Sphere over Cordesville, SC

The report, as filed

I was hunting off of Irishtown Road in the Francis Marion National Forest. It was an evening hunt and I was by myself. I walked into the woods on a hiking trail. When it became too dark to hunt, I descended from the tree I was hunting from and packed up my portable deer stand and began to walk out. I’ve always been very comfortable in the woods, and I could see the hiking trail with the small amount of trace twilight. So I didn’t use my flashlight. As I was walking down the trail, the frogs and insects began to make a lot of noise. It was quite loud and natural to the area. Then a light suddenly appeared about 100 yards away near where my truck was parked. The light began to swing back and forth. I thought there was a game warden on the hiking trail and he was signaling to let me know he was there. It’s common to be checked for proper licensing in this area. I literally thought, ‘oh he has a battery operated lantern and he’s swinging it back and forth like a train conductor.’ That’s what it looked like, a lantern being swung back and forth. So I responded by clicking my flashlight on and off in his direction to let him know I saw him. That’s when everything got weird. When I flashed my light, the light immediately disappeared, and the symphony of natural noise (frogs, crickets, etc.) immediately went silent. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I wasn’t thinking anything supernatural at this point. I was thinking maybe there was someone out there that didn’t want me to see them, but by this time I was within 30 yards of where the light appeared. The forest had a very dry thick bed of leaves on the ground. Anything walking in the woods would easily be heard, but there was absolutely no sound at all. I am 57 years old. I was 56 when this happened and I’ve hunted this forest since I was 7. I’ve never experienced anything like this, and I’ve never heard the forest go absolutely silent in a moment. Now, I was very scared. I began to formulate how I could get to my truck and get out of there. I thought someone may be hiding in the bed of my truck or behind my truck. It wasn’t registering yet what I had really seen. I made it to my truck, threw my gear in the back and drove out of there at a high rate of speed. As I was driving home, I began putting the pieces together and realized this was something not natural. The light was distinct and bright. It wasn’t a ‘faint’ light. And the reaction to my presence, the flashing of my light, seemed to cause it to flee, for lack of better words. But it didn’t go off the trail. It simply disappeared like it had appeared. I will never go back in those woods alone again. I’m a man of faith, a pastor, and I’m not given to exaggeration. I’m hoping you can help me with some type of explanation or perhaps there is someone else who has experienced this same phenomena.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #170634). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.