Light over Niles, IL
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
On the evening of July 3rd, 2015, around 9:50 PM, a friend and I had a sighted something that neither of us can explain. We went to watch the fireworks at the local high school in Niles, IL. We went to the 3rd story of a parking garage for a better view of the fireworks with a number of other patrons. We were about 300 yards away from the firework display, and randomly noticed 2 green lights with a single white flashing light on the object that we could not physically see outside of the light display. We had found it curious, as it seemed to literally be spectating the fireworks while hovering/sitting over the show. My friend and I actually went into debate as to whether it was a UFO or a helicopter. I originally put it off as a helicopter, because generally speaking, that's what sane people believe. It started to catch our attention more as the green lights both turned red. It was unlike any normal aircraft that we could think of. Obviously, since it was sitting over the fireworks, it could not be a plane. And usually the lights displayed on a helicopter stay consistent and do not change at random. What happened next is what truly makes me believe that we saw a UFO. It went from sitting in one place to my friend and I watching it dart across the sky directly east of where we were stationed. It quickly changed direction and again, changed color from green to red, and turned from left to right. Again, it changed to green as it looked to fly into the tree line about 5 miles away. I did record the event as soon as it started flying away because of how much it intrigued me. With that being said, I recorded a 29 second video of the occurrence. We have seen a number of planes tonight since the incident, and this object was going at a much quicker pace, and moved extremely quickly while changing direction unlike any flying object I have ever seen. In addition, even with the random increase of speed, you did not hear a single sound, which would be assumed by an object moving at that speed.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #119995). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2015-06-30 → 2015-07-17
From the same sky
Related entries
June 21, 2023 · 9:15 PM · LIGHT
Niles, IL
Double light, green pulsing/indigo, dead still in sky, zoomed east with white flashes, stopped dead, zoomed west, stopped, zoomed away west.
August 7, 2015 · 9:00 PM · LIGHT
Niles, IL
A very bright, white, "cold," LED-type light ball, moving in a very straight line, parallel to the ground East to West, between Shermer and Harlem, approximately 200 ft above the ground. The object travelled about 300 feet at a very high rate of speed, and then the light was extinguished gradually but very quickly (less than 1 second). The ball was approximately 1 foot in diameter. I’ve considered both a “shooting star” and a meteor, but their trajectories are sloping towards the Earth. Also the type of light was definitely superficial. The visibility was good enough to notice if the light was attached to an aircraft, however there was no object visible once the light vanished.
July 28, 2014 · 4:30 AM · DISK
Niles, IL
http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/111/S111957.html
July 28, 2014 · 4:30 AM · DISK
Niles, IL
I was working at the time of the occurrence, around 4:30am. I was delivering papers when I saw this disk object come my way. My sister and I parked over and got out of the car to take a look. It was about 150 feet above our heads. It was a dark disk, that emitted white, orange and red lights. It traveled very slow, almost as if it was hovering to gaze below. As soon as it crossed a tree and we had no visual anymore, so we moved to try to look at it again find. Literally 5 seconds later, it was gone. Almost as if it vanished. Shortly after, we saw a black helicopter travel the same way. It didn't make any sound as it past us. It only emitted white beams of light. At the time we noticed car alarms were flashing. Almost as if this disk set it off. We never saw them again that night.
July 3, 2014 · 11:15 PM · SPHERE
Niles, IL
Here's my report to MUFON: I am a Sergeant with a state police agency; while on patrol on a side street near the 8700 block of north Milwaukee Avenue in Niles, Illinois, on the evening of Thursday, 07/03/2014, at approximately 2315 hours, my eye was caught by two (2) pulsing round red lights in the SW sky, one on top of the other, which appeared to be a cell or water tower in the vicinity of Maryhill Cemetery. This caused me to do a complete double-take, because I know there are no such structures in that area. When one of the objects began moving slowly from west to east, and the other followed in a "wing-man"-type formation (slightly behind and further south than the object to the forefront), I thought, because of their basketball-like appearance and large size, that they were helicopters of the "bubble-cockpit" variety, flying low on the southern horizon. I parked my squad car and shut off my engine and all lights, and exited my squad car to observe the aircraft. As soon as I got out of my car, I realized that these were not helicopters, and were much farther away and larger than I originally thought. There was no helicopter sound whatsoever in the relatively quiet night air, and the presence of many airplanes in the sky (Niles and Park Ridge are under major flight paths in and out of O'Hare) provided me with an excellent contrasting point of reference to what the UFOs at least "were not." The objects glided eastbound, slowly and deliberately. They were basketball-sized spheres, approximately 5-times the size of the strobe lights on an airplane, with a shimmery white halo completely circling the sphere. The red light was unlike anything I have ever seen, having a pulsating, almost "liquid" or "living" appearance, and glowing, rather than piercing the night sky. The white light appeared like an aura (similar to the heat you see emanating from a rocket or jet engine). I was awestruck! When the first craft was almost directly in front of my line of sight, the spheres both suddenly "receded" quickly up and into the western sky (back where I first saw them, but much higher). The UFO that was offset to the rear disappeared so quickly that I barely had time to register that it was gone. The craft that was more "in the lead" receded up and back to the point that it looked like a red star, and then blinked out of sight. I saw that there were two adult male citizens, one African-American and one Caucasian, looking up at the sky from a residential driveway across the street and south of my location. I approached them and we all verbally confirmed that what we had seen had not been fireworks or flares of any kind, but were definitely very large, unidentifiable aircraft. We were all very excited. I remember that my emotions were in a "condition red" or "high alert" status - I remained in this psychological state for many hours after the sighting. The African-American citizen kept repeating "warp speed! they took off into space at warp speed!" Two things I would like to point out are that, 1) for the 20 minutes or so prior to this sighting, I was unable to connect to the internet on both my Blackberry cell phone or my in-car Panasonic Tough Book Laptop with Verizon air card. Five minutes after the spheres ascended out of sight, both my telephone and in-car computer came back online. 2. I did not think to take photos of the craft because the camera on my Blackberry produces very poor quality photos. I've tried to take pictures of the full moon in the past, and they come out as a blurry white pin-dot of light. I am working on getting a record of any 911 calls for suspicious lights in the sky during this time period.
July 3, 2014 · 11:15 PM · LIGHT
Niles, IL
State police sergeant on patrol on a side street observed (2) pulsing round red lights in the SW sky, one on top of the other, which appeared to be a cell or water tower in the vicinity of Maryhill Cemetery. There are no such structures in that area. The objects began moving slowly from W to E, one slightly behind the other. He parked his squad car and shut off the engine and all lights, and got out. The objects were much farther away and larger than originally thought. There was no sound in the relatively quiet night air. The objects glided eastbound, slowly and deliberately, were basketball-sized spheres, approximately 5-times the size of the strobe lights on an airplane, with a shimmery white halo completely circling the sphere. The red light was unlike anything he had ever seen, having a pulsating, almost "liquid" or "living" appearance, and glowing, rather than piercing the night sky. When the first craft was almost directly in front of his line of s! ight, the spheres both suddenly "receded" quickly up and into the western sky, but much higher. There were two other witnesses close by and he talked with them. They verbally confirmed that what we had seen had not been fireworks or flares of any kind, but were definitely very large, unidentifiable aircraft. Twenty minutes or so prior to this sighting, he was unable to connect to the internet on both his Blackberry cell phone or his in-car Panasonic Tough Book Laptop with Verizon air card. Five minutes after the spheres ascended out of sight, both were back online. He did not think to take photos of the craft because the camera on his Blackberry produces very poor quality photos. Sev mins. (MUFON 57602)