Triangle over Pecatonica, IL

The report, as filed

I had taken my daughters, ages 7 and 9, out in to the country to view Venus and Jupiter's alignment, free of light pollution. We were enjoying our viewing and my oldest daughter asked to go home to get her telescope. We did, and by the time we got back out there, the view was not quite as good as it had been. There were a lot of mosquitos, so I told the girls to get back in to the car. I had set the telescope on my trunk and was trying to get the moon in to focus. The telescope wasn't of high quality, and I got frustrated that I couldn't maintain decent focus. On our return trip home, my youngest said "OOH! Look at those planes!" I looked over and saw nothing. My oldest had similar results. The youngest said "Geeze, you guys, they are right there!". I leaned over and looked and there were not three planes, but one solid craft approaching us at a relatively slow pace on our right side. I pulled over and it passed us. Immediately, I rolled down my windows. It was dead silent outside, save for the sound of crickets and frogs. Both girls got kind of freaked out due to the fact that they are no strangers to air shows and know what jets sound like. The object proceeded in a direction that most likely would have led it out between Rochelle and Byron. It was at most, 700-1000 feet above us, but likely lower than that. There was a white round light on the front, but most peculiarly, the rear lights were actually oriented to point rearward and were white rectangles, fairly large in size. They didn't flash per-se, but did increase and decrease in intensity.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #119921). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.