Cylinder over Chisholm, MN

The report, as filed

On my daily commute to work I, I generally see a scheduled flight coming in to the Range Regional Airport. On this particular morning, I noticed the inbound when they turned on the landing lights in preparation for landing. Navigation lights were also visible. Then I noticed a second inbound. About 4-5 miles behind the first and appeared to be on the same glide slope. The second inbound was surprising to me because it’s a small regional airport. Then I noticed the second inbound looked a bit “off”. The landing lights were much brighter than normal and were vertically oriented rather than horizontal. I momentarily took my eyes off the second to watch the road and follow the first aircraft disappear below the horizon as they were on short final for the airport. I concentrated on the second inbound to try and determine what it was. After a few seconds of watching it still following along the approach lane for the airport, it was about 5 miles out in front of me when the lights dimmed a bit. That’s when i noticed it appeared to be a cylinder or a rectangular shape with lights on the top and bottom. The lights came back up and it translated straight up. It went to 30,000 + feet in a second or two then bolted off due west and was out of sight in less than 3 seconds. Well beyond the capabilities of known aircraft. Total time I watched this was about 3 minutes. Please note, I work part time for MNDNR forestry as an aerial observer spotting wild land fires over this area.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #159315). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.