Light over Rantoul, IL
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
On the evening of August 24, 2016, I was driving to Rantoul, IL, from Thomasboro, IL, along Route 45 North approximately 8:15 pm Central time, or so. North of me a couple of miles ahead, I saw what looked like a bright star but it was too early for stars to be that bright in the north. The sun had set, but the sky was still bright in the west. As I got closer, I noticed that the light wasn't moving in any direction. It wasn't blinking like a tower or a plane is required to do because of air traffic. Then I saw that it was actually two lights right next to each other. I passed it at the intersection of Rt. 45 and Wheat Ave. There was a line of trees for a distance before I got to that intersection and I struggled to see the lights until I passed the trees almost at the intersection. The lights were at least 300-400 feet up in the air by my best estimate. About as high as a tall tower, or wind turbine maybe higher, but not much. They were several feet apart from each other. My windows were down, I was driving about 40 mph and there was no wind. It was dead calm other than the wind from my driving and I heard nothing. No engine noise, no rotor thumping. And the lights were not moving, nor was there anything blinking. I drove back by the same spot at 8:45-8:50 pm and the lights were gone. When I got home, I wrote up what I saw and posted on Facebook and a friend of mine said her son saw the same thing about 8:45 as they were also driving north. He said the lights suddenly ‘took off’ were the words he used, towards Champaign, IL to the south. When I asked how fast, she said it was pretty quick, because he lost track of it quickly.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #129482). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2016-08-21 → 2016-09-07
From the same sky
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July 4, 2017 · 9:50 PM · LIGHT
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I went outside to head to a friend's house and to the south east i saw a very bright light in the sky just hovering there, no noise other than some residual fireworks and my car dinging. At first i dismissed it thinking it was maybe a helicopter or a drone, The light coming from it was very bright but not flooding and did not strobe or flash. I checked a flight radar app and there where no planes in the area at all. I took a picture of the light and a short video clip. The area I live in is on the decommissioned air force here in town.
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