Fireball over Lincolnshire, IL
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
Red fireball travelling south to north with tail 4 or 5 times size of object. Lasted 7 seconds then winked out.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center. Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 1998-12-07 → 1998-12-24
From the same sky
Related entries
November 17, 2023 · 12:58 PM · OTHER
Lincolnshire, IL
I was driving home with my wife beside me and spotted something above and ahead of us close to the road. My 40 degree angle of visual contact was becoming more steep as we approached and I turned onto the driveway, causing me to lose sight of the craft. Jumping out of the car, I grabbed my phone from my pocket while running toward the street with the intention of taking a photograph, but it was completely gone when I got there. I scanned the sky and saw only a smaller private jet, which was also white. What interested me most here was the jet's path: its movement was curved and put me and anything directly above me at the center of the near semicircle it was following. It is a good possibility that a person or persons on that aircraft saw what I had just seen. I have a series of photos that can document the curved path of which I speak. Description of the machine: My estimation of the object's size is 8' x 20'. The entire thing had a very white matte finish. There were no markings of any kind that were visible to me. Upon first spotting the object I focused on what I thought of as its front end. It appeared to be a perfect sphere from my vantage point. There were no windows and this portion of the form looked seamless. My gaze then moved to the platform type structure and I especially focused on what appeared to be panels on the platform's side. I was fixated on how the two panels that hung down beyond the bottom of the main part of the structure were exactly the same size in length and width as the two panels directly above each of them. Any details that I observed about the bottom of the craft were done mostly with peripheral vision but I did focus on the bottom for a fraction of a second. I left the bottom of the craft unaddressed in my drawing, but I do know there was additional architecture there. I believe I saw a tubular structure that was molded seamlessly and extended from the front to the back of the platform's bottom, presenting itself as something like a half round. I saw other components mostly as a general impression, but I also believe I saw two more extensions on the bottom of the opposite side and their thickness extended below the main body of the craft. The lower panels did not extend as far down below the platform's bottom as my drawing would indicate, but I have not been able to draw all of the proportions to my satisfaction. There is no doubt that the sphere and platform were attached, but because of the way I visually jumped from one aspect of its construction to the other I am not completely sure of how these two main parts transitioned. I am open to sharing more with any interested parties but understand that that may be of limited usefulness unless there are other witnesses. Location details: Most of the leaves where still on the trees. The craft was just above the smallest larger tree on the right side of the street in the photo Using a nearby by utility pole (estimated at 45 feet tall) as a reference, the craft was around 60 feet off the ground. The craft seemed nestled in and around the trees, although it was obvious that it was not in direct contact with them or anything else. As I said before, it was stationary and silent. Even though my wife was with me as my story unfolded, she was focused on her device and apparently didn't react to my statement, "What is that" as we approached. She later claimed her own sighting on November 22 which she hopefully will report.
November 15, 2023 · 9:00 PM · RECTANGLE
Lincolnshire, IL
I was driving with my wife and noticed this unusual object moving quickly over the tree line of the forest preserve.Watching it reminded me of a flat bed truck traveling down the highway at too fast a speed. Since the quality of the light was so unusual and I do not draw well, the image I attached is more of a schematic.The single arrow in front of the craft shows the forward movement. The very back was not illuminated; I represented this by shading that area. The side I could see best had enough light to show a sharp edge, but I had no sense of how tall the side was ...except that it was very close to the trees. I believe I saw two rows of four dim blue/violet lights that nicely light almost all of the platform surface. There was a second, less defined, yet radiating, light source coming from the front in a hue somewhere between a warm white LED bulb and yellow represented by the three grouped arrows. It was a bit brighter in both color and intensity and intermingled with the other color to some extent. For the question about the size of the object, it was really more like the size of two pennies at something like a two to one ratio. Even though the sighting was very brief, it made a strong impression. And even though it made a strong impression, I would not have made this report if I didn't have another event two days later. My notes are from two days after this experience.
April 2, 2011 · 5:30 PM · TRIANGLE
Lincolnshire, IL
Triangular symmetric object flying low in a straight line over North Shore Chicago suburbs.
September 30, 2009 · 9:00 PM · TRIANGLE
Lincolnshire, IL
Fleet of unbeleivably low flying airplanes searching for UFO's with spotlights