Unknown over Bradford, IA

The report, as filed

First I want to point out, I’m not sure if the 14th is the exact date. It was a Saturday in July, but a I can’t remember which. My girlfriend and I were fishing late at a farm pond outside of Bradford. The pond is a ways off the road. You can’t see it from any roads or homesteads. Unless you are local, you wouldn’t even know it’s back there. It had gotten dark and the dog was still swimming and playing so I just threw in a catfish line, and we just stood side by side quietly just looking out over the pond. It was a beautiful night when we heard the strangest noise. It kinda makes my hair stand on end just typing this. Something came from behind us moving really fast, and it was gone as quick as it came. It kind of sounded like a oversized bottle rocket, or a big arrow that was spinning making like a quick “ssshush” sound. I half thought something was going to blow up in front of me, and looked for some sort of smoke trail but there was nothing. The water didn’t even ripple. I turned to her and almost in sink we both said, “what ((words deleted)) was that?” I’ve lived around here my whole life, spent time out in the sticks a lot and never heard anything like that. I half expected someone to be playing a trick on us but there was no one within miles, I pulled out my spot like in the truck and couldn’t see a thing. We both were kinda freaked out at that point so we grabbed the dog and took off. I didn’t tell many people this, and the ones I did reacted about like I would. They just laughed and said we were hearing things. Also, we weren’t drinking, no drugs, nothing to alter our minds. I don’t know if that was alien or not, but whatever we heard couldn’t be seen, moved very fast, and was not made by nature.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #145261). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.