Cigar over Chirico Summit, CA

The report, as filed

Camped in our RV at the south entrance to Joshua Tree, I was sitting on the bed sipping coffee looking north on a perfectly clear morning. Way off I noticed a very bright white light coming towards me. It looked like an aircraft landing light which puzzled me due to there not being a landing strip in the area. Watched it come at me for about 3 minutes. As it approached the 2500' hills 1/4 mile from us, I could see it was only 500' or so above them moving slow. Just as it got to the south of the hills, it quickly turned facing east. Got a good look at it. Cigar shaped, maybe 2/3 the diameter of a dirigible and not as long, it was a dull gray color. There were no wings, no tail, no cockpit on the bottom and no windows. Slowly it cruised east for about a minute or so. It then started slowly turning to its left, north. The very moment it reached due north, it shot silently off at amazing speed, disappeared in literally half a second.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #161279). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.