Changing over Port St. Lucie, FL

The report, as filed

The object traveled in a straight line from the SSE to NNW during the entire observation. A little about me: I am an amateur astronomer with thousands of hours of observing time and know the sky well. This includes many naked eye objects and locations of objects that can only be seen with binoculars or telescope. I was in the Air Force and my specialty located me near the runway. I have observed MANY types of craft and objects in the sky under a variety of conditions. I attended a brief but informative police sponsored training session, provided by a former employer, in looking for and noting details when witnessing an event. I will send you a sketch of the sighting to the address listed on your website, and I intend to contact the local radio station and newspaper. Summary: While in the street, in a residential neighborhood, I noticed a rather bright orange light about 15 degrees above the horizon moving directly towards me. At first I thought it was a helicopter with a spotlight, but helicopters around here never have orange spotlights, only white. I could only see the bright orange light, and not the body of any craft. As it approached it grew in size until it expanded into an orange orb, the closer it approached the larger the orb appeared. I don’t think the orb actually expanded, it just appeared larger, as perhaps an approaching car moving in ones direction would appear as it drew closer. The object wasn’t that far away. The orb grew in size until features became visible. It was clearly NOT a helicopter. There was no propeller, and no body of a craft of any kind visible at this point. The craft made no sound AT ALL during the entire observation. The apparent size of the object from our position was a little smaller than a dime held at arm’s length, and appeared to be about 1000 to 1500 feet in elevation. The entire orb was orange, but down the center of the orb was a straight and solid ‘semi-wide line’ of solid orange light that was somewhat brighter than the rest of the orb. It was easily seen. It extended all the way across the orb, except for the center, from one edge to the other. It essentially split the orb in two. The axis of the solid orange ‘line’ pointed in the same direction the orb was travelling. The ‘line’ did not have a sharp edge but quickly blended into the light orange on either side of it. The circular outer edge of the entire orb was also a little brighter but not quite as bright as the ‘semi-thick line’. It did not have a sharp edge, and quickly blended into the lighter orange as well At the center of the orb, between the solid ‘lines’ was a pulsing light (not blinking). It was not a sharp point of light. It could also be described more accurately as a throbbing light. It was orange in color and pulsing-throbbing dimmer and brighter, dimmer and brighter at a steady and even rate of about 2 ½ pulses per second. The solid orange ‘line’ described two paragraphs ago came close to the edges of the pulsing light at the center, but didn’t appear to connect to it. The pulsing center light was separate and pulsed on its own. The orb was travelling in a path that would take it directly overhead. At about 80 degrees overhead it started to slow down, gradually and very smoothly. The other witness who was also observing the slow down stated… To paraphrase… It’s slowing down to look at you!... I felt the same!! This was a little concerning, and almost spooky for both of us. The orb only slowed down but did not stop. I estimate it slowed down by 25-30%. I don’t recall it regaining its previous speed, but it may have. 5 to 10 seconds after noticing the orb slowing down and passing in the area overhead, the lighted orb began to turn off and on at random on either side of the pulsing center light and solid orange colored axis ‘line’. The throbbing center light did NOT turn off and continued to pulse unchanged. The axis ‘line’ of solid orange light on either side of the pulsing center light remained lighted and unchanged most of the time, but flickered a few times and sometimes fragmented into separate distorted pieces of light, then reformed very quickly. The random turning off and on of light on both sides of the orb occurred more often than the fluctuations of light on the center axis ‘line’. When in the area directly overhead, ALL of the lights on the orb suddenly blinked off and the object tuned completely dark. They did not turn back on even for a moment for the rest of the observation. After all the lights on the orb blinked off, a solid dark shape remained that is best described as a distorted square with uneven rounded corners. The distorted square appeared to remain the same size or very close to the same size as the orb when it was lighted. It continued moving at the same smooth speed. It was dusk and the sun was down but the sky was light blue and clear at our observation site and objects could easily be observed against the background sky. After a few seconds the dark distorted square changed shape into a round disc. This occurred while the object was directly or nearly directly overhead and moving away. The disc remained dark and continued to move smoothly toward the NNW. Because of its changing angle as it moved toward the horizon it became apparent it was a flat disc. I watched carefully to see if ANY type of lighting reappeared. None did. I observed the dark disc as it smoothly cruised in a straight line toward the horizon until the line of sight approached a row of trees about 250 yards away. Because of the dark, brownish black color of the object after the orange lights blinked off , it would have been impossible or nearly impossible to spot the distorted square or disc in a dark sky. The light blue background of dusk is probably the only reason we could observe it.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #147628). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.