Date: May 25, 1998 12:05 AM
Location: Madison
County: Dane
Source: National UFO Reporting Center
Details of Incident:
2 events separated by about 3-5 minutes.
While smoking a cigarette on the porch and watching my girlfriend drive off, what I initially
thought to be a shooting star caught my eye. I thought it was a shooting star because of its
speed, but realized once I was actually watching it that it wasn't. The object very faintly
glowed a dull brown that would have been hard to see if the motion hadn't caught my eye. The
length of the object was approximately the same as the apparent width of the full moon. It was
wider than it was tall: probably a 3 or 4 to 1 ratio. I only caught a second of its east to
west motion before my line of sight was blocked by the garage. I hurried down the porch and
fell in the process. I was unable to see the object when I stood up -- it was moving pretty
quick. I estimate that it covered approximately 20-30 degrees in about 1 second as I watched
it. I looked in the direction that it had been traveling for about three or four minutes. A
single flashing white light emanated from near Arcturus. It blinked 3 or 4 times, progressively
getting brighter with each blink. After the final bright blink, which I estimated to be the
same luminosity as a medium-bright Venus, it was no longer visible. There were no clouds in the
sky, and I could see faint stars in the location where it had been blinking. There was only a
slight haze and the blinking was much brighter than the dim stars that I could see. This event
lasted approximately 3-4 seconds. I watched for a few more minutes, but all I saw was a
satellite traversing the sky in the east -- quite distant from the location of the other two
objects. I have worked at this location for nearly two years and I spend considerable time
outside at night smoking cigarettes and watching the skies. I have never seen a bird reflecting
the street lamps at night -- that is the only the possible explanation for the first object
that I can think of. If it was a bird, I probably would have seen the reflection changing as
the bird flapped its wings, but the shape of the object and the glow remained constant. The
second object may have been an airplane, although it was quite high for the blinks to have been
that bright. Usually when a plane turns you can make out different colored landing lights or
something, and they usually don't just disappear as the second object did. I usually only see
airplanes while watching the skies at work, but I have sighted a group of 2 UFOs on another
occasion. Other than these two instances, the skies over my work are pretty boring. I am going
to contact the Dane County Regional Airport to see if they received other calls or tracked
anything unusual last night. Other than that, it's just another frustrating sighting.
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