanation - the UFO could change its shape during flight. And although this is one of the most dubious ideas, but a review of the history of UFOs presents many cases in which objects could change their shape.
Voronina Svetlana