Cylinder over Shell, WY

The report, as filed

At 4:10 am I went outside to see the night sky. I noticed to the Northeast 10 degrees above the Bighorn Mountain range what I thought was a comet, so I wanted to share the sight with my wife who was asleep. I convinced her to come outside to see it before the clouds obscured the view. When we both stepped outside, I noticed it had moved slightly and found that to be very odd, so we both stepped further out to get a completely unobstructed view of it and noticed that it was becoming brighter by the second. This is when I realized that the clouds had been obscuring the view and we were about to get a real good view of it. Within a few seconds it was as bright as a white light bulb and I quickly realized that this was NO comet but something in our atmosphere and above the clouds. As the clouds kept moving away, the bright light kept coming into full view and appeared to be a very long cylindrical light resembling a “fluorescent tube“. Based on the landmarks on the mountain range it was above, I estimated it to be about a mile long. It was in a horizontal position pointing to the northwest on the left and Southeast on the right. We also noticed that it was moving from left to right slowly and gradually turning in a counterclockwise rotation to the Northeast. Once it was pointed to the Northeast, it continued its movement towards the Northeast until it was out of sight. The unobstructed view lasted about seven to nine seconds. Absolutely no sound was heard coming from this object. We both discussed what we saw and neither of us could speculate what it was. I am a pilot and work for BOEING. I know how aircraft operate and what they’re capable of. This was NOT a known craft of any sort.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #158674). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.