Light over Billings, MT

The report, as filed

UFO REPORT: On June 23, 2016, my buddy and I were talking outside the shop building where we work the night shift. It was a clear night sky with stars visible everywhere. I heard the jet engines of an airplane so I looked straight up and it was directly above me and it was being followed by a yellowish/orange light. I said, “Holy ((deleted)), look at this!” My buddy jumped out of the chair he was sitting in and looked up. I said, “There’s a light following that airplane!” He confirmed that he saw it too. I estimate the airplane was approximately at 20,000 feet. I say this because normally when jets fly overhead at 40,000 feet by the time we hear them they are already past us and high enough up that all you can make out is the blinking lights. This plane was low enough that I could see the outline of the plane itself, and as soon as I heard it I looked up and it was directly above us. The light was about the same size as the stars in the night sky and was following the plane at about two airplane lengths behind it, and did not appear to be attached to any other object as I could clearly see the stars without anything blocking them out in the background. The light was not blinking and remained constant. As we watched, the light appeared to move under and ahead of the airplane. Then it got closer to and moved ahead of the plane, got closer to the front of the plane and moved ahead of it again several times. I looked at my fit bit and noted the time was 10:55 P.M. Mountain Standard time. I also noted the plane and light were moving from east to west. After about 40 seconds of observing the plane and the light, my buddy noted that the airplane's navigation light began blinking. Up until then we had not seen the lights on the plane blinking. I can’t say for certain, but I suspect the plane was a B-1 bomber flying out of Elsworth Air Force base from Rapid City. They fly into our airport often and the roar of the engines are unmistakable. This plane had a similar sound to the engines. After about one minute we lost sight of the plane and the light. We spoke at length via telephone with the witness, and he seemed to us to be quite sober-minded. We suspect that he is an excellent witness. He said that he would try to induce the other witness to submit a report, as well, but he was not confident that the individual would be willing to do it. PD

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #128043). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.