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UAP Nexus
As reported

Light over Rantoul, IL

A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.

The report, as filed

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.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #137622). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.

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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2017-07-01 → 2017-07-18

From the same sky

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August 24, 2016 · 8:30 PM · CIRCLE

Rantoul, IL

I noticed a flying circular object (my mother was driving North from Champaign) in the air around 400 feet in the air with red and white flashing lights that flashed constantly, and very fast. The object seemed to hover in the same area, but did move forwards and backwards. Towards the South there was a storm coming up from the South and it was producing lots of lightening. Much of the lightening was striking the ground. I lost sight of the object after about 30 minutes. It looked as if it went to the south.

August 24, 2016 · 8:15 PM · LIGHT

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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.

June 17, 1955 · 7:00 AM · LIGHT

Rantoul, IL

We had fallen out to the parking lot awaiting marching orders to go to (chow) it was still dark and we saw a light approaching from the