Triangle over Waterloo, IL
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
Tonight I went outside to watch for shooting stars as part of the Draconid Meteor Shower with my son - 4 yrs old and my daughter - 8 years old. We had about 20 minutes to play with before they had to go to bed. We had a star tracker app that had notified me of the event. The area of the sky that according to the app we were supposed to look was almost straight up, our necks got sore, and we got impatient soon. My daughter and I started to think we were seeing bright flashes of light in different areas of the sky. Then in the southern sky we both saw what looked like a super bright star, pulse on, then quickly off. It did this just twice. We were discussing it excitedly when I notice an aircraft with only a dim light “around” it moving from our right or east heading west toward Scott air force base located about a 40 minute drive from us and shortly it crossed right over the spot in the sky where we saw the pulsating “star”. Periodically we see milita! ry aircraft crossing over our town and my wife has seen a B2 bomber overhead here once or twice. I then noticed two air craft behind it that had typical strobing indicator lights on them and as all three got closer it became clear that the two air craft in the rear were jets and were following or escorting the first aircraft. Do stealth b2 bombers fly with no indicator lights in US skies ordinarily, not from what I was able to find online? What was the dim warm light that seemed to at least partially surround it mysterious first air craft? There was a combined strangeness to it all: I had just said a prayer for us to see something (I was thinking a shooting star, but), a mysterious briefly strobing star caused us to look around to see the unidentified air craft, said air craft crossed the same approximate spot we had seen the strobing star, and the first aircraft had not indicator lights. Though I did not get a recording, I did attempt to record it with my phone, but! all I have for some reason is a single photo with a streak of! light a t the bottom.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #159824). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2020-10-05 → 2020-10-22
From the same sky
Related entries
December 18, 2023 · 11:15 PM · SPHERE
Waterloo, IL
I'm submitting this report on behalf of a friend. We'll call him M for the sake of privacy. This happened at around 11:15 p.m. on road 156 traveling west, leaving Waterloo IL and driving towards Valmeyer IL. M was just outside the city limits of Waterloo, and his sighting was brief. He describes "looking at the moon" on the way back from work when all of a sudden 3 "balls of light" in a trianglular formation caught his eye off to his right, so that would be rougly due north/north-west based off of his direction of travel. He reports the lights "fell" from roughly 200-250 (rough approximation) feet down to the ground with baffling speed. Faster than anything should be able to fall, or fly, for that matter. The entire sighting lasted less than 5 seconds. He was driving and did not stop to see what happened to the lights once they reached the ground, or near ground level. According to him, they did not illuminate the ground, houses, or trees that he could see. As for personal notes, he assures me he is positive it wasn't any mistaken reflection, his eyes playing tricks on him, or a case of mistaken lights, like that of a street light, radio tower, or any known craft, including helicopters, planes, or drones. He says he feels it was "close", that he could "walk over to it" within a short amount of time if he wanted. His guess is less than half a mile away. For his background, he works at a manufacturing facility that I won't name, and was getting off of work driving home. He is a man in his early 20s. If it matters at all, he is a deeply religious Christian, and has told me in conversations previously (much before this incident) about this topic that his belief is the same as the church father's writings. That "UFOs" people see are demons. I did not ask him if he wanted to clarify or change his personal belief about "UFOs", as he seemed to need more time to contexualize his feelings about the matter and his sighting.
October 7, 2023 · 10:00 PM · LIGHT
Waterloo, IL
My Husband and I were camping with our Son near Waterloo, IL on the evening of October 7th, 2023. It was maybe 10 or 11 pm, our Son was asleep, my Husband and I were by the campfire and all of a sudden there was a very bright light shining through the trees. There was no sound and it wasn't moving. In my opinion it was way too bright to be a star or planet and just as suddenly as it appeared it disappeared. My Husband was in the Navy for many years and he had no idea what it could be.
January 15, 2020 · 6:35 AM · UNKNOWN
Waterloo, IL
Shape unknown because they were small they look like small stars they going from west to east in a straight line at a steady pace and all evenly space apart.
February 15, 1990 · 9:00 PM · FORMATION
Waterloo, IL
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