Unknown over Cincinnati, OH
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
I believe it was between 20:00 and 21:00 on Tuesday, 2-19-18. I was taking the trash out. We are in a densely populated area, so lots of lights. It was a clear night but generally not a lot of stars visible where we are. I was staring up in a southern direction, around the area of Orion’s Belt. I noticed a star to the immediate right of Orion's Belt that was twinkling more than the others. It was white, same as any other star or light you would normally see at night. As I watched, it started to actually flicker like a dying light bulb. Very rapidly and erratically on and off. There didn’t seem to be any sort of pattern to the flickering. This went on for maybe 15 to 20 seconds. There was then a quick brighter burst of white light, then it flickered out completely. Didn’t see it again. About 1 to 2 seconds later, looking to the right of the first light, I saw another small white light flicker on out of nowhere. Wasn’t as bright as the first light and that was followed almost instantly by an orange burst of smaller lights. Very faint but I would say it looked like an explosion. There were multiple, smaller orange lights emanating from the second light. Like something hit it and orange pieces flew off of it. They moved out very quickly in a seashell shape, with the small side coming from the second white light – the orange pieces were moving back towards the spot of the first light. The second flash that was followed by the orange burst was visible for maybe a total of 3-4 seconds? I was looking up in the sky for a few minutes but once I notice the first light flickering, the entire event took 20-30 seconds? I couldn’t tell any shapes other than they looked like any other star in the sky. The first white light was same size, color, shape. The second white light was smaller and fainter as were the orange pieces. Totally guessing on distance here. I’m 6’2”. If I were to hold a ruler up, I’d guess the first light was 5 inches to the right from the Orion’s Belt. The second light was another 4 to 5 inches from the first light.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #138883). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2018-02-17 → 2018-03-06
From the same sky
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