Light over Naperville, IL
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
At approx. 0330, I stepped outside to take a look at the sky. Looking to the north, I noticed an "extra" star in the bowl of the Little Dipper, between the stars Kochab and Pherkad. I estimated the brightness to be about second magnitude. Being not quite fully awake, my first thought was, "That planet is out of place". After a moment, I realized what I was thinking, came fully awake, and started watching the light. After approx. two minutes, the light simply faded out over a period of about three seconds. I've observed probably hundreds of satellites and the ISS over many years and the thing that strikes me was the total lack of motion against the fixed stars before it faded out. I suppose though that might have been a projection effect. I noticed no aircraft in the area, shy was clear, and wind was calm. Heavens Above site showed a pass of "US3A07" but the timing was somewhat off and there was no track, contrary to that predicted on HA.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #160897). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2020-11-17 → 2020-12-04
From the same sky
Related entries
September 24, 2023 · 6:15 PM · DISK
Naperville, IL
We were looking up at the sky when we noticed a black disc-like object slowly moving through the sky, but was moving in a straight line at first. Then, it quickly shot to the side, then shot to the other side. Not sure if this is a drone capability, but it wasn't like anything we've ever seen.
August 31, 2022 · 3:46 AM · CIRCLE
Naperville, IL
When I left out for work, at 3:30a, I noticed how clear the stars were. I’m not used to seeing stars so clearly since I lived in the city most of my life and light pollution doesn’t allow for it. I grabbed my cell phone to get a picture of the dipper. As soon as I was about to take a picture, I noticed that something up there was moving! And it was moving fast! At first I thought that it was a plane. Lights were blinking, as seen in the video but it was moving too fast to be a plane. L; and it seemed too high up to be one. Then it disappeared! Maybe I’m wrong but I could be right. Please advise.
July 27, 2022 · 10:32 PM · LIGHT
Naperville, IL
Walking with dog in an open empty field, looking up at the stars. I fixated on one and it started to move slowly. I could tell it wasn’t the distance of a star now, had no idea how far away or large it was. It was a bright yellow/white circle. I noticed it was silent with no shadow of a craft behind it. I was thinking about taking my phone out at that point, but didn’t because I was afraid I’d miss something or it would go away. This was about 8-14 seconds. Then it slowly dimmed to a very faint pale yellow or white light then turned a faint red before it disappeared completely, that changing of brightness and color was about 5 seconds. The bus lot next to me has lights so that did make the pure night sky harder to see.
July 3, 2020 · 4:23 AM · CROSS
Naperville, IL
While photographing Venus, Aldebaran, Pleiades and Hyades this morning an "airplane" passed over. I saved at copy of the image at: https://bit.ly/_interesting_image_200703 Later when I looked at the image I saw a shape that I did not recognize. The object is to the left of the Pleiades, at the top left of this image. In this image the object is largest with the best focus. The craft left a trail and it (the trail) appears to be like that of an airplane in later images. The object passed Venus and went into toward the horizon. The object and trail are a sequence of images that last over 3 minutes.
May 2, 2020 · 8:30 PM · CIRCLE
Naperville, IL
My daughter and I were star gazing and hoping to catch a meteor. Thirty minutes past sundown, my daughter catches a glimpse of what looks to be a possible meteor. We noticed five other lights hovering between the moon and Earth almost surrounding the moon and dancing around it like electrons around an atom. We were excited and amazed then scared. They continued to make strange flight patterns moving diagonally like the path electrons take. Suddenly, a very bright, white cloud started to cover the moon and part of the sky blocking our vision of a continued dance or flight pattern. The clouds continued to roll in and we no longer saw the lights. Only the moon on one side, Sirius on the other, and the Big Dipper.
April 26, 2020 · 9:10 PM · LIGHT
Naperville, IL
We saw about 100 tiny lights like stars flying in a straight line from the west to the east directly over our home. They were very distant and not spaced out evenly there were some singularly spaced some in pairs some in threes. But all flying in a straight line one after another across the sky. The appreared in the west flew over our home and disappeared into blackness in the east.