Circle over Penfield, NY
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
I got up to use the bathroom and saw a ring of maybe 8 lights to the northwest, about the size of a bright, large star. At first I thought it was a plane but it stayed still and no flashing red lights. Then I thought maybe it was a helicopter, but twice it moved extremely fast, almost like a flash, then stayed put. Still no flashing red lights. I went out on the deck and watched it for a couple of minutes then came upstairs to get my iPad to photograph it. By that time it only looked like a very bright star and no separate lights in a ring like several minutes before. When I videoed it it flashed all over, but that could be because of my unsteadiness holding the iPad. Still, very weird.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #132686). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2017-02-16 → 2017-03-05
From the same sky
Related entries
May 1, 2020 · 11:00 PM · CHANGING
Penfield, NY
I don’t know anything about unidentified flying objects, air travel, flight, and very very little astronomy- so please bare with me. I called earlier today and it was explained to me that I could have been experiencing a trick of the eyes or other phenomena as the object observed hovered in the sky for around two hours, and there would have been plenty of phone calls in that time about the object. I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not sure if it was high enough in the sky for a large enough group of people to see it, but I could be wrong. It was too high to make a phone photo or video worth much of anything. With so much going on in the sky last night because of the asteroid shower, I don’t know how others weren’t looking and didn’t notice and call in. I’m a prided skeptic. I don’t consider myself a “UFO person.” I have no history of mental illness or reoccurring hallucinations of any kind. However, last night was such a weird experience for me I searched out this forum thi! s morning and write this post. Last night around 11:10-11:30 PM my girlfriend and I interrupted a film we were watching to go outside and watch the asteroid shower. We were watching the asteroids for a while and looking up at the stars, when I noticed what looked like a star or a satellite that was moving what seemed like far off in the distance. We walked into the back yard, to get a better view over the house and because it was darker there. We both noticed it was moving a visible amount but it an elliptical, circular or linear fashion. Other stars in the sky behind it were stationary. On the phone I wanted to say “I *know* I saw it move!” but I knew you’ve probably heard that before. The only thing I can say is that it moved in the sky enough to travel over the tree line from our point of observation to back behind the same tree line again. It would stay perfectly still for a moment, and then it would move sporadically up and down, and then side to side before skidding over to another section of the sk! y. Over the course of an hour and a half, it made its way across the horizon- but not like a star or asteroid or satellite would. It would wobble, shoot forward, rotate slightly, and then remained fixed for a certain point- usually for a few minutes at a time. At a few points I was convinced it was a drone, but the movements were not similar to a drone‘s at all, and it wouldn’t have been able to fly for that long. Plus, it was so high in the air, it would have been closer to a helicopter in size. There was uneven light coming off it, and it reflected on the clouds. It looked almost as bright as Venus at a few points, but you could tell that it was reflecting more on the clouds around it than the surrounding stars or planets were- like it was closer to them. At first, we thought it was a star, and then we thought it was a drone or some other hovering craft because it kept moving back and forth in the air a very noticeable amount. At one point I thought it was an asteroid because of how much fluctuation there was coming from the light source in the sky, and how quickly the shape of the light was changing. I misspoke on the phone, it was East of my location, at 86 degrees exactly- I downloaded an app on my IPad to take note of that specifically. Within the first two minutes of observation, it moved a great deal and sparked in light intensity, and reacted to what looked like another light in the sky. They moved in a semi circle fashion in relation to each other, and then! one split away. It looked like an asteroid. They were just far away enough where any iPad footage I took would have been meaningless with the wobble from my arms. One departed out of my frame of view, traveling North-Northwest within the first five minutes of me noticing then phenomena. When I used a pair of binoculars, I discovered much the same- even with bracing myself, it was very difficult to see what the form actually was. It was moving, but I couldn’t get enough of a view to see what it was. At one point I could have sworn I saw an orange light shoot up into it, but I couldn’t be positive because it reminded me of an asteroid, and was very far away. It then remained stationary for a long while. I returned several times throughout the night alone, and each time the object was still there-however at a different spot in the sky. It would always move at some point though- and after a few minutes. Both my girlfriend and I confirmed movement in the same direction and the same time. She went inside much earlier than I did, and did not return outside. At first, the object looked like it had a trail, then it looked like it was surrounded in an aura of white light, then it looked like there were beams of light coming down from it three different directions. I know you guys probably get a lot of far out stories and dramatizations, but this really happened and is going to stay with me. At one point, it settled in the sky and seemed to rotate and descend a little bit beneath the clouds- and when it did, I got a clear view of a stream of curved light emitting from the edge of the illuminated point, and for a moment against the sky I saw a dark gray saucer. It rotated, and I saw a ring of red lights underneath it. I covered my mouth with my hand and started shaking. I had to go inside after and lay down this was around 12:15. I went to sleep around 1 AM. I checked if I could see it from my bedroom window before going to sleep at around 12:30-45 but I could not.
December 23, 2019 · 10:30 AM · TRIANGLE
Penfield, NY
My son and I saw some type of aircraft that had a triangle, square and rectangle shape with red/ orange lights. It was hovering low with no sound. No flashing lights. We turned around to try and take a photo but it was gone.
January 15, 2019 · 9:00 PM · TRIANGLE
Penfield, NY
I saw 3 non-blinking lights in a triangular formation flying low and slow. It was moving North/ North East. It was at most only 30 degrees above the horizon. We were facing south. I could tell it was not an airplane instinctively due to the lights not blinking and the strange triangle formation. I said "do you see that" and pointed. The driver said "yes" and slowed the vehicle and pulled over to the right side shoulder of the road so we could watch it and get a better look. We both knew immediatly this was something unusual. As we sat in the motionless car on the side of the road, the 3 lights came closer and closer and passed by us light 2 ships crossing paths in the night. We watched as "it" floated past us on the right and we could see underneath it as it was almost directly above us. In fact, it would have been directly above the golf course about 50 to 100 feet to our right. And was about 100-300 feet up in the air. As is travelled a straight path from directly ahead of us due south, over the golf course and finally off towards the skyline of Rochester it broke our visual contact behind the trees that bordered the golf course. It covered about a half mile in the minute or so we had visual contact so it was moving about 30mph. I call it an "it" because we saw the body of it. We saw all 3 lights were fixed to 1 vehicle/object that was clearly a triangle or triangular prism. We couldnt see the top as only the bottom was illuminated by the 3 lights, so it may have been a triangular prism. But we could see the matte black solid figure of a rigid craft because it blocked the moonlit sky and stars as it passed. I'll never forget the triangle shape blocking out the stars as it passed, visually showing where the edges were. The lights illuminated the hull, and the lights illuminated the cloud/fog cover around it such that we could see it was clearly 1 solid object. It was not 3 orbs of light. It was a solid craft that had distinct edges and a distinct shape. We saw not just the lights, but the distinct "hull," body or whatever you want to call it. We confirmed with each other what we just saw and he pulled up onto the empty road and finished driving home almost speechless.
September 27, 2016 · 10:00 PM · RECTANGLE
Penfield, NY
I was heading South on Baird Road. I was right in front of the library on that road, I looked up saw a bright white rectangle hovering. I was the only car and light source on the road. It suddenly stretched into a different shape almost arrow like. It was VERY bright white that got brighter and more narrow as it took off.
July 16, 2011 · 9:30 PM · CIRCLE
Penfield, NY
12 balls of fire orange light flying from East to West
December 31, 2003 · 10:50 PM · LIGHT
Penfield, NY
I saw a bright light or very shiny matialic light moving at very high speed, & change of direction like nothing i ever seen befor