The catalog
Sightings
Witness reports, held as-reported. Each entry keeps its source, its coordinates where the record has them, and its place in the larger pattern.
3,749 entries
November 23, 2014 · 9:00 PM · FIREBALL
Peoria, IL
It was november 23 around 9 oclock im a sky dweller so I look up at the uh sky alot very often u know and this time I uh see a star u know and it was moving faster then plane and it illuminated and turned back into dimond this isnt a joke u know im vrry serious about situataion and this isnt first time many many more times this has happend to me and not just star shaped I mean fireballs in the sky and very very close it didnt freak me out I was just cunsern and I still am and will be for rest of my life (and this no name is bullshit I know what I saw and im not ashamed).
November 21, 2014 · 4:50 AM · SPHERE
Carbondale, IL
This morning (11/21/14), I was lying in bed and through the blinds I thought I saw a shooting star falling straight (horizontally) across the sky, south of my apartment. I got up and looked out of the blinds and realized that this ball of white light was moving too slowly to be a comet. The orb stopped and made slow movements around in the sky. It was rising and falling, making circular motions. Most of its movements were slow, but some were really fast. I watched it out of my window for over an hour. Sometimes it hovered and looked just like a bright star in one spot for a while, then it moved to the left or right across the sky and then it stopped again. Sometimes when the orb turned I thought I saw some red and green light, but it was mostly bright white light that I could see. I tried to take a cell phone video of the UFO, but I couldn’t get a good shot of it because it was pretty far up in the sky. When it was getting close to 6:00 a.m., I looked out my window again and it was finally gone. It should be noted that I saw a similar UFO a few years ago above Harrisburg, IL. - A 3L Law Student at SIU
November 21, 2014 · 4:00 AM · LIGHT
Hickory Hills, IL
At that time directly east there were 3 white "stars" of about 1st magnitude arranged in a straight line and evenly spaced and equal brightness. The axis of the lineup stood vertically above the E horizon just above a neighbor's house, or on an E-W axis. I had never seen a formation of stars with a pattern like this and thought it was unusual. The stars did not move or change brightness exactly like normal stars except that there are no stars that even remotely resemble that configuration and brightness in that part of the sky at that time. My husband is an amatuer astronomer and MUFON field investigator and checked the star charts and Stellarium planetarium software. Whatever they were, they were not stars. After viewing them for a few minutes, I looked at the sky straight up, and to my surprise another IDENTICAL equidistant straight-line pattern of 3 stars were visible. They were exactly the same, except they were dimmer at about magnitude 2, but still easy to see. Again, there are no stars known that meet the observation. During the approximate 5 minutes of observation, both of the configuations just appeared stationary. But that's not all. The SAME CONFIGURATION of three 1st magnitude "psuedo-stars" made another appearance just this morning (12-3-14). Exactly the same phenomena. During 5 minutes of observation (clear sky & other stars visible) they just stood there just like stars of magnitude 1 or so. Tried taking a picture with my cell phone but it didn't come out. After 5 minutes had to go back indoors to check on the grandaughter. At 5 AM went back outside on porch, and the "psuedo-stars" were gone. Husband checked CalSky for possible satellite etc but nothing visible that could cause this.
November 20, 2014 · 5:22 PM · CIRCLE
Creve Coeur, IL
Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD
November 17, 2014 · 10:51 PM · CIGAR
Newton (near), IL
One person in vehicle saw 2 crafts. The other 3 only saw a blue light around vehicle, but all saw crafts flying away. We lost 3 minutes time We suspect that the alleged incident occurred at 22:51 hrs., not 10:51 a.m.. PD
November 16, 2014 · 3:30 PM · SPHERE
Gilson, IL
On 11-16-14 at about 3:30 pm, I was deer hunting in central Illinois. I was facing west on the east side of a wooded draw and the wind was blowing out of the west. I purposely chose this stand to be down wind of deer traveling the draw. I saw a small object come down about 4 feet in front of me. At first I glanced at it and thought it was a spider or some insect. I stared at this object for a few seconds and realized it was not an insect. This object was a round ball slightly smaller than a marble with a brownish iridescent color, like motor oil. This ball hovered in front of me at eye level, about 4 feet directly in front of me. It was moving up and down and side to side about 6 inches as if it was trying to stay stable in the breeze blowing in my face, but not getting closer to me. I instantly grabbed the seat of my deer stand with my left hand, to keep from falling, and reached out with my right hand to grab the ball. The ball dropped to about level with my feet staying about 4 feet out and began hovering again. I sat down and the ball rose to above eye level about a foot. The ball slowly went up and down in front of me and began hovering at eye level again. I grabbed my seat again and before I could reach, it dropped at a curving angle away from me into the wind. I lost sight of the ball as it blended in with the leafy ground of the draw. I could not understand what I had just saw and I tried to explain it away in my mind. I relized the wind was blowing towards me and it stayed the same distance away from me the entire time, about 20 seconds. I am used to seeing spiders, moths etc. while hunting but it was 25 degrees and had been below freezing for several days. You do not see insects in this weather at all. This ball had no wings, legs or propellers and it was not natural like a piece of leaf or stick. It just looked like a ball of shiny motor oil hovering without gravity. I did not see this out of the corner of my eye, I looked at it clearly and close the entire time. I was very concerned and still am. This troubles me as I can not think of a logical explanation for this. We spoke at length via telephone with the witness, and he seemed to us to be quite sincere and sober-minded. He served as a public employee, in a very responsible position, for approximately two decades. PD
November 9, 2014 · 6:40 PM · OTHER
Collinsville, IL
I recently purchased a pair of Celestron Skymaster 15x70 Binoculars. I'm amazed how it cuts through light pollution. While sitting on my swing and looking up at stars a T-Formation came into view. At first it looked solid but it had individual squarish looking objects in it. There were no lights but they had a almost tan/luminescent color to them against the dark sky. As I lowered my binoculars I still saw the T- formation as it went behind some trees I stood up but the horizon was blocked by more trees. At first I thought these were geese but I've never seen birds fly in a T formation that huge and travel so quickly. The flew like they knew where they were going. Through the binoculars and without they were in a perfect formation and it did look like, possibly, they were part of a T. It reminded me of those huge formations sighted in space. I would put the size as a ruler put at arms length. Travelling fast like a T at eleven o'clock. Much higher than passenger aircraft. Possibly in space. A slight aura around the whole T-formation.
November 7, 2014 · 6:00 PM · LIGHT
Griggsville, IL
We were driving home and happened to look up. It looked like baseball stadium lights. There was a row of lights. They were amber in color and didn't flash. After a few seconds they just dimmed out from left to right and didn't return. Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD
November 7, 2014 · 5:38 PM · SPHERE
Macomb, IL
I was looking for a place to rent during my semester at college. As soon as I was done looking at this house, I got back in my car with my girlfriend and after sitting there for a just a minute not even leaving the house yet, I saw clearly in front of me in the the sky, (South of the football field) a bright dense yellow ball. It was floating around 20 storys high. It was there for a few seconds and then disappeared. It reappeared a few seconds later, close to where it was just at. It repeated this creating a zig zag type movement in the sky. It did this 5 times lasting 10 seconds total but the sixth time it reappeared it had 4 lights sequentially appear on each side of it creating a V shape of 9 similar balls/circles of this very dense yellow light. It then sequentially disappeared each light on each end almost immediately after it just appeared in the V shape. It did not appear again. After 25 seconds or so of looking I saw a faint blue light deep into the sky and instantly saw 2 jets fly over head. I tried following but my girlfriend was freaking out during the entire encounter and did not want me to continue following. It was an incredible moment for me to watch and no one can ever imagine how insane it was. The yellow light did not create a dim or haze around it it was so dense and perfectly cut out circles, it looked unreal.
November 7, 2014 · 5:25 PM · LIGHT
Macomb, IL
I was loading the truck to go duck hunting for the weekend when I noticed a bright light in the sky through a tree. The light brightened and then went dim. Almost immediately after the first light dimmed a second light appeared higher in altitude than the first light. It brightened and went dim. I continued loading the truck and heard the sound of jets in the sky, about 15 minutes after seeing the lights. There was a cloud cover that night and jets were lower than the clouds flying in circles as if searching. While looking at the jets, I noticed about 8 lights flying in a straight line. It appeared they were moving in a South to North direction. The lights were too far apart to be a single object and they got really bright and dimmed suddenly just as the first two lights did. The jets remained in the area for a few minutes, and I did not notice when they left as my grandfather and I got on the road, headed to the duck blind.
November 7, 2014 · 5:00 PM · SPHERE
Avon, IL
Two females saw seven lights in a row turn on then off one at a time. It then disappeared. It appeared again the same way five miles to east then five miles to the west. It was very large and very bright. It was at dusk and well below any airplanes in sky.
November 5, 2014 · 2:50 AM · CIRCLE
Hometown, IL
A friend and I were talking about shooting stars and different constellations. Upon looking up, I noticed something blocking out some of the stars in the area where I was watching. I seen a series of lights and thought to myself, It's a plane. However the light formation was like none I ever seen. I continued to look at this "plane". My eyes adjusted to this "plane" and realized it was a round object with a set of very dim red lights. It was not a plane. It was a UFO.
November 1, 2014 · 8:12 PM · LIGHT
Chicago Heights, IL
I saw dozens, my sister stated she watched for several minutes before calling me and she saw at least a hundred of the lights. I tried to search online to see if there was military or massive airline movement but found nothing. There was no sound, and I would really like an explanation. Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD
November 1, 2014 · 5:00 PM · LIGHT
Bloomingdale, IL
I was walking outside to my car and noticed a large bright light in the sky to the East. I saw a dim light to the right of it at a good distance and a dim light to the left and up higher at a distance. It appeared to be an obtuse triangle perhaps. I thought it was an unusual star formation perhaps. The light to the right of the bright light grew brighter and larger. I continued to watch it for 20 seconds or so as it grew larger. When it reached the brightness and scale of the star to the left I thought it unusual. After about 15 seconds the two lights began to grow dim. After growing dim over about 15 seconds, all three of the lights were gone. I thought it could be a few aircraft, but being in the aviation field, the day, the time of year and the time of observation, I firmly believe it could not be any sort of aircraft going to O'Hare International Airport. Traffic going to O'Hare is very little on a Saturday at 7PM this time of year. It was unlike anything that I have ever personally seen.
October 31, 2014 · 7:15 AM · LIGHT
McLean, IL
Traveling north on I-55, several morning commuters saw a hovering bright light just below the clouds. It wasn't moving in any direction. It hovered for about 5 minutes and then immediately disappeared. Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD
October 26, 2014 · 5:30 PM · CIRCLE
Alton, IL
was out by the river taking pics of setting sun , etc looked up seen bright light in the sky, seemed to be at a great height, i shot 2 frames and then it simply vanished, winked out and was gone. object appeared to be metallic and rather shiny.
October 26, 2014 · 2:15 AM · CHEVRON
Virden, IL
I was out late on a Saturday night stargazing with my telescope and binoculars. I had just been viewing Messier objects such as M42 in Orion when I decided to give my left eye a break. I moved over to the table near my back door and stood there in my backyard just looking at the sky, hoping to see some meteors as it was morning. Then about 5 minutes of looking up something odd caught the corner of my eye, thinking it might be a meteor. I was standing, looking up, but facing west, where at the northwest part of the sky (near constellation Cygnus), high above the tree line I saw this dark gray winged looking object. There were no lights and it blends in well with the background sky. There was absolutely no sound, this thing was completely silent even after it was gone. I doubt anyone outside would have taken notice if they were not looking up at the sky. I could not estimate distance, elevation or speed other then the time it was visible. It moved from the northwest corner of ! sky to the south in longer than 4 seconds. I reached for my binoculars sitting on my table but before I could bring them up to my eyes, I lost the object after it was below the constellation Cetus heading towards Girard, IL. I can say the wing span when it past thru Cetus, was from the star Braten Kaitos to n-Cetus. This is about 10 degrees of sky. My first thoughts were of bewilderment. I don’t believe what I just saw. It was thinking of what it could have been. It could have been migrating geese. They do travel at night, but they move slower and often make audible quacks. This moved much faster than geese. I also don’t believe it was close to the ground, judging by the trees. It was much higher in the sky. What ever it was, didn’t want to be seen, because there were no lights and it was dark grey. It had a distinct shape; I wouldn’t call it a v-wing but more like crescent shaped wing. It could have been some sort of stealth aircraft that is not publicly know. Scott air force base is about 80 miles south of my location, but it’s not known to operate any test vehicles. I stayed out for another 20 minutes, hoping something would happen again or another vehicle would follow its same path. Nothing happened. During this time, I had many different emotions, from curiosity to fear. Fearful thoughts started take over and I decided to bring in all my equipment. I then began to look on the internet for similar witness accounts. I found this site and composed a report. I am hoping someone else in central Illinois may have been out late like me and saw the same thing. My background is former Navy, been around lots of naval aircraft. I have worked in the field of electronics for nearly 20 years. I am an amateur astronomer (hobby). I used to go to air shows at El Toro Marine Base before it was closed in the 1990s often in my youth in southern California. I have seen many different kinds of military aircraft including both the stealth fighter and stealth bomber flown at El Toro. As an amateur astronomy, I see plenty of high flying commercial and military flying over central Illinois at night. I also witness satellites such as the ISS to the random flare from an Iridium satellite. I have also seen loads of meteors and bolides in my times stargazing.
October 25, 2014 · 10:30 PM · LIGHT
Wheaton, IL
I had just gotten out of my car and was walking toward the front door of my house in Wheaton, IL, at around 10:30 PM when I looked south, up toward the sky, to suddenly see two lights zip across the sky faster than I have seen any craft fly in my life. I believe this had to be only a single craft, because the two lights appeared to maintain the same distance from each other while flying through the air. One light appeared to be red and the other green, just like a normal airplane would, but it covered a distance in what must have been less than a second that is physically impossible for any modern craft to travel. It was there and then it was gone in an instant. I could not decipher the physical shape of the craft because it was dark out and also because of the speed it moved at. I could see the lights traveling through the air however, and it looked like they left a streak behind them as it flew through the sky, but I think that had more to do with the fact ! that the lights were moving so fast. When I looked over in the direction where I thought the craft had traveled (It seemed to be heading southwest), I saw a bright blue light that was flickering a little. I pulled up an application on my phone to see if it was perhaps a planet or star rather than any physical craft I might have seen. From what I could tell on my phone, it was just Neptune. The craft I had seen warp through the sky was nowhere to be found. It was just gone an instant after I had seen it streak through the sky at impossible speeds.
October 25, 2014 · 9:39 PM · LIGHT
Springfield, IL
Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD
October 25, 2014 · 9:30 PM · FIREBALL
Peoria, IL
my boyfriend and I were in the McDonald's drive thru when I noticed this large orange light shooting straight up into the sky FROM THE GROUND. We have both been ufo fanatics for a while now and still have not seen one until tonight!!! We have video and everything of it! On YouTube. Anyway... We followed it with my phone while in the car and after looking at the video we took, it showed another one appeared right next to the first one and went in these crazy fast diagonal directions and then disappeared into the sky. It's a freaking ufo people. We are not the only people on this earth :)
October 25, 2014 · 9:25 PM · LIGHT
Highland Park, IL
Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD
October 25, 2014 · 6:40 PM · FIREBALL
Mount Vernon, IL
The evening of October 25, 2014, I was sitting in the living room, when I noticed a very bright orange light off to the North from our bay window. I decided to investigate and discovered that the objects looked similar to fireballs. The objects were quite large, silent, and pulsating. They were flying about ten minutes apart and they were following the exact same path. The color of the objects would change from a vivid orange to a yellowish color. The wind was calm and the skies were clear. The objects looked to be flying about ten thousand feet or less, at my best estimate. These objects did not have any FAA lighting and were silent and had absolutely zero similarities with any known man-made craft or Chinese lanterns. I was able to capture them on video with an IPad.
October 24, 2014 · 10:17 PM · TEARDROP
Northlake, IL
Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD
October 18, 2014 · 10:40 PM · SPHERE
Danville, IL
I and 7 other passengers was driving back from Georgetown, Ill. to Danville, ILL. around 22:40 on October 18th 2014. When driving north, I looked to the north east to see what just appeared out of a black sky above the tree line was a pinkish-red color sphere levitating in the air. I thought it might had been a plane exploding, but never changed it's color nor fell to the ground. It stayed the same color and levitated in one spot, It was brighter then the stars. it was brighter then the red beacon lights on the towers. it lasted approximately 15 to 30 seconds, then noticed it disappeared with no sound and no movement.